We spend so much time trying to control the thread. We forget that the thread has its own will to ravel. My last works were a conversation about mortality. You can weave a perfect basket, but entropy always wins. I wanted to make entropy beautiful.
And remember: The most important part of a woven thing is the hole. The light that passes through. The gap. Don't fill every gap. Let the air in. Rie Tachikawa passed away in 2019, but her pieces remain in the permanent collections of the Museum of Arts and Design (New York) and the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art (Kanazawa). Her students continue her seminar on "Critical Textiles," proving that even when the thread breaks, the pattern remains. rie tachikawa interview
(Laughs) That is very true. I was never interested in the body as a thing to be wrapped. I am interested in the negative space —the air between the body and the room. Most textile artists ask, "How does this feel on the skin?" I ask, "How does this define the air around the skin?" We spend so much time trying to control the thread
In this previously unpublished interview from 2018, we sat down with Tachikawa in her Atelier in Setagaya, Tokyo, to discuss how she un-wove the rules of contemporary craft. You can weave a perfect basket, but entropy always wins
I would lock them in the material library. Literally. I told them: "For one hour, you cannot touch a loom. You can only touch the thread. Smell it. Stretch it until it breaks. Burn the end and watch the bead of plastic form."
By Megumi Saito, Art and Form Journal