11 August 2017
Is there a single ancient civilization that did not create and utilize baskets? It doesn’t seem so, which means basketry may be one of the oldest art forms in human history. Unfortunately, the natural fibers historically used to create baskets commonly degrade over time, making it difficult for historical samples to be preserved. Yet, there is proof of basketry from ancient times. For exa...
23 June 2017
In the Kuba Kingdom, men and women work side by side to create highly symbolic cloth known simply worldwide as Kuba cloth. The cloth is fabricated from the leaf of the raffia palm tree, the plant with the longest leaves in the world. The transformation from leaf to textile is easy to understand, but difficult to execute. Discarded leaves are gathered, dried, softened, dye...
04 November 2016
What comes to mind when you think of traditional Chinese art? Is it porcelain, calligraphy, scholar's rocks or jade carvings? A category of artwork all too often overlooked is Chinese rugs. Surprisingly, there has been little historical documentation of wool weaving traditions in China. Despite the international trade that flourished for centuries, rugs and carpets were rarely exported. T...
27 May 2016
In the early parts of the 20th century and far removed from the political and military turmoil shaking the foundations of Imperial China, life in the small outlying villages of the southwest region remained largely unchanged. Isolated by the mountainous terrain, these villages were home to an ethnic minority called the Miao. Night had fallen, but a flicker of light could still be seen in o...
22 April 2016
Tibet has always existed in geographic isolation, buffered by the Himalayas to the south; the Kuen Lun Range and Tsaidam Desert to the north; the deep river gorges of the Salween, Mekong and Tangtze rivers to the east; and the Karakoram Range to the west. In addition, the country existed in political seclusion to just about all but neighboring countries. As a result, the Tibetan people and...
05 December 2014
Here’s a question: can you name a single ancient civilization that did not create and utilize baskets? The answer is probably no. Which means that baskets may well be one of the oldest art forms in human history. Unfortunately, the natural fibers used to create baskets made it difficult for many samples to be preserved over thousands of years. However, archeologists have discovered ...