About Mim Wynne
Mim Wynne was first introduced to cloth and fiber when she was seven years old and her mother showed her how to use a knitting needle to create different layers and textures of cloth in a jar. After graduating from the University of Arkansas in 1972, Mim moved to Santa Fe and this visual environment changed her life and her work. She absorbed the colors, textures, and light from the mountains so that when she moved to Detroit, she was incorporating many diverse motifs into her work. After studying design, color theory, basketry, and calligraphy at Wayne State University, Mim returned to the Ozark Mountains to become a full-time weaver. For nearly three decades, Mim’s company Flying Colors Rugs produced custom rugs for national and international design firms and high end department stores, catalogs, and clients such as Neiman Marcus and the Museum of American Folk Art in NYC. Following her diagnosis of MS, Mim was finally able to retire and explore weaving and fibers on her own behalf.
This work begins with explorations as colors flow from dye pots into cotton, silk, and linen yarns ready to be mounted onto the loom. The warp and weft threads, many half the size of sewing threads, are laid out on the dye table, combed and painted, the colors and textures blending where they intersect. The magic continues as the finished cloth emerges, is fitted over stretched bars, and finally framed. Although dealing with MS has changed the trajectory of Mim’s work, it has also served to strengthen her resolve to get up every day and find something good no matter how small it might be. “I am so fortunate to have been able to do what I love all these years before MS entered my world. I never wanted to do anything other than to make cloth and here I am in my studio, married to my friend for life, living in beautiful Richland Creek Valley, doing what I have always wanted to do.” At WynneWood Studio the shuttles are kept racing across the looms turning yarn into cloth, thread by thread, inch by inch, just like life’s journey.
About the art
Mim Wynne was first introduced to cloth and fiber when she was seven years old and her mother showed her how to use a knitting needle to create different layers and textures of cloth in a jar. After graduating from the University of Arkansas in 1972, Mim moved to Santa Fe and this visual environment changed her life and her work. She absorbed the colors, textures, and light from the mountains so that when she moved to Detroit, she was incorporating many diverse motifs into her work. After studying design, color theory, basketry, and calligraphy at Wayne State University, Mim returned to the Ozark Mountains to become a full-time weaver. For nearly three decades, Mim’s company Flying Colors Rugs produced custom rugs for national and international design firms and high end department stores, catalogs, and clients such as Neiman Marcus and the Museum of American Folk Art in NYC. Following her diagnosis of MS, Mim was finally able to retire and explore weaving and fibers on her own behalf.
This work begins with explorations as colors flow from dye pots into cotton, silk, and linen yarns ready to be mounted onto the loom. The warp and weft threads, many half the size of sewing threads, are laid out on the dye table, combed and painted, the colors and textures blending where they intersect. The magic continues as the finished cloth emerges, is fitted over stretched bars, and finally framed. Although dealing with MS has changed the trajectory of Mim’s work, it has also served to strengthen her resolve to get up every day and find something good no matter how small it might be. “I am so fortunate to have been able to do what I love all these years before MS entered my world. I never wanted to do anything other than to make cloth and here I am in my studio, married to my friend for life, living in beautiful Richland Creek Valley, doing what I have always wanted to do.” At WynneWood Studio the shuttles are kept racing across the looms turning yarn into cloth, thread by thread, inch by inch, just like life’s journey.