Abigail Cruz
Traces of Touch
​
May 1 - 23, 2026
Leedy Underground Gallery II
​
​
Traces of Touch explores inherited haptics; haptic referring to touch, texture, and bodily sensation and inherited speaking to what is passed down through family, culture, labor, and memory. Through this body of work, I hold space for these traces, preserving them while acknowledging the impermanence of the materials.
​
Through using a combination of hand harvested and acquired natural materials I create hand woven vessels. The material becomes a site of transformation. The act of creation brings the material into a point of engagement and connection to ancestry that transmits histories embedded within both the hand and the fiber. Yet these materials are destined to break down, decompose, and make room for new growth, feeding what comes next. In this way, the work exists within a cycle of holding and release, preservation and return. It reflects the cyclical nature of both life and material in how all living matter moves through birth, growth, maturity, decline, and death in a continuous repetition.
​
Some of the earliest human tools—nets, rope, and woven structures—emerged from the act of weaving as a means of survival. In this way, weaving exists as one of the earliest forms of technology, laying a foundation that extends into contemporary systems. This work considers how that knowledge lives on within the body, suggesting an inherited familiarity with material and making. I reflect on a shared, subconscious memory carried across generations, while grounding that idea within my own lineage. Through this labor, I honor material as a record of history and a continuation of generational knowledge held within the hand.
​
As I weave, I imagine myself in conversation with those who came before me, continuing a lineage of care, survival, and making.
​
Artist Statement:
​
My work explores weaving as a vessel for history, labor, and memory. Through both traditional and experimental basketry and textile techniques, I explore the tension between structure and release. Where materials stretch, unravel, collapse, or transform beyond fixed forms. I am drawn to plant-based materials for their proximity to the land. Their natural tones and textures carry an inherent sense of origin and time, and speak to the histories they carry.
​
The process begins long before weaving. Materials are harvested, stripped, soaked, cleaned, and dried. Fibers are processed from raw plant matter into workable strands as they’re split, twisted, and spun. This movement, from growth to processed fiber to woven form, unfolds very slowly. Repetition becomes essential. Each strand reveals its limits through tension. Where it will bend, where it will resist, where it may break. The act of weaving becomes a deliberate negotiation between material and hand.
​
Weaving becomes an act of preservation, as it echoes how textiles have historically sheltered bodies, recorded stories, and safeguarded cultural memory. I situate this sense of nurturing in my own practice as an attention to care in the gathering, tending, and interlacing of fibers. The repetition of weaving mirrors a reverence for time and care, while accepting the impermanence of material. Ultimately acknowledging how fiber, like memory, can fray or soften. Material as a measurement of history.
​
Through this labor, I seek to honor material as a measurement of history, and its narration of our own lineage, while carrying forward generational knowledge embedded within material and hand. As I weave, I imagine connecting with those before me who worked with intention to preserve their heritage and craft, and I aim to continue that dialogue through my own work.
​​
​
Artist Bio:
​
Abigail Cruz is a fiber artist based in Kansas City, Missouri, whose practice explores weaving as a vessel for history, labor, and memory. Working with plant-based materials, she investigates the tension between structure and release as fibers stretch, unravel, and transform. Her process begins with harvesting and preparing raw materials, emphasizing care, repetition, and time. Grounded in traditional and experimental techniques, her work reflects on lineage, preservation, and impermanence. Currently pursuing a BFA at the Kansas City Art Institute, Cruz creates delicate, ephemeral forms that engage craft as both a method of inquiry and a quiet, reflective dialogue with material and memory.