Textiles & Tea
Each week the Handweavers Guild of America, Inc. (HGA) hosts Textiles & Tea, a conversation with some of the most respected fiber artists in the field today. In our 45-minute discussion we focus on their artwork and their creative journey. We allow 15 minutes at the end of our conversation for questions from the audience. Textiles & Tea will take place every Tuesday at 4:00 PM (ET) and is broadcast via Zoom and Facebook Live. These broadcasts are free to view and open to all.
2023 Schedule
Textiles & Tea takes place online every Tuesday, 4:00 - 5:00 PM ET. This program is supported through generous sponsorships and donations.
Click on the date for more information and to register (registration open through March 2024).
Zoom allows up to 1,000 guests to view the program on the platform at any given time. This program is also shared Live on HGA's Facebook page. A link will be provided in the registration confirmation email.
June 6, 2023: Nolan Wright
generously sponsored by Olympia Weavers Guild
with Guest Host Chris Acton
Nolan Wright is a fiber artist who uses coiling and knotting to make sculptural basketry forms, working with pine needles, waxed linen thread, other cords and copper wire. His work has been selected for a number of national juried exhibits, including Art Evolved: Intertwined, cosponsored by the National Basketry Association and Studio Art Quilt Associates, touring the United States through the end of 2026. Other recent selections include the Handweavers Guild of America’s Small Expressions and Dogwood to Kudzu exhibits, the Fiber Art Network’s Excellence in Fiber and Yarn, Rope, String exhibits, and Fantastic Fibers at the Yeiser Art Center. He points to the juxtaposition of shapes, textures, and colors that catch his eye in the world around him as the inspiration for his work. Not that he tries to recreate any specific object or scene. It is more that they resonate with something inside him at an emotional level as well as aesthetically, and he sees their influence in the materials he chooses and what happens as he works on a piece, each the result of a slow, organic, almost meditative process.
June 13, 2023: Karen Baker
generously sponsored by Peters Valley School of Craft
As an Ethnographic Fiber Artist and Documentarian, Karen Baker has been weaving and knitting for 9 years. She designs ethnically handcrafted textiles, accessories, and rugs using natural and organic fibers and materials. Karen is researching the contribution of patterns and techniques of African American weavers before the Great Migration to fiber and textile design, and she integrates their techniques into her artwork. Karen is completing a documentary on the oral history and narratives uncovered in her research as a Doctor of Design Candidate at North Carolina State University. Karen is the founder of Fiber With A Cause. She is the 2023 DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities Artist Fellowship, sits on the Surface Design Association Board of Directors and the Equity, Access, and Integration Committee, and is a member of the National Museum of Women In the Arts, Textile Society of America, American Craft Council, Craft Industry Alliance, Costume Society of America, and Nest Co-Op.
June 20, 2023: Kathrin Weber
generously sponsored by Georgia Fans of Blazing Shuttles
Kathrin Weber has been dyeing and weaving professionally since 1980. For the first 30+ years, she focused on creating and selling her own finished woven products. Since then, she has focused on teaching techniques developed over the years and on dyeing yarn for other fiber artists. When teaching weaving, Kathrin’s goals are to give students alternative methods, techniques, and concepts to approach design and weaving. Her weaving class is titled Controlling Creative Chaos. Most who have spent time in workshops with Kathrin will agree that that is descriptive of the class energy. Kathrin’s goal for dyers is to learn to dye intuitively, much like playing music by ear, instead of relying on recipes for color. Though she encourages both sets of skills, if one can dye by eye, that person is never at a loss for color and not at the mercy of having a recipe at hand.
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June 27, 2023: Sarah Gotowka
generously sponsored by Weave A Real Peace (WARP)
Sarah Gotowka is a practicing textile artist and instructor. She has been weaving since 2005 and has been growing natural dyes since 2010. She received her BFA in Fibers and Material Studies from The Cleveland Institute of Art in 2007, and her MFA in Fibers and Material Practices from Concordia University in Montreal in 2013. Since moving to the Ithaca area, she has taught at SUNY Cortland, Cornell University, Ithaca College, The Johnson Museum of Art, Wells College, and New Roots Charter School to name a few. Sarah currently advises in the BFA Socially Engaged Art degree track at Goddard College. Sarah is a Korean adoptee and formerly worked for the Adoptive and Foster Family Coalition of New York. There she mentored youth adoptees and advocated around trans-racial adoption issues. Weaving and dyeing have been a powerful healing tool in Sarah’s journey of exploring her roots and connecting to her ancestral knowledge.
July 4, 2023: No Textiles & Tea - Happy Independence Day!
July 11, 2023: Nick DeFord
generously sponsored by Rebecca Hebert
July 18, 2023: Astrid Tauber
generously sponsored by Weavers & Spinners Society of Austin (WSSA)
Astrid Tauber of Summerville, South Carolina is a weaver, spinner, and garment designer. Having discovered her medium at the tender age of 7, she’s now taking the world by storm with unique garments made exclusively from handwoven fabric. Citing nature as one of her greatest sources of inspiration, she works with natural fibers and bold colors. She is currently studying fashion design virtually with The Cut Academy in Vancouver, British Columbia. Astrid’s handwoven dress appeared in HGA’s Seasons of the Smokies Wearable Art Exhibit in 2022.
