Molly Haynes

Molly Haynes is a Los Angeles-based weaver working at the intersection of art, craft and design. Her tactile sculptures explore structure and materiality—echoing tensions between humans and the natural world. She utilizes unconventional materials such as salvaged marine ropes, sisal twine, and deadstock yarns to construct undulating forms which blur the line between natural and manmade.  

Untethered is a culmination of sculptural textiles made over the course of six months across Haynes’s LA and Cape Cod studios. While adhering to her distinct structural language, she weaves in manual interventions to the loom’s order— using material and negative space to delineate unexpected compositions. Netted cordage bulges and unravels with wiley ends and perforations, hinting at the artist’s interest in biomorphic structures. In the new Detritus series, synthetic rope debris found on the New England coast accumulates within the confines of the woven grid. The group of works is a microcosm of material experiments which ebb and flow from order to chaos. Together, they suggest an untethering of control over the materials at hand, hovering in a realm where natural phenomena collides with the environmental challenges we face today. 

Haynes earned her B.F.A. in Textiles at the Rhode Island School of Design and went on to design for the interior textiles industry, where she gained a deep understanding of fibers and the construction of cloth. After several years, she decided to delve into her personal practice to focus solely on handmade works that are free of utilitarian constraints.