DescriptionDuring the 1960s artists experimented with fiber, releasing it from the constraints of the loom to create freestanding sculpture. Zeisler, who had studied at the American Bauhaus in Chicago and had been taught by the Russian avant-garde sculptor Alexander Archipenko as well as by the Chicago weaver Bea Swartchild, became a formidable force in this field. She began her weaving in a conventional manner, making first place mats and then textiles for the apparel industry. By 1961, however, she started to use knotted sisal for her works, which became off-loom textile art. She continued to use fiber, most often natural hemp, wrapping it around a steel armature. In 1963 she was one of five artists whose works were chosen for "Woven Forms," the first American fiber-art exhibition at the American Craft Museum, New York. In Zeisler's "Tri-Color Arch" the techniques are prominent yet still subservient to the overriding form. She emphasizes the hemp wrapping and includes unwoven strands, which cascade to the floor as a part of the shape. The natural, undyed hemp strands are, as in many of her works, wrapped with red, dark blue, and light blue threads, which outline the primary structure.