July 25, 2023: Dawn Ahlert
generously sponsored by Springfield Fiber Artists
Like many weavers, Dawn Ahlert began exploring the fiber arts at a young age. Her passion for learning and fiber arts has driven her to explore many areas of the medium, and Dawn’s years as a hairstylist contribute to her deep understanding of fiber and color. Dawn received a Master of Fine Arts degree in painting from Montana State University in 2000. In 2018, she received the HGA Award, which honors outstanding exhibited works of fiber art. Dawn also earned the Handweavers Guild of America’s Certificate of Excellence for Level 1: Technical Skills in Handweaving in 2020, and Level 2: Master Weaver in 2022. Dawn is a member of the Southwest Montana Fiber Arts Guild, the Helena Spinners and Weavers Guild and the current president of the Montana Association of Weavers and Spinners (MAWS). Dawn would like to continue to share her knowledge through teaching and conducting workshops in weaving and spinning.
August 1, 2023: Carol Ventura generously sponsored by Weave A Real Peace (WARP)
August 8, 2023: Lisa Klakulak generously sponsored by TBD - Purchase Sponsorship for $150
August 15, 2023: Cael Chappel generously sponsored by National Basketry Organization
August 22, 2023: Pat Maley generously sponsored by Tabby Tree Weaver
August 29, 2023: Emily Trujillo generously sponsored by Weave A Real Peace (WARP)
September 5, 2023: Leslie Fesperman generously sponsored by Dedrea Greer
September 12, 2023: Rowland Ricketts generously sponsored by RealFibers Handwoven and Paper Connection International
September 19, 2023: Liz Alpert Fay generously sponsored by TBD - Purchase Sponsorship for $150
September 26, 2023: Corey Alston generously sponsored by National Basketry Organization
Be a Sponsor & Support Textiles & Tea
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Recognition at the beginning and end of each broadcast (also to be recorded and shared on Facebook Live and HGA's YouTube channel)
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Emails sent to HGA’s mailing list of nearly 10,500 promoting the event with you listed as a sponsor and a link to your website
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Identified as event sponsor on HGA's website and on the event listing on the HGA Fiber Art Calendar
Previous Episodes
All episodes of Textiles & Tea are recorded and are available to be watched on HGA's Facebook page and YouTube channel. For more information on previous episodes, click the links below.
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January 5, 2021: Mary Zicafoose
 “I strive to be an inspirational presence in the textile world.”
Mary Zicafoose’s fiber journey began with ikat cloth she received as a gift as a child. Her undergraduate degree was from St Mary’s College and graduate work was School of the Art Institute of Chicago and University of Nebraska. In pursuing a more painterly approach to fiber she was drawn to ikat technique which took her on her 30 year journey. She is the co-director emeritus of the American Tapestry Alliance. She has recently published a book Ikat: The Essential Guide to Weaving Resist-Dyed Cloth.
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January 12, 2021: Peggy Wiedemann
sponsored by Laurel Schwartz
 Peggy Wiedemann grew up in Long Beach, California. She graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles earning a degree in Fine Arts with an emphasis on drawing and painting. After college, she experimented in a variety of art mediums including oil painting, pen-and-ink drawing, printmaking, sculpture, and ceramics. Peggy found basketry and was hooked. Peggy uses a wide variety of materials and has a strong preference for natural fibers. To these natural materials, she adds metal, beads and “found” objects to form unique pieces.
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January 19, 2021: Janet Phillips
sponsored by Made In America Yarns
 Janet Phillips studied industrial textile design at the Scottish College of Textiles, graduating with a First Class Honours Degree in 1972. After working in industry for three years she bought a 16-shaft Dobby loom and built up a career as a commission weaver, designing and weaving functional fabrics for private clients. From 1987 to 2004 she taught a one-day, weekly community education class in Oxford. In 2009 she stopped her commission weaving work to focus on teaching weaving and weave design from her studio in Somerset, UK. Janet is the author of The Weavers Book of Fabric Design, Designing Woven Fabrics, and recently published Exploring Woven Fabrics. |
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January 26, 2021: Rebecca Mezoff
sponsored by Appalachian Yarn Company
 Rebecca Mezoff is a contemporary tapestry weaver with a studio in Fort Collins, Colorado. Her work is drawn from the colors, open skies, and symbols of the southwestern United States. She hand-dyes all her own yarn to get the color gradations she loves, and she weaves most of her tapestries on her grandfather's Harrisville rug loom. Her work is in various public and private collections and you can see some of the tapestries in the gallery on her website. |
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February 2, 2021: Laura Viada
generously sponsored by The Textile Museum Journal
 Laura Viada is an artist who works in the medium of fiber, primarily as a handweaver. Using linen, silk, cotton, and metallic threads as her “paints”, Laura creates visually complex works using the simple elements of geometric form and the interaction of color. She employs many different weaving techniques, but her “go to” favorites are diversified plain weave and transparency. She has taught both topics widely over the last 15 years, including numerous regional and three Convergence® conferences. Her most recent works explore color using Theo Moorman technique. |
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February 9, 2021: Nathalie Miebach
generously sponsored by The Woolery
 Nathalie Miebach explores the intersection of art and science by translating scientific data related to meteorology, ecology and oceanography into woven sculptures and musical scores/performances. Her main method of data translation is that of basket weaving, which functions as a simple, tactile grid through which to interpret data into 3D space. Central to this work is her desire to explore the role visual and musical aesthetics play in the translation and understanding of complex scientific systems, such as weather. |
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February 16, 2021: Lucienne Coifman
generously sponsored by Made in America Yarns
