Textile Museum Press Room

The Textile Museum’s Activity Gallery will be closed December 8-25, 2009 for refurbishment. Located on the museum’s second level, the Activity Gallery was created in 1997 to educate visitors unfamiliar with textiles about how they are made and the ways in which cultural traditions, the environment and even the economy influence the character of handmade textiles.

In the Activity Gallery, visitors are encouraged to learn by touching, looking and doing. Touchable textiles ranging from a pile carpet to bark cloth illustrate the structures, techniques and processes used to create traditional textiles. Samples of fibers in various stages of processing (from silk worm cocoons to silk thread) and examples of dyestuffs (including crushed bugs!) are used to explain how natural fibers are prepared for weaving and how color has been imparted to fiber for thousands of years.

The refurbishment is intended to update the Activity Gallery and create a more flexible space that can accommodate exhibit-related hands-on activities for school groups and visiting families. “Through the generous support of a private donor, we are able to make changes in the Activity Gallery that will better serve our youth and family audiences,” explains Tom Goehner, the museum’s curator of education. “We plan to move the kiosks in the center of the gallery to the perimeters, and then add tables for hands-on projects and textile making.” This the first phase of the gallery refurbishment; the long-term goals are to incorporate an introductory video about the textile arts and additional computers, creating links between technology of the 21^st century and handmade textile traditions stemming back thousands of years.

For more information, or to view the press release, CLICK HERE (pdf)