The handmade object has a tendency to prompt memories from the craftsperson who made it. In this reflection on an embroidered purse from the 1970s, Ariel Wills and Kate Irvin are joined by maker Christina Bevilacqua for a dynamic conversation that demonstrates the narrative qualities embodied in material culture.
Digital Initiatives intern Ariel Hirschhorn explores the “Maker” field in the museum’s database to examine the collection from a programmer’s perspective
A summer conservation intern’s investigation into the uses of infrared photography in recording Samoan siapo and the significance of new visual information gained.
Students in Mariela Yeregui's Decolonial E-Textiles class create radical, critical, situated, and anticolonial projects that combine textile techniques with simple and low-tech electronic mechanisms.
The Back Side Story is a textile book/zine that, with cute and brightly-colored patchwork and embroidery, documents the civilians daily life, sufferings, and resilience under the Chinese government
Safely stored away during gallery renovations, all 196 pieces of RISD's Gilded Frost and Jet Chandelier by Dale Chihuly have been expertly reinstalled.
This rare example of Gorham's "Mythologique" flatware service was purposefully left unfinished as they are samples, combining elaborate hand-worked detail with mechanized brute force.
For conservators, fabrics incorporating metallic components raise complex questions about construction, materials, and manufacturing techniques, all of which impact how an object will be stabilized and displayed
Embroidery samplers are inextricably linked to an image of colonial America: farmhouses waved sheets of linen like flags of surrender, with fields of flax extending beyond, as far as the eye could
A chance meeting between the wife of President Rutherford B. Hayes and Theodore Davis, an illustrator and journalist for "Harper's Weekly", in the White House conservatory produced one of the most extraordinary dinner services.