.jpg) Lucienne Coifman has taught weaving for almost 45 years at the Guilford Art Center (Guilford, CT), The Creative Art workshop (New Haven, CT) and in her own studio. She's also conducted workshops throughout the Northeast and the Midwest, including the last 4 Convergence® conferences. For 35 years, Lucienne has been studying Rep Weave, experimenting with different fibers. Her main interest has centered on color interactions and patterns, using up to 8 harnesses and using pick-up techniques when needed. She has researched many unusual ways to weave Rep Weave that do not follow the traditional path. Her weavings have appeared in Shuttle Spindle & Dyepot, Handwoven, and have been included in many juried exhibits. Her book, REP - RIPS - REPS Weaves (2015), is a complete workshop for both beginning and advanced weavers. |
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 Robbie LaFleur has been following a thread of Scandinavian textiles since she studied weaving at Valdres Husflidsskole in Fagernes, Norway in 1977. She has continued her study with Scandinavian instructors at workshops in Norway and the U.S. Recent projects include interpreting Edvard Munch’s “Scream” painting into a variety of textile techniques (British Journal for Weavers, Spinners and Dyers' article) and weaving tapestry portraits of her relatives. She was awarded the Gold Medal in Weaving from the Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum in 2006. Robbie coordinates the Weavers Guild of Minnesota's Scandinavian Weavers Study Group and is the editor and publisher of the quarterly Norwegian Textile Letter. |
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March 2, 2021: Denise Kovnat
generously sponsored by the Whatcom Weavers Guild of Bellingham, WA, in memory of Leslie Comstock
 A weaver since 1998, Denise Kovnat has taught at conferences and guilds across the United States, Canada, and Australia with a focus on parallel threadings, collapse techniques, painted warps and Deflected Double Weave. Her garments have been juried into Convergence® fashion shows since 2008 and have won awards from Complexity (Complex Weavers), the Handweavers Guild of America and the Seattle Weavers Guild. |
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March 9, 2021: Heavenly Bresser
generously sponsored by the 2020-21 HGA Board of Directors
Heavenly Bresser is an award-winning handspinner, published author, and proud owner of Heavenly Knitchet. After discovering a love for spinning yarn, Heavenly became determined to learn something new every day from spinning wheel to spindle. Taking a project from raw fleece to finished product is one her favorite things. She teaches classes for a local spinning guild and also at fiber festivals. Heavenly has led two sheep to shawl teams. She has written for major publications including Ply magazine, Spin Off magazine as well as tinyStudio Creative Life. When Heavenly isn't teaching, vending, or playing in fibers and yarn, she repairs antique spinning wheels.
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March 16, 2021: Cameron Taylor-Brown
generously sponsored by Made in America Yarns
Cameron Taylor-Brown was introduced to textiles by artist Ed Rossbach at the University of California, Berkeley. She studied textile design at the Philadelphia College of Textiles and Science, where she subsequently taught design and weaving. Since 1985 she has lived in Los Angeles where she is active in arts and education, and founded ARTSgarage, a textile resource center. Her work is widely exhibited and has been featured in American Craft, Handwoven, Fiber Art Now, and Shuttle, Spindle and Dyepot. She teaches workshops at schools, guilds, museums and conferences throughout the United States and at ARTSgarage in Los Angeles. She is a past president of California Fibers and serves on the advisory boards of the Fowler Textile Council and Textile Arts Los Angeles. In 2019, she curated the critically acclaimed exhibition, Material Meaning: A Living Legacy of Anni Albers at the Craft in America Center in Los Angeles.
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March 23, 2021: Deborah Robson
generously sponsored by Marcy Petrini & Terry Dwyer  Deborah Robson is a fiber generalist who specializes in spinning, knitting, and weaving, although she experiments with all aspects of textiles. She is the fiber author of The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook and of The Field Guide to Fleece, in collaboration with livestock expert Carol Ekarius. For fourteen years she worked at Interweave Press, editing both books and Spin-Off magazine. She has a DVD set available from Long Thread Media, a free class on wool types available at Craftsy.com, has done several guest appearances on KDTV, and is publishing focused fiber-topic monographs. |
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March 30, 2021: Tien Chiu
generously sponsored by Marcy Petrini & Terry Dwyer  Tien Chiu is an expert on color in weaving. Her work has been exhibited in museums and featured on the cover of Handwoven, and she has taught over 10,000 students in her online classes. She has woven hundreds of handwoven fabric swatches and dyed over 2,500 yarn samples in a quest to understand color. She teaches about color in weaving on her website. |
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April 6, 2021: Gene Shepherd
generously sponsored by Tabby Tree Weaver
 Although Gene Shepherd did not start rug hooking until 1998, it has been his only outside interest since that time. Described as a “self taught artist who hooks by ear,” Gene hooks, does commission work for individuals and museums, designs, dyes, develops tools, and teaches and writes about rug hooking. His work has been featured many times in Rug Hooking Magazine, ATHA Newsletter and A Celebration of Hand Hooked Rugs. As a way of developing and refining his own artistic journey, he has written three books: The Rug Hooker’s Bible, Prodded Hooking for a Three Dimensional Effect, and Prepared to Dye. He has also written and appeared in over 125 instruction videos on dyeing, rug hooking, proddy and a various topics related to the art form. A prolific blogger, Gene has written thousands of blog posts on topics concerning the techniques, tools, inspiration and experiences that compel him to create fiber art–a venue that has allowed him to connect on an almost daily basis with fiber artists around the world. Based out of his Anaheim, CA studio, where Gene regularly teaches classes, he also travels all over the U.S. and Canada teaching and speaking on his artistic interests, as well as makes occasional trips to Australia, England, Russia and Haiti. |
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April 13, 2021: Kelly Marshall
generously sponsored by Meridian Mill House
 Kelly Marshall is owner of Custom Woven Interiors and creates hand-woven textiles for both residential and commercial settings. She designs and weaves rugs, wall-hangings, table coverings and much more. Her work is characterized by rich colors combined with wonderful textures. Her work has been featured in a number of magazines including Better Homes and Gardens, Spaces Magazine, and Niche Magazine. Her book Custom Woven Interiors is an inspiration in color use and design, complete with drafts for 18 gorgeous rep weave projects. |
