A New History of Fiber Artists
Greg Cook, WBUR
October 2014
Around 1961, Lenore Tawney ordered a bunch of black and white linen thread to develop a new form of tapestry. For years, she had woven abstract textiles that hewed to traditional rectangular forms and hung on walls (or at least close to them). “I only knew I wanted to make forms that would go up,” she later said. At age 54, living in Manhattan, she began to make weavings reaching as much as 13 ½ feet tall. They mixed tight and open weaves and often had an overall diamond shape a bit like stretched kites. Or perhaps like hammocks hung vertically. But the intensity of her geometries and the way she hung them floating in open space made them register like totems. […]