Textile Art by Jan Haag

" Over a period of twenty-two years I have created twenty-four works in needlepoint. The collection contains works based on my journeys and studies. They have been shown in solo exhibitions in Los Angeles, Palm Springs, Marin County and, most recently, throughout the summer of 1996 at the Seattle Asian Art Museum.

The needlepoints are primarily meant to be, like Oriental carpets, both useful objects and artifacts of delight. As Christopher Alexander says in reference to Turkish carpets: ...the geometry of the color embodies the light.

Over the years, working on these pieces has become one of my primary ways of understanding both the world and my experience of it. The works have become a way of transmitting knowledge. Not only the powerful subjective awareness transmitted through light and color, but the pleasure associated with study, in this case, of music, astronomy, mathematics, travel, archaeology, and the iconographic, mystical and esoteric traditions of many cultures.

On the eve of the second millennium of the Western way of keeping time, the world has become one and each culture, like the pearls in Indra's net, reflects the whole. My hope is that people seeing these needlepoints will first be attracted by their beauty, then, like bees visiting a flower, stay to savor the honey of their meaning. "

5/13/2001