Kay Sekimachi

"Born in San Francisco, Kay Sekimachi studied at the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland from 1946 to 1949. In 1949 she took up weaving on the loom and became so adept at the labor-intensive process that she is often referred to as a “weaver's weaver." Today, almost fifty years after she began to work in fiber, Sekimachi is recognized as a pioneer in resurrecting it as a medium of artistic expression. Sekimachi uses the loom to construct three-dimensional sculptural forms. In the early 1970s she used nylon monofilament to create hanging quadruple tubular woven forms to explore ideas of space, transparency, and movement. Inspired by her ancestral homeland of Japan, Sekimachi repeatedly returns to that ancient culture for ideas.

Statement:
"I remember my teacher, Trude Guermon-prez saying, “try to make something with the simplest of means." I find trying to create something with limited means very challenging.

I wove my first series of boxes in 1974 – the Nesting Boxes. They were complex, involving 10 harnesses and doubleweave pick-up. They were designed to come off the loom, ironed and folded to make a square three-dimensional box with a lid with very little sewing.

The Takarabako series came in the early nineties. The Takarabakos are woven on eight harnesses in a tubular weave. They are ironed and folded into the box form. The twill weave at the top almost goes into the soft fold most naturally."
Kay Sekimachi

Selected permanent collections and exhibition venues:
Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York (Wall Hangings); American Craft Museum, New York, New York (Marriage in Form – two-person, traveling exhibition); Renwick Gallery, National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C; Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio; Erie Art Museum, Pennsylvania (The Tactile Vessel – traveling exhibition); Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minnesota (Intimate and Intense: Small Fiber Structures); National Museums of Modern Art, Kyoto and Japan; Museum of Arts and Design, New York, New York; Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, France; Central Museum of Textiles, Lodz, Poland; Milwaukee Art Museum, Wisconsin (Fiber R/Evolution).