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It was designer Steven Miller—no slouch in the taste department—who first showed me the work of Jenny Hacker, a San Francisco-based textile artist. It was a blanket—black on black—with two different textiles fused together, one side organic cotton and the other, felted wool.

A triumph of texture and form, and dramatic, organic, sophisticated, sensual, it was one of the most beguiling pieces of functional art I’ve seen of late.

Doing a little background research for the interview was no mean feat. At a time when so many tread the same art-meets-craft sales circuits and tend their Instagram feeds with greater passion than their craft, this woman was mysterious. A minimalist website was all there was. Even better. A trip out to the deliciously un-hip Excelsior District in San Francisco was a good start.

So was poking around the garage-turned-workshop: a vat of something brewing in the corner, a few bottles holding another experiment (homemade dyes from flowers in the yard), tatami mats on the floor, vintage Knoll chairs, a drool-worthy assortment of books on fashion, Japanese anime figurines… Oh, and an old letterpress nestled beneath a work table.