This Artist Uses a Six Foot Tall Hand Loom to Create Textiles That Are So Luxurious People “Won't Let Them Go”

Weaving is painstaking work. To begin one of her textiles, Marina Contro must first set up her hand loom: an antique standing six feet tall. “I thread every string through these shafts,” explains the San Francisco-based artist. “For that, I have to sit inside the loom on the cloth beam, but when I’m tying up the pedals I’ll be under the warp on the floor.” On a recent afternoon, she had loaded the machinery with ochre and brown cashmere, which she would then manipulate in silence, counting out eight picks, or stitches, for each square of a gingham pattern.

The resulting blanket appears in a joint exhibition with woodworker Noah Cohen, on view October 24 to January 2 at Blunk Space—the destination gallery in Point Reyes Station, California, near the late sculptor JB Blunk’s former home. “Her weavings are deceptively luxurious,” says Blunk’s daughter, Mariah Nielson, who tapped Roman Alonso and Steven Johanknecht of the AD100 firm Commune Design to curate the show. “Once I put one of her blankets in a client’s hands they won’t let it go,” reports Alonso.

Contro, who grew up in Chicago and Colorado, enrolled in the textiles master’s program at Cranbrook Academy of Art after developing a fascination with liturgical vestments as an undergraduate religious studies major. In Michigan, she asked to use the historic looms in the school’s Kingswood Weaving Studio, set up by Loja Saarinen in 1931 and now used by Cranbrook high school students. “You’re so immersed in history when you’re in that space,” she explains. After graduating in 2017, she sought out equally inspirational settings, such as Andrea Zittel’s residency program near Joshua Tree and the Blunk House, where she lived and worked earlier this year.

Operating within the confines of her old-school loom, Contro tends toward plain weaves and twills, preferring the look, feel, and drape of those simple structures. The maximum width she can achieve is 48 inches, so she often joins panels for a finished piece. Seams in turn become the focal points, achieving the stop-and-look-closer effect of an Agnes Martin painting. Whether intentional or not, she says, “I like rewarding the viewer for spending a little bit of time with it.”

This story appears in the November issue. Never miss a story when you subscribe to AD.