Q&A with Textile Designer Jack Lenor Larsen

These days, eclecticism as a design motif is easily produced, thanks to today’s global market and the trailblazing work of mid-century pioneers like Alexander Girard, Ben Thompson of Design Research, and a certain Seattle-born weaver named Jack Lenor Larsen. So how did one textile artist help further the movement toward internationally inspired, richly patterned furnishings with a modern bent? Larsen grew up surrounded by nature, the son of a contractor; studied architecture in the sublime but restrained Northwest style; learned to weave with California bohemians; and then attended Cranbrook alongside America’s most rigorously trained mid-century designers. He went on to establish a hugely influential design studio—working with the likes of Frank Lloyd Wright, Alexander Girard, and Florence Knoll—while traveling the world to unearth new fabrics, inspiration, and techniques.