The artist writes, "Two important questions I ask when I am making something are "How is it?" and "What is it?", usually in that order. Through this, I am inevitably led to new connections and uncovered narratives. One of my favorite seminars in graduate school was Craft and Scholarship (M. Arch, Virginia Tech) where I happened upon the threads between the woven, the engine and the feminine. Between the hardness and softness of these three, my work rests."
Iwai spent many years as a teaching and working artist in Omaha, Nebraska, and was the first recipient of the Bemis Community Arts Fellowship in 2005. She currently lives and works in Middleton, Wisconsin where she makes her art, teaches, untangles knots collaborates and connects with her local community, and occasionally goes to an orchard with her husband.
