TAI Gallery / Textile Arts

Mary Hunt Kahlenberg, one of the major authorities in the U.S. in the field of historic textiles, formerly served as Curator of Textiles and Costumes at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art for a decade, where she built its Indonesian and Pre-Columbian collections. Also a former curator at the Textile Museum in Washington, D.C., she studied textile design at the Institute of Chicago, and in Vienna and Berlin. Currently a Research Associate with the Museum of New Mexico, she is co-curator for the Neutrogena Wing, opened August 1998. She authored the books "Textile Tradition of Indonesia", "Walk in Beauty: The Navajo and Their Blankets", and most recently from Abrams, "The Extraordinary in the Ordinary: Textiles and objects from the Cotsen collection and Neutrogena Collections." (see publications)

Robert T. Coffland comes to Textile Arts with years of experience in marketing gourmet foods and an ongoing, active interest in contemporary art. Coffland and Kahlenberg together mounted two major exhibitions in Japan, "Mother Earth/Father Sky: Two Views of Nature" and "Matisse's Secret: Kuba Textiles from Zaire", which also traveled to museums in the U.S. Since 1996 Coffland has traveled extensively in Japan, building his expertise in the bamboo arts and becoming personally acquainted with Japan's finest bamboo artists. His knowledge of contemporary Japanese bamboo art is singular in America today. (see publications)