Woman's Cofradía Tzute c. 1930

This Maya tzute, or head covering, lives at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. Just imagine the patient handwork involved in bringing this object into being, with its woven ground of red and white checks. It's a fabric of straight lines and tiny squares, but that horizontality is interrupted by zigzags of embroidery. Those horizontal lines aren’t just lines; they’re a kind of seismic event across the grid. The little embroidered stars feel so tentative, like hesitant brushstrokes. I think about Agnes Martin, whose own quiet grids hold a whole world of feeling. What was the maker thinking as they worked? Did their mind wander as they built up the pattern? What I see in this tzute is a conversation between intention and chance, control and letting go. It reminds me that artists are always in dialogue with each other, across time and place. And that the best art comes from embracing uncertainty.