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April 20, 2021: Jacqueline James
generously sponsored by Meridian Mill House
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 Lilly Marsh is the owner of Lilly Marsh Studios of Glen Falls, New York. She specializes in transforming local farm fibers into home décor and wearable fabric. As a fiber artist using a variety of modalities including fiber sculptures, her work has been exhibited throughout the United States and Canada. She has a PhD from Purdue University in their American Studies program combining art history, studio art, anthropology, and culture. Lilly is a founding member of the Hudson Valley Project who are working to strengthen the fiber supply chain of local cloth production. |
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May 4, 2021: Sue Weil
generously sponsored by Meridian Mill House
 Sue Weil earned her Bachelor of Arts, Cum Laude in Social Anthropology from Harvard University, taking many studio art classes alongside her academic studies. Early in her career, she wove one-of-a-kind fabric for her line of women’s clothing which was sold in galleries and boutiques and was regularly featured in the Chicago edition of Women’s Wear Daily. After leaving the field for a couple of decades, in 2011 Sue returned to weaving, this time with a focus on tapestry. Combining Sue’s interests in anthropology and art, she finds herself especially drawn to weaving’s cultural universality, noting the connection between ancient and modern cultures through solving the need for warmth and beauty by manipulating fiber to create cloth, rugs and tapestries. Sue is especially drawn to the sensual, tactile warmth of the fibers and the way the image draws the viewer beneath the surface. Her works have appeared in numerous juried exhibitions at venues throughout the US and abroad. Additionally, Sue has been featured in solo shows in the San Francisco Bay Area. |
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May 11, 2021: Nazanin Amiri Meers
generously sponsored by Central Coast Weavers
 Nazanin Amiri Meers studied Textile Design and Print and received her MA in Design Technology. Immigrating to the United States in 2014 and earning an MFA in Fiber Arts at the University of Kansas was a turning point in her artistic life. Nazanin currently lives in San Diego, California and making large scale installations and multimedia 2D work, combining various techniques and media to address the importance of privacy and quietude in public spaces. Iranian architecture influenced by Islamic philosophy and decorative patterns are endless sources of inspiration for her work. Amiri Meers has worked as an instructor of art and Research Assistant since 2014, Instructing various summer camps, kids workshops, adult classes and managing various art projects at the Lawrence Arts Center, University of Kansas and Kansas State University. Nazanin's artwork has been exhibited internationally. |
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May 18, 2021: Cassie Dickson
generously sponsored by Yarn Barn of Kansas
 A Mississippi native, Cassie Dickson has lived in western North Carolina for the past 30 years. As a heritage member of the Southern Highland Craft Guild, Cassie specializes in the weaving of historical coverlets and linens. In addition, she spins, natural dyes, grows flax and raises silkworms. She processes the flax for linen and the silk for yarns and instructional purposes. Cassie's recent honors include being interviewed and video'd by the Smithsonian National Museum of History for the National Woven Coverlet Collection (available on their website and YouTube), and weaving a coverlet for one of the bedrooms of the Arlington House in Washington, D.C. |
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 Carol James has been exploring sprang and other low-tech, easily transportable textile methods for 30 years. Self-taught, she has examined sprang items in collections across North American and Europe, and has made replicas of some of these items for clients such as George Washington’s Mount Vernon, the German Archaeological Institute, and the Norwegian Army Museum. She has taught in Canada, the U.S., New Zealand, and Europe; and her students describe her as patient, knowledgeable, and quite enthusiastic. Carol is the author of numerous articles and four books: Fingerweaving Untangled, Sprang Unsprung, two books of Sprang Lace Patterns, and two instructional DVDs. She has spent much of her Covid isolation time writing out more sprang lace patterns and instruction sheets. |
 Gerhardt Knodel has contributed to and reshaped the fiber arts for more than 40 years. Early experiences in theatre design resulted in his use of textiles as interior architecture. He has exhibited and taught around the world, and he is widely known for his numerous commissions for contemporary architecture. For 25 years he led the graduate program in Fiber at Cranbrook Academy of Art and subsequently was named the director. He now maintains a full-time studio practice in Pontiac, Michigan. |
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June 8, 2021: Majeda Clarke
generously sponsored by Schiffer Publishing
 Inspired by her own cultural background, Majeda Clarke’s designs celebrate regional weave techniques and the identity of the maker. Whether in small batch production or entirely handmade she seeks sustainable, local production. All the designs deconstruct the geometry of weave while color and pattern are reconsidered in a fresh modern approach. She works closely with local communities such as UNESCO Jamdani weavers of Dhaka, renewing ancient techniques. Majeda's mill woven pieces also explore a lost weaving heritage which can be traced back generations. Her work has been exhibited extensively throughout Europe. She sells her work online and through commissions. |
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June 15, 2021: Linda Hartshorn
generously sponsored by Yarn Barn of Kansas
 Linda Hartshorn is a weaver and dyer, known for her unique dye-work and lively use of color in her handwoven textiles. Linda weaves and dyes in her home on the redwood coast of California and teaches weaving at the Ink People Center for the Arts in Eureka, California. Linda enjoys leading workshops and brings her positive, fun and supportive teaching style to events all over the country. She is a two-time recipient of the Victor Thomas Jacoby Award for spinners, weavers, and dyers. |
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June 22, 2021: Justin Squizzero
generously sponsored by Schiffer Publishing
