Carol Cassidy Lao Textiles Workshop

United States of America (USA), established in 1990

BiographyCarol Cassidy's Lao Textiles workshop, studio and gallery creates woven art. Specializing in 100 percent hand-woven silk, Carol and the 40 Lao artisans she employs produce exquisitely crafted wall hangings, scarves, shawls and custom furnishing fabrics. Carol's pieces are displayed in galleries and museums throughout the Unites States: The Textile Museum in Washington, DC, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, and The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York.

American Carol Cassidy has been weaving since she was 17 years old. Having worked in virtually every continent from America to Africa, she arrived in Laos in 1989, as a textile expert with the United Nations Development Programme. In Laos Carol discovered a "weaver's paradise": a country with a rich history of weaving and an elaborate vocabulary of design motifs. A year later, she started Lao Textiles, among the first commercial weaving workshops in Laos.

Lao Textiles was founded in 1990. It is located in a refurbished French colonial mansion three blocks from the Mekong River in downtown Vientiane, the capital of Laos. There, Carol blends her own artistry with ancient local techniques and traditions to create contemporary woven art. The team of predominantly female weavers use hybrid looms, which Carol designed herself, to produce intricate brocade, ikat and tapestry textiles. The hand-crafted pieces are labors of love. Wall hangings often take four months to complete; on the most complex designs only two centimeters are woven per day.

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