Head cover c. 20th century

This head cover was made anonymously and is now here at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. I can imagine the maker patiently working the threads, building up the pattern line by line, color by color. There is something very intimate about textiles. I feel the artist's breath in the careful construction of the lines. The repetition and slight variation of the stripes remind me of Agnes Martin’s grids, each line a meditation, each color a subtle shift in mood. What was it like to decide on the order of stripes? What inspired the dark red that anchors it? And those tassels! They add such a playful touch to the piece, don’t you think? They seem to dance at the bottom of the work, like little gestures that give it life. The artist is saying, ‘Here I am, here is what I have made’.