Bag c. 20th century

This anonymous bag, held at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, looks as though it’s made of red and green thread, woven and stitched into an intricate pattern. Imagine the act of creation, each stitch a decision, a pull, a placement. I think about the anonymous artist who made this bag, what their life might have been like, what they carried in a similar bag. I like the feeling of connection to other artists through our shared attention to materials. The texture, the colors, the surface—these are all things we painters obsess over. Here the bright red, offset by lines of green and dashes of yellow, creates a vibrating surface of optical energy. Look at the tassels, each one a little different, giving the bag a playful sense of movement and rhythm. Like a painter who adds layers and textures to a canvas, the maker of this bag built up the surface, stitch by stitch, tassel by tassel. We are all in conversation with one another, each of us building on the ideas and innovations of those who came before. Painting, like embroidery, is a form of embodied expression, embracing uncertainty, inviting multiple interpretations.