Head cover c. 20th century

This head cover was anonymously made, we don't know when, using woven dyed fiber. It's fascinating how the artist builds up the image stripe by stripe, each one slightly different, like a painter layering colors. The texture of the fabric looks so rich, and the way the light catches the dye makes me think about the physicality of artmaking. The process feels right there on the surface. I am drawn to the way the red stripes vary in tone, almost like a conversation happening within the weave. It reminds me of the work of Anni Albers, someone else who was incredibly attuned to the possibilities of weaving as an art form. You get a sense of art as an ongoing experiment, one idea feeding into another. It's like they’re both saying, "Let's see what happens if we push this material to its limits!"