Textiles, through their very materiality, envelop and connect people. Textile threads result from farmers’ crop cultivation, animal husbandry, and insect colonies, as well as those produced through chemical means. Spinners transform raw cotton and wool into workable fibers. Dyers transform the otherwise neutral colors of fibers into bright and contrasting tones. Weavers, through skillful and creative industry, interlock fibers in ways that result in plain weave, figural and geometric motifs, at once balancing dyed threads with weaving technologies to culminate in attractive and desirable cloth (Figs. 1–2).
Such industries of specialists exist in individuals weaving for domestic consumption, master weavers commissioned to create complex and impressive textiles, and weaving cooperatives organized to meet local and global demand for handwoven products. These industries thrive in the bringing together of expertise of producers and the demand of consumers. Such networks develop and change across space and time, and...