Mat 1956

This *Mat* was created by Mrs. Charles Strong, and though we don’t know when, it’s now housed at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. I’m thinking about the hand of the maker as I’m looking at it. The movement of the hands that interweave the horizontal and vertical fibers to produce an almost architectural pattern of brown and ochre. It’s an act of devotion; of spending time and care to produce this piece. I wonder what Mrs. Strong was thinking when she made it. It's like a meditation, each line and plane emerges, shifts, through intuition, error, and maybe just dumb luck. I bet there are parts she really liked and parts she just had to make do with. We’ve all been there, right? I feel a kinship with her, across time, through the making. Mat-making, like painting, is a form of embodied expression that invites multiple interpretations. The ongoing conversation of art and artists is an exchange of ideas across time, inspiring one another’s creativity.