Kiyomi Iwata was born in Kobe, Japan, in 1941 and moved to the United States in 1961. Years later the completion of her first batik dyeing class at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts established a foundation for her later career as an internationally acclaimed fiber artist. After moving to New York in the early 1970s she studied weaving and textile arts at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in Maine, Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina, and the New School of Social Research in New York. Iwata has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York Foundation for the Arts. Her sculptures are included in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Museum of Arts and Design; Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian American Art Museum; Racine Art Museum; Cleveland Museum of Art; and the Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design; among others.  

photo by David Hunter Hale