25 sculpture, including earthworks and installation art. Sometimes abandoning the loom com- pletely, these works were crucial in defining her aesthetic strategies throughout her career. Ultimately, Amaral’s devotion to craft is performed by challenging its conventions. This essay explores Amaral’s more unpredictable choices and the experiments that bridge disciplines—an alchemist’s rebellions. A REBEL WARP Amaral’s introduction to textiles began in 1954–55 at Cranbrook Academy of Art, where she studied under Marianne Strengell. At the time, Amaral was twenty-two years old and spoke very little English; nevertheless, Strengell discovered profound ways to communicate with and mentor her student. Although Amaral had studied and taught architectural design and drafting in her native Colombia, she was admitted to Cranbrook through the textile department, where she was first introduced to weaving on a loom. (The apparatus would become a lifelong companion for Amaral, and after she completed her year of study, she shipped one from Michigan to Bogotá via railway and sea; it is still affectionately known in her studio as “the Cranbrook loom.” 2 ) However, Amaral quickly grew bored with the Figure 1 Ruth Asawa, Untitled (S. 562, Hanging Sphere with Two Cones that Penetrate the Sphere from Top and Bottom) , c. 1954, galvanized steel wire and brass wire, 28×18×18 inches (71.1×45.7×45.7 cm), the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, museum purchase funded by the Caroline Wiess Law Accessions Endowment Fund, 2014.194.