Listen to a verbal description of the object intended for someone with low to no vision, or anyone looking for a closer look at the object.

Transcript:

As you enter the ‘Ikat: A World of Compelling Cloth’ exhibition, the first piece in front of you is a large scale installation artwork by Rowland and Chinami Ricketts titled Zurashi/Slipped. It was created especially for this exhibition in 2023. The artwork is made of cotton yarn dyed with indigo. The entire installation measures 13 feet tall by 6 feet wide by 42 and a half feet long. You can walk all the way around to observe it from multiple angles. Zurashi/Slipped is like a waterfall of yarn cascading down from the ceiling. Thousands upon thousands of threads colored blue and white hang side by side two inches apart, suspended from 12 feet above and falling all the way down to the floor. It resembles a large-scale string curtain. When you observe it from afar, the individual yarns blend together and a design takes shape: a repeating pattern of white chevrons contrast against varying shades of blue. The repeating chevrons are a traditional pattern in Japanese textiles called Zurashi, which is the Japanese word for slipped, referring to the process of staggering resist dyed yarns to create this characteristic pattern. This also provides the source of this artwork’s bilingual title, Zurashi/Slipped. Let’s zoom in closer to the yarn and examine finer details of color and texture. There are four distinct colors in this piece. The first is the color of the undyed cotton which has a creamy off-white with specks of brown that create a mottled effect. When dyed lightly with the indigo, a sky blue washes over the cotton. When dyed heavily with indigo, the dark colored dye dominates, resulting in a deep navy blue. There is a third color in between the light and dark, resembling an ocean blue. Let’s talk about texture and weight. The yarns are thick, each about the thickness of a finger. If you could pick one up, it would feel light and airy in your hands. If you squeezed between your fingers, you would be able to compress it down easily. The surface texture is soft and loose, so if you ran your hands down the thread you would feel thin wisps sticking out. You can imagine this installation as a step along the process in the creation of an Ikat textile. The vertical hanging yarns, also known as the warp, hang freely, still unjoined to one another. The next step would involve stretching those yarns over the loom, aligning the pattern, and weaving a new thread over and under to create the finished textile. After the show concludes, Zurashi/Slipped will return to the Rickett’s workshop in Indiana for its final weaving.