San Francisco–based artist Marina Contro creates understated weavings rooted in tradition and a sensitivity to material

Textile artist Marina Contro weaving a cashmere blanket on her antique loom at her studio in San Francisco

Weaving is painstaking work. To begin one of her textiles, Marina Contro must first set up her hand loom: an antique standing six feet tall. “I thread every string through these shafts,” explains the San Francisco-based artist. “For that, I have to sit inside the loom on the cloth beam, but when I’m tying up the pedals I’ll be under the warp on the floor.” On a recent afternoon, she had loaded the machinery with ochre and brown cashmere, which she would then manipulate in silence, counting out eight picks, or stitches, for each square of a gingham pattern.

Contro at her loom, which she sourced from a purveyor in Vermont that rescues the old devices

The resulting blanket appears in a joint exhibition with woodworker Noah Cohen, on view October 24 to January 2 at Blunk Space —the…