Anni Albers [↓] anticipated Dehn's linking art and science through craft in her 1937 essay "Work with Material": "All art work, such as music, architecture, and even religion and the laws of science, can be understood as the transformed wish for stability and order." Unlike Dehn's more theoretical perspective, Albers is quick to follow general assertions like this with what she views as their practical implications, especially for the art student and teacher. She continues, 

But art work understood as work with a substance which can be grasped and formed is more suited for the development of the taste for exploration than work in other fields, for the fact of the inherent laws of material is of importance. They introduce boundaries for a task of free imagination.

In class we will explore some of the laws inherent to weaving, the medium to which Anni Albers contributed so much, as artist, educator, and author.

The structure of a fabric or its weave — that is, the fastening of its elements of threads to each other — is as much a determining factor in its function as is the choice of the raw material. In fact, the interrelation of the two, the subtle play between them in supporting, impeding, or modifying each other’s characteristics, is the essence of weaving.

The fundamental constructions, in common with all fundamental processes, have a universal character and are used today, as they were in our early history, here and everywhere. They show the principle of textile construction clearly. With only a few exceptions, all other constructions are elaborations or combinations of the basic three: the plain weave, the twill, and the satin weave.