 Handweaver Justin Squizzero challenges modern definitions of progress by creating functional textiles that celebrate the natural world and the dignity of human labor. Echoing a time when utilitarian objects were entirely handcrafted, his work connects material, maker, and user across time and place. Squizzero’s venture, The Burroughs Garret, draws on the textile traditions of his northern Vermont home, marrying natural dyes and fibers with a reserved aesthetic rooted in early New England. Produced on his 19th-century farm using 200-year-old hand looms, Squizzero’s textiles examine the role of handcraft in a post-industrial society, questioning the human experience in a digital age. |
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June 29, 2021: Jessica Pinsky
generously sponsored by Fiber Arts Guild of Pittsburgh, producer of the Fiber Arts International Exhibition  Jessica Pinsky grew up in Akron, Ohio and moved to Cleveland in 2011 after receiving a BFA in Studio Art from New York University in 2006 and an MFA in painting from Boston University in 2009. She began teaching at Cleveland Institute of Art in 2011 and is currently serving as faculty in the Sculpture and Expanded Media department. Together with Cleveland Institute of Art, Jessica founded Praxis Fiber Workshop in June 2015. |
 Joan Ruane has been teaching spinning for almost 30 years. As a graduate from Springfield College, she taught in the Tucson Public Schools before going to New Zealand in 1971. While there she learned to spin from Ruth Reid. When she returned to the U.S., Joan continued to spin and began teaching and demonstrating at the Pioneer Settlement in Florida. Joan has owned two retail shops and is the maker of Easy to Spin cotton fiber. She has produced two DVD's on spinning cotton. Now Joan concentrates on teaching workshops, writing, and promoting cotton and hemp wherever she can. |
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July 13, 2021: Helena Hernmarck
generously sponsored by Schiffer Publishing
 Helena Hernmarck's signature is her ability to harness light and color as conduits for spectacular illusion in handwoven textiles. Using a technique of her own invention, she conjures details from our visual world. Helena was born in Stockholm, Sweden in 1941. After graduating from art school in Stockholm in 1963, she moved her studio to Canada and later to England before settling in the United States in the mid-1970s. Hernmarck now maintains an active studio in Connecticut, USA. She continues to support Swedish textile arts, and collaborates with Swedish spinners, dyers, and weavers on each commission. |
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July 20, 2021: Evee Erb
generously sponsored by Austin School of Fiber Arts  Evee Erb is a nationally award-winning American artist who graduated from the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in 2016 with a BFA in Ceramics. While attending MICA, she also studied Illustration and Textile Design. Additionally, Erb studied ceramic sculpture in Florence, Italy at SACI College of Art and Design. After receiving her degree, Erb returned to her hometown of Durham, North Carolina where she has worked at the North Carolina Museum of Art, taught workshops at a variety of art centers, served on curatorial jury panels, and given lessons and artist talks at various institutions. |
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 Julie Kornblum earned her BA in Art, with a concentration in fiber and fabric art, at California State University Northridge. But being a fiber artist was hereditary. She learned sewing, knitting, and crochet from her mother and grandmother. She attended fashion design school at Los Angeles Trade Technical College, was a patternmaker in the garment industry and taught at Otis College of Art and Design. Julie teaches fiber related workshops and her woven wall and basketry work has won numerous awards. |
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August 3, 2021: Sean Dougall & Andrew Paulson
generously sponsored by Schacht Spindle Company
 Sean Dougall and Andrew Paulson are the co-founders of multidisciplinary art and design studio Dougall Paulson. They seek beauty through new forms of weaving, furniture, lighting, and objects. Using narrative as the thread that binds ideas together, their unique take on visual storytelling is the starting point for the creation of objects that straddle the fine, decorative, and graphic arts. Based in Southern California, Dougall Paulson approaches their practice with a focus on curiosity and discovery. |
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August 10, 2021: John Mullarkey
generously sponsored by Yarn Barn of Kansas
 Nationally-recognized teacher John Mullarkey has been tablet weaving for over a decade. His work has been displayed in the Missouri History Museum, and garments using his card woven bands have been featured in international fashion shows. His designs are featured frequently in Handwoven. John is the primary author of A Tablet Weaver’s Pattern Book, and has produced two DVDs for Interweave Press: Tablet Weaving Made Easy and Double-Faced Tablet Weaving. He is the developer of the Schacht Zoom Loom. John will be teaching at HGA's Convergence® conference taking place July 2022 in Knoxville. |
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August 17, 2021: Elizabeth Morisette
generously sponsored by Michigan League of Handweavers
 Elizabeth Morisette is a graduate of NCSU College of Design and received a Masters Degree from Maryland Institute College of Art. She has been exhibiting her weavings and sculptures for 25 years. In the Fall of 2020 she was featured in Hyperallergic, an online arts magazine, for her work in the University of Denver’s MASK exhibit. She has also been featured American Craft Magazine, The Denver Post, and The New York Times. Elizabeth has exhibited all over the U.S. She is currently the Education Coordinator at the Museum of Art Fort Collins. |
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August 24, 2021: Melissa English Campbell
generously sponsored by Weavers Guild of St. Louis in memory of Laura Blumenfeld
 Melissa English Campbell is an award winning artist, working with fiber, painting, and weaving. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including at the Royal Albert Museum and Tramway Gallery in the UK; Seoul, South Korea; Como, Italy; Museum of Texas Tech University, the New Bedford Art Museum, and the Hedge Gallery. Melissa holds a Bachelor of Science from U.C. Davis and a Master in Fine Arts from Kent State University. She has had a career as a textile and fashion designer prior to starting a family and later as an assistant professor at Kent State University. Melissa now works full time in her Northeast Ohio studio. |
