Kuba Tcaka or Dance Skirt

A fine-grained black diamond lattice on a pale ground, repeated with admirable stubbornness.

This tcaka or dance skirt is Kuba, from Central Africa, and dates to the 20th century. It is woven & applique raffia. Uneven or crooked stitches are seen as attractive imperfections showing the cloth was made carefully by hand, and its patterns, passed down through generations, can be repetitive or entirely spontaneous. Strip of many small stacked squares, each filled with a dense dark diamond-and-cross network on cream. The lines are thin and closely spaced, and slight color shifts mark the seams between blocks. It is 135 inches wide and 24 long.

Persistence, rendered in a very small hand.