Textiles will be given their due as fine art in “A Conceptual Thread,” the National Museum of Wildlife Art’s new exhibit of work produced through the time-honored processes of quilting, weaving, knitting and tapestry. Historically dismissed as little more than utilitarian craft, textile work allows just as much space for creative expression as other mediums, and the museum’s associate curator of education and outreach, Patrice Gonzales, said this show ably proves it.

“I think it’s often considered ‘women’s work’ to crochet or knit or work in textiles,” Gonzales said, “and so therefore they’ve been considered sort of ‘less-than’ other fine arts. And so I wanted to not only show a variety of diverse voices and the diversity of textiles, but just to show that it is a really incredible art as well.”