Art cloth springs from revered fine craft traditions.  In Asian culture, for example, artisans  who spend their whole lives perfecting  dyeing and weaving skills are honored  with the title National Living Treasure. In  the United States, traditional crafts - quilt  making, basketry, ceramics, weaving and  metalwork - have always occupied a  special niche - renowned as examples of  the human impulse to create. During the  past thirty years many traditional craft  forms have evolved into something more  than perfectly executed, functional works.  Nonfunctional pieces - in basketry,  metalwork, ceramics and glass - are all  examples of the finely crafted "object", a  work of art with roots in a craft medium.  Art Cloth is . . . cloth transformed by adding or subtracting color, line, shape, texture, value, or fiber to create a compelling surface. "Art Quilts" sprang from the uniquely  American tradition of piecing cloth and  sewing it into a layered bed covering. As  mundanely useful objects, traditional quilts  offered women with limited artistic  opportunities a chance to explore color  and pattern in a socially approved setting.  The move to appropriate the quilt as a  nonfunctional art form - literally taking it off the bed and hanging it on the wall - was  stimulated at least in part by an updated  version of this sensibility. Art quilt makers  found appeal in the link to the past and to  other women, in the recycled aspects of  quilt making, and especially in the notion  that this was uncharted territory. On Point Russ Little Similar impulse informs the growing  interest in "art cloth". With roots deeply  imbedded in the fertile soil of fine  craftsmanship, art cloth encourages the  entwining of branches that include  traditional women's work, high fashion  and historical textile processes like batik,  shibori and African mudcloth. Cloth can also be collected with the intent  to keep it forever intact. Hung over a rod,  displayed against a wooden screen,  draped inside a lighted box, suspended  from the ceiling - art cloth is suited to the  world of small and personal spaces. A  collection doesn't have to take up much  room. It is interactive in a way few media  are. This ability to invite interaction is part of what draws artists to the idea of cloth. The actions of  creating cloth are physical - lifting cloth into buckets of brilliant dye, washing it out later, ironing and  stretching. Folding and smoothing. A real satisfaction comes from the physical effort that goes into  making the cloth. It stems from an ongoing interaction with the process, and from an ongoing  interaction with the spirit of the cloth as each length approaches completion. With luck, the interactivity continues. The viewer is involved and the owner is drawn in. If the piece is  to be transformed into some other object there is the dialogue about who and what it will be. If the  piece becomes part of a collection the interaction takes on a different character. But there is always  interaction. Owning art cloth is never static. It satisfies because it is active, it is tactile, and it is  personal. Antique Balinese Batik Pin Tucks Barbara Schneider Metamorphosis, detail Mary-Ellen Latino Jane Dunnewold Art Cloth pays homage to all of these but  synthesizes them in a specifically  contemporary way. The cloth becomes an  object with a rightful existence as itself.  These one of a kind lengths tell stories,  challenge perceptions and invite  contemplation. Like all good works of art,  they refresh, renew or challenge, every  time they are encountered. Art cloth is  unique because it can also be transformed  - into home furnishings, and into individual  special garments - without being  compromised.