Lia Cook
- Born
- Ventura, California, United States
- Biography
Born in Ventura, California, Lia Cook studied theater at San Francisco State Universtiy before receiving her B.A. and M.A. degrees (1965 and 1973 respectively) at the Universtiy of California, Berkeley. The recipient of five National Endowment for the Humanities fellowships and numerous other awards, since 1975 she has taught at the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland.
Cook combines painting and weaving to create unique woven paintings in which textiles are both subject and object. She constructs her sumptuously colored aind intricately patterned wall hangings from flat strips of painted abaca paper and dyed rayon. Since the late 1980s, she has deliberately employed pictorial imagery of draped fabric in her weavings, hoping to redress the current undervaluation of fabric in our culture and, through the sensory suggestion of touch, emphasize its direct connection with human experience.
Kenneth R. Trapp and Howard Risatti Skilled Work: American Craft in the Renwick Gallery (Washington, D.C.: National Museum of American Art with the Smithsonian Institution Press, 1998)