Care of our planet and the natural world is a guiding theme in Molly McLaughlin’s life. She weaves her art with the intention of creating connections to the beauty of the natural world around us.  Her fiber practice is focused on keeping eco-friendly textile traditions alive by dyeing her fibers with foraged and home grown plants, using non-computerized weaving techniques, and re-using fibers salvaged from abandoned textiles.

Molly McLaughlin’s wall pieces are woven with extremely fine silk, linen, and occasionally reclaimed fibers. Her medium and small size handwoven silk pieces are woven with 240/2 and 260/2 silk fibers, which are some of the finest weight silks that are possible for handweavers to acquire in this country. Utilizing such fine silk means that every 10" of width in one of her woven pieces holds between 1800 and 2000 threads.  Molly’s larger pieces are usually woven with very fine 90/2 linen threads, and occasionally woven with synthetic reclaimed fibers destined for landfills.

The imagery in her pieces is created by inlaying row after row of different colored threads on top of the regular fabric threads as she weaves. It is a slow process and Molly has found that, in the process of slowing down, she has more time to fully explore the images that she is weaving.

All photos on this site were taken by Brian McLaughlin.