Françoise Grossen is a Swiss-born artist of international standing who participated in a revitalization of textile art in the 1980s. She is a sculptor known for working with common, thick materials such as sisal, cording, and rope, and for braiding and knotting these materials into forms that are evocative of nature, but not representational. This maquette (scale model) of an artwork designed for a commercial site in California is indicative of her style, even though it is a miniature variation of her characteristically monumental sculptures. Rather than drawing out her designs, Grossen works them out by hand, creating art as she decides how to proceed. In this maquette, Grossen’s sculptural forms are made from cotton and linen cording manipulated in a technique sometimes called “Chinese braiding” whereby a set of ends is wrapped alternately from left and right around two inner bodies of cords which remain inactive.