Jean and William Ingram have lived in Bali full-time since 1993. Jean first came to Bali in 1987 and lived with the family of Wayan Sudarta (Darta) for two years. “They were so generous. Darta taught me Indonesian and told stories about his culture, and the family included me in all their ceremonies. They were completely open. Everyone smiles in Bali, and the smiles just melted me. I’d been working too hard for too long. Bali taught me how to be gentle again—both to myself and others.” In 1989 Jean visited Japan and met her future husband William.   Jean and William based themselves in Tokyo and organized yoga and cultural retreats, both in Japan and Bali. In 1993 they moved to Bali and began a tour business. William’s book, A Little Bit One O’clock: Living with a Balinese Family, about life with Darta’s family was published in 1998. Also in 1998, Jean, William, Pung and Lolet founded Threads of Life. In researching their tours they frequently travelled to the islands of eastern Indonesia. A fascination with the culture of these remote places developed into a love of the indigenous textiles. As a result of the late-1997 Southeast Asian economic crisis and the Indonesian political upheavals of 1998 they saw people struggling to make ends meet. Many families were selling off their heirloom textiles. Most weavers were abandoning their traditional, time-consuming weaving arts in favour of more commercial wares. Realizing how rapidly this was degrading the culture, they began commissioning weavers to continue working in the traditional manner.     Pung was an organizer of small tour groups with Jean and William between 1990 and 1998. Between 1998 and 2002 he worked as the field staff for Threads of Life, travelling to and managing the production of weavers’ groups on Flores, Lembata, Sulawesi and Bali. Since 2002 he has worked as Field Manager for the Yayasan Pecinta Budaya Bebali coordinating the training of weavers and dye farmers at the village level, and researching natural dye techniques and dye plant cultivation. He has developed a highly successful 3-day indigo workshop that he taught to ninety women from the Yayasan Tafean Pah in rural West Timor in May 2003, and to thirty women from the Tun Jugah Foundation in Sarawak, Malaysia, in September 2004. Pung is a co-founder of the Yayasan Pecinta Budaya Bebali. He is married with two children.     Lolet completed a degree in hotel management in 1998 and joined Threads of Life the same year. Since then he has become the organization’s general manager and is responsible for correspondence with and production in the weaving communities across Indonesia where Threads of Life works. His interests in the curatorial aspects of Threads of Life’s work have been recognized by the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory in Darwin, Australia, where he was an intern for 6 weeks from March to May 2003 and again from July to September 2004. In September 2004 he presented a paper on sustainability of traditional culture in Sumba to the International Conference on Oriental Carpets, in Sydney. He is a co-founder of the Yayasan Pecinta Budaya Bebali.     Weti joined Threads of Life as Store Manager upon the gallery’s opening in 2001 and has run the center very efficiently ever since. She is an excellent communicator with visitors to the gallery and also acts as host to any visiting weavers with whom Threads of Life is associated. When she has time, she joins the field staff on their field visits so that she can meet the weavers whose work she is selling and understand first hand how they live and work. Weti is married with two children.   I Luh has been an assistant at the gallery since 2001 and is Threads of Life’s in-house conservator. She has an interest in and skill for the hand sewing required when mounting textiles for display and has learned museum-level techniques from a number of visiting conservators. I Luh is responsible for the conservation of the Threads of Life collection. She is married to a policeman.       Yan Su joined Threads of Life in 2002 to work in the gallery, but was seen to have a talent for administration and moved to work in the office. She has since become the Office Manager and is now responsible for the inventory and the inventory database.           Gde obtained a Polytechnic diploma in accounting in 2000 and began working with Threads of Life and the Yayasan Pecinta Budaya Bebali in 2002 maintaining the books for both organizations, preparing monthly and final financial reports for the Yayasan Pecinta Budaya Bebali’s grantors, and preparing accounts for Threads of Life’s tax returns. Gde frequently accompanies Pung and Lolet on field visits to Flores and Lembata.       Komang is a songket weaver from Pejeng, near Ubud in Bali. She joined Threads of Life in 2003 and works between the Threads of Life gallery where she demonstrates and teaches weaving, and the office where she is an administrative assistant. In April 2004 she was selected to perform a weeklong weaving demonstration at the Asian Civilizations Museum in Singapore as part of the acclaimed Sari to Sarong exhibit.   Frog joined the Yayasan Pecinta Budaya Bebali in 2004 as Pung’s assistant in the study, practice and cultivation of natural dyes. He is an excellent carpenter, wood carver and painter and enjoys applying his artistic focus to the art of natural dyes.