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 Joan Berner started working with her hands at a young age, primarily sewing and knitting. As with many fiber artists, other crafts skills were added but they still were fundamentally dependent on sewing. It wasn’t until her husband decided she needed to learn to weave that she fully began to realize the vast creative opportunities in the fiber world. Upon retiring, she later moved from western New York to the Asheville area for constant inspiration and a great climate. She felts, weaves, stitches shibori, spins and dyes, and now turns most of her cloth into garments. Joan has taught at regional conferences, John C. Campbell Folk School, Convergence® and currently teaches the Sewing for Handwovens course at Haywood Community College’s Professional Crafts: Fiber program. One of her happiest experiences was placing first and third in the 2018 Convergence® Fashion Show in Reno. Joan will be teaching at HGA's Convergence® conference taking place July 2022 in Knoxville. |
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September 7, 2021: Kira Dominguez Hultgren
generously sponsored by Austin School of Fiber Arts
 Kira Dominguez Hultgren is an artist and educator. She studied French postcolonial theory and literature at Princeton University and performance and fine arts in Río Negro, Argentina. With a dual-degree MFA/MA in Fine Arts and Visual and Critical Studies from California College of the Arts, her research interests include material and embodied rhetoric, decolonizing material culture, and analyzing textiles as a performative critique against the visual. Her work was featured in the July/August 2020 issue of Architectural Digest. Kira is part-time faculty at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in Fiber and Material Studies. |
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September 14 2021: William Storms
generously sponsored by Grace Tully
 William Storms is a mathematically driven craftsman who moonlights as a Hand Weaver and daylights as a full-time Jacquard Designer for Crypton Fabric's recently acquired Mill in NC. His handwoven work is an ongoing effort to produce three-dimensionality, in a traditionally two-dimensional world. Combining collapse weave structures with pliable soft metals and Passementrie techniques, Storms is still on a mission to discovering his formula. |
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September 21, 2021: Deborah Jarchow
generously sponsored by Ashford Wheels & Looms  Deborah Jarchow is a full time weaver and artist who teaches and lectures on fiber arts, creates and sells wearable art, and has exhibited her work at galleries and museums across the United States. Her commissioned pieces are held by churches as well as many private collections. Deborah loves helping people discover the joy of weaving and during the past several years, has focused her teaching mainly on rigid heddle looms. She travels extensively to share her weaving enthusiasm and expertise. As a nationally recognized teacher, she is known as a generous educator who makes weaving accessible, exciting, and fun for students of all levels. |
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September 28, 2021: Boisali Biswas
generously sponsored by Michigan League of Handweavers  Boisali Biswas studied at the International University of Vivsa-Bharati in India. This university was founded by Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore and has a profound impact on her work. She completed her MFA at Bowling Green State University The subject of her work is her own life experiences, thoughts, and surroundings. Living in this country for over three decades, and adapting to Western styles and inspirations in concert with her background, has made her art into a cauldron of multicultural assemblages that are unique and a feast for the eyes. The issue of belonging is meld through her art. |
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October 5, 2021: Michael Rohde
generously sponsored by Cameron Taylor-Brown and ARTSgarage
 Michael F. Rohde has been weaving since 1973. His formal training in drawing, color and design was at the Alfred Glassel School of the Houston Museum of Fine Arts. His activities include lectures, workshop teaching, juror, exhibition organizer and exhibitor in many local, national and international juried and invited shows. |
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October 12, 2021: Elin Noble
generously sponsored by Weavers Guild of St. Louis in Memory of Laura Blumenfeld
 Elin Noble has a BFA in fiber from University of Washington and studied art history in Florence, Italy. She is the author of Dyes & Paints: A Hands-on Guide to Coloring Fabric. As the former lab Manager at Pro Chemical & Dye, she has a vast understanding of dying. She has exhibited extensively and won a variety of awards. She has appeared on PBS, lectured and conducted workshops throughout North America and internationally. She has lived and traveled all over the world and currently resides in Massachusetts. |
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October 19, 2021: Loren Batt
generously sponsored by Greener Shades
 Loren Batt received an Associate Degree in Fine Arts at Franklin College in Lugano Switzerland and finished college at Georgetown University in Washington D.C. After college she moved to Paris to study painting, painting conservation, lithography, and viscosity printing. She returned to D.C. and continued printing and began sewing soft sculptures. She eventually settled in France. Loren has exhibited her work worldwide including in HGA's 2019 and 2020 Small Expressions exhibits. |
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October 26, 2021: Dawn Edwards
generously sponsored by Michigan League of Handweavers  Dawn Edwards is a felt artist and tutor based in Plainwell, Michigan. She sells her work under the label ‘Felt So Right’ and teaches extensively within the USA and internationally. Her felt art has appeared in numerous exhibitions, shows, magazines and books, including Ellen Bakker's book Worldwide Colours of Felt, several issues of the Australian FELT Magazine, the International Feltmakers' Association Felt Matters journal, HGA's Shuttle, Spindle & Dyepot, the Russian magazine Felt Fashion. Most recently several of Dawn’s beaded felt hats appeared in the International Feltmakers' Reconnect Exhibition. |
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November 2, 2021: Bhakti Ziek
generously sponsored by Heddlecraft®
 Bhakti Ziek is internationally known for work that has ranged from backstrap weaving to digital jacquard weaving. She has a M.F.A. from Cranbrook Academy of Art, a B.F.A. from the University of Kansas, and a B.A. from SUNY at Stony Brook. Bhakti has lectured and taught workshops throughout the United States and abroad. Her writings on contemporary fiber have been published in many journals, including American Craft, Surface Design Journal, and Fiberarts. She is the co-author, with Alice Schlein, of The Woven Pixel: Designing for Jacquard and Dobby Looms Using Photoshop; and she also co-wrote Weaving on a Backstrap Loom with her mother, Nona Ziek. Her extensive exhibition record includes work in the permanent collection of Princeton University (Princeton, NJ) and the Museum of Arts and Design (New York City, NY). A former college professor, she now offers private workshops in her Santa Fe, NM studio.
