Kera c. 20th century

This textile, called Kera, sits at the Minneapolis Institute of Art and was likely woven with dyed wool. It’s anonymous, so we have no idea who made it, but you can tell a lot about a maker from their process. Look at the shifts in pattern and colour here, the warm yellows, greens and browns. They emerge as a series of irregular horizontal bands, distinct yet unified. I love that combination. There's a tactile quality to the texture, like the maker wanted to create this sense of depth and variation, and invite you to touch it. When you look closely, you can see how this piece has come together, the back and forth, decision by decision. It’s as if the maker of this piece wanted to embrace not only the final image, but the whole messy, slow, human process of getting there. To me, that's where the real heart of art lies. Agnes Martin comes to mind, in the way she approached repetitive forms with such feeling and care. Ultimately, it’s not about perfect symmetry, it’s about feeling the weave.