POLLY BARTON: For over 25 years, beginning with her apprenticeship to traditional Japanese master Sensei Tomohiko Inoue, Polly Barton has used the medium and tools of classical ikat-dyeing and weaving to create luminous abstract and representational textile art. As a weaver, Polly works in a very painterly manner, building up layers of color to create stunning designs that convey highly emotional messages; at times bold, other times extremely subtle. She also uses the Japanese technique of E-kasuri or pictorial ikat to create more representational images.

ABOUT | THREADS: Drawn Dyed Woven
"Using exceedingly fine silk threads as both warp and weft and hanging the works in a painterly fashion, it is only when the viewer is standing in front of the work that the true essence of these intriguing surfaces can be experienced and fully appreciated...Barton’s drawings were (also) superb and quite powerful studies rendered in sumi ink, graphite, watercolor and pastel."
---Carol Westfall, Review in Fiber Arts Magazine 2008

“My gesture as an artist is tied to the expressive nature of ikat. It is in the saturated stain and resist of dye to silk thread, the elegant simplicity of the shift of one color next to another, and the authority of the grid where I find pleasure in my woven paintings.”