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November 9, 2021: Deann Rubin
generously sponsored by Greener Shades
 Deann Rubin holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree in Design from The University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas. Later, she received two-year certificates in computer graphics and illustration from Collin County Community College in Plano, Texas. Known as a fiber artist, Deann has exhibited her handwoven tapestries nationally and internationally, including Russia, Australia, and Canada. Deann was the editor of the ITNET Journal, an international tapestry organization and past president of both Tapestry Weavers West, a San Francisco Bay area tapestry artists association, and Missouri Fiber Artists, a statewide fiber organization. |
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November 16, 2021: Alanna Wilcox
generously sponsored by Greener Shades
 Alanna Wilcox is an art teacher by day and a fiber artist by night. She loves sharing her passion with others and is constantly making things, especially projects that have to do with color and fiber to express her creativity. She earned the OHS Spinning Certificate with distinction in 2015 and the Master Spinner Certificate in 2017. She is the author of the spinning book A New Spin on Color and developed dye formulas to match digital images and colors. She is currently working on a book explaining her dye methodology which will be released later this year. Working with fiber is something that she lives and breathes, sometimes literally.
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November 23, 2021: Kim Winter
generously sponsored by Greener Shades
 Kim Winter is a fiber artist based in London, UK. A late starter as far as textiles are concerned, she spent 25 years in journalism before becoming engrossed by color and texture at evening classes in experimental textiles. Her first foray into the fiber world was through felting and natural dyeing, selling clothes from charity shops that she had upcycled by eco-printing or overdyeing with indigo using Shibori techniques. More recently she has become interested in 3D form, and she is currently on a two-year creative basketry course, where she has already won an award for her coiling.
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November 30, 2021: Char Norman
generously sponsored by Weavers Guild of St. Louis in Memory of Laura Blumenfeld  Char Norman is an accomplished fiber artist specializing in papermaking and fiber sculpture. She received a Master of Fine Art from Claremont Graduate University and a Bachelor of Art from Scripps College. She has lectured and exhibited extensively both nationally and internationally. She has developed and conducted workshops for all ages, worked as a consultant to area schools and community arts organizations, and served as a trustee for Greater Columbus Arts Council. Char held the positions of Associate Provost and Dean of Faculty at Columbus College of Art & Design and has now returned to the studio as a full-time professional artist.
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December 7, 2021: Jennifer Moore
generously sponsored by Lunatic Fringe Yarns
 Jennifer Moore holds an MFA in Fibers and specializes in exploring mathematical patterns and musical structures in doubleweave wall hangings. She has exhibited throughout the world, receiving numerous awards for her work, and has been featured in many weaving publications. Jennifer lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and travels extensively to teach workshops in doubleweave, color, and geometric design. Jennifer was invited to teach doubleweave to indigenous Quechua weavers in Peru in 2013, where they are once again excelling in this technique which had been discontinued after the Spanish conquest. She is the author of The Weaver’s Studio: Doubleweave, several doubleweave videos and online courses, and numerous articles.
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December 14, 2021: Margo Selby
generously sponsored by Tabby Tree Weaver
 Margo Selby is a renowned British textile artist and designer. Her design philosophy is focused on pushing the boundaries of weaving to create contemporary stylish fabrics for a range of textile applications, uniting the very best weavers and high-quality fibers to produce beautifully crafted products.
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December 21, 2021: Molly McLaughlin
generously sponsored by Complex Weavers
 Molly McLaughlin is a fiber artist who lives on the New Hampshire seacoast. Her work focuses on transforming the dynamic interplay of color and light found in nature into vibrant and beautiful designs. Molly’s artwork is created by combining a variety of weaving and dyeing techniques that she utilizes to produce harmonious colors and bold compositions. While visiting a large fiber market in 1992, Molly fell in love with all things fiber related. Her passion for the medium led her to start a 30-year journey toward developing weaving and dyeing skills that would allow her to fully express her visual imagery. Molly firmly believes that, as an artistic medium, weaving is versatile enough to create anything, if you can see it clearly enough in your mind. Molly’s fiber work has been exhibited in shows across the U.S., and has won many awards, including The Diane Fabeck Best in Show award at Complexity (2018), and the Cambridge Arts Association Artist of the Year award (2019).
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December 28, 2021: Melanie Olde
generously sponsored by Doreen Trudel in Memory of Esther Dendel  Melanie Olde’s weaving practice is continually driven by curiosity and new learning. Her love of weaving started early, growing up on a goat farm with an engineering father and a mother involved in industrial textiles. At 18 Melanie went on to study jacquard weaving at Fondazione Arte della Seta Lisio in Italy at 18 and completed her BA in Textile at the Australian National University in 2002. Her work explores new technology and old, with research interests in biomimetic and mathematical forms, and interpreting these in 3-dimensional loom-woven cloth, including embedded technology and new materials. She also has a keen interest in the history and development of complex woven structures in Asia. Melanie’s professional weaving experience has been in business, research, teaching and exhibiting nationally and internationally. Recently, she has been involved with the Complex Weavers, winning first place in Complexity (2020), and published articles for the Complex Weavers Journal. |
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January 4, 2022: Sarah Haskell
generously sponsored by Lunatic Fringe Yarns
 Sarah Haskell is an award-winning artist and educator who has been weaving and teaching for over fifty years. She has a BFA in Textiles from Rhode Island School of Design and an MA in Arts/Healing from Wisdom University. Sarah has exhibited at museums and galleries and has been published in FiberArt Now magazine. She is a member of the American Craft Council and the Surface Design Association. Sarah teaches textile workshops that build community and raise self-esteem, for all ages and abilities of learners, in schools and communities from California to Maine.
