Carolyn Bell studies the visual and material culture of premodern Japan, focusing on intersections between tea ceremony, the global textile trade, and Buddhist art. She received her BA in Asian Studies and History from Cornell University, where she wrote her senior thesis on the textiles of the Japanese tea ceremony, including meibutsugire, sarasa, and sanadahimo cords. Carolyn’s other research interests center around repurposed, ephemeral, or fragile objects – from fragments of robes reused in kakejiku mountings, to the floats of the Gion Festival, to flower arrangements, to the preparation of tea sweets.