David B. Smith Gallery presents Devotion, a showcase of new loom and textile pieces by Paolo Arao alongside collaborative totemic sculptures, which explore creative conviction.

Devotion is the loom with which artists weave craft, steadfastness, and personal conviction, for a meaningful creative practice. Filipino-American artist Paolo Arao explores this concept ? metaphorically and physically ? with his second solo exhibition on view at the David B. Smith Gallery, aptly named Devotion, in a showcase of new textile works alongside collaborative totem sculptures that pull on patrons? heartstrings.

The lyricism of Devotion plays out in textile drawings where geometric patterns are hand stitched into appliquéd patchworks in a symphony of color. Viewers? eyes follow varied visual thread weights and move along the intricate line work as if reading sheet music. ?For me, the most direct link to musicality and textiles comes through the instruments used to create music and cloth,? Arao says. ?The loom is like a piano. And I think of weaving as a way of making threads sing. There is a somatic rhythm to weaving on a loom that feels connected to playing music on a piano.?
Part of what makes the collection so poignant is the visitors? ability to glean personal meaning from a material most are intimately familiar with, and often interconnected by. Following a rich Filipino textile heritage and cultural ideologies, Arao imbues pattern, texture, joinery, and hue with a b...