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January 11, 2022: Laura Strand
generously sponsored by Weavers Guild of St. Louis in Memory of Laura Blumenfeld
 Professor Laura Strand, head of Textile Arts at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, has a comprehensive back-ground and formal training in weaving, surface design, papermaking, bookbinding and basketry through a BFA from Georgia State University and an MFA from the University of Kansas, Lawrence. She has exhibited widely and lectured throughout the country. As a working artist her interests include the interface between feminism and visual culture, exploring the connection between the textile field and our Western cultural understanding of "women's work." As an artist and a person she engages in an effort to link the rich heritage of the textile arts with contemporary theoretical discourse.
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January 18, 2022: Jenny Schu
generously sponsored by Michigan League of Handweavers
 Jenny Schu has been beading for over 25 years and weaving for 18 years picking up various fiber techniques along the way. She obtained a Bachelors of Fine Arts with a concentration in Fiber Art and a Minor in Art History from the University of Michigan in 2004. Since then her beaded jewelry has been in numerous galleries, currently showing in Lansing, MI; Calumet MI; Grand Rapids, OH; and Petoskey/Traverse City, MI. She has exhibited nationally with the Handweavers Guild of America’s Small Expressions Exhibits, she has been awarded grants and received numerous awards from Michigan League of Handweavers exhibits over the years.
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January 25, 2022: Murray Gibson
generously sponsored by The Woolgatherers  Murray Gibson has been weaving tapestries for more than 30 years. He graduated from the Alberta College of Art and Design, Calgary, AB. He also received his MA in Textiles from Goldsmiths College, University of London, UK. He always designs his tapestries so that they reference textiles if not specifically tapestries. In some works he has made direct reference to medieval tapestries in both imagery and technique, but there are also more subtle illusions to cloth through the use of patterning and even the use of a woven border. It is very important to Murray that his concepts and imagery are always best realized in a woven form. In 2015, Murray was named a Master Artisan by Craft Nova Scotia (formerly The Nova Scotia Designer Crafts Council). He was inducted into the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts in 2019. |
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February 1, 2022: Susan Martin Maffei
generously sponsored by Lunatic Fringe Yarns
 Susan Martin Maffei is an internationally known tapestry artist whose background includes art studies at The Art Students League in New York City, tapestry training at Les Gobelins in Paris, apprenticeship and studio work at the Scheuer Tapestry Studio, New York City and conservation of antique textiles at Artweave Gallery, New York City. She has been weaving her work professionally since 1985. She has taught, lectured and exhibited in the U.S. and abroad and has work in both public and private collections.
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February 8, 2022: David van Buskirk
generously sponsored by Toledo Area Weavers Guild
 David van Buskirk has been told that he has a gift for weave. He has never lost his fascination for taking hundreds of separate threads and weaving them into an organic creation. He is drawn to the act of making with his hands. As a weaver, he is always in collaboration with a loom. It is as important to him as the materials his hands work with. Whether complex or simple, weaving requires a mechanism to create warp and weft, the structure on which his art is made.
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February 15, 2022: Cathryn Amidei
generously sponsored by Weavers' Guild of Rochester, Inc.
 Cathryn Amidei received a MFA in Textiles from Eastern Michigan University and was an Associate Professor there until 2018. After living in Norway for a year working with a loom manufacturer, she traveled extensively, installing, training, teaching, and supporting other weaving artists. Cathryn is well known for her work and teaching with the jacquard loom. Cathryn is currently the leading specialist in Jacquard weaving in the United States. You can now find her at the Digital Weaving Lab at the Praxis Fiber Workshop in Cleveland, OH.
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February 22, 2022: Carol Irving
generously sponsored by Michigan League of Handweavers  Driven by a love for the materials she employs, Carol Irving weaves bright and stimulating images into her rugs. In her work she seeks to convey her passion for fiber, color, and design brought together in excellent craftsmanship. She weaves her richly colored yarns on a loom much the way people have been weaving for centuries. Each rug is a totally unique piece of American Craft. Her designs range from very contemporary and geometric to organic shapes and images. “I am committed to excellent craftsmanship so that my rugs are not only functional but pleasing to look at.” Her work is striking when hung on the wall, visually bold from a distance and tactile in its intricate detail. |
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March 1, 2022: Marcy Petrini
generously sponsored by Lunatic Fringe Yarns
.jpg) Marcy Petrini has been teaching weaving the last 38 years for the Craftsmen's Guild of Mississippi which bestowed her the Lifetime Achievement Award. She has been the feature writer for Shuttle Spindle & Dyepot for the last 20 years; she has taught at most Convergences® since 1996. She also has been doing Zoom presentations. |
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March 8, 2022: Angie Parker
generously sponsored by Austin School of Fiber Arts
 Angie Parker established her business creating distinctive and intricate rugs and textile art in 2014, and she specializes in hand-weaving using long established techniques, such as Krokbragd. After being taught rug weaving by the late Susan Foster at art college in the 1990’s, she pursued a career in costume for a number of years whilst continuing to weave on small scale collections. She combines her weaving with an instinctive and daring approach to color and it’s the creative process of importing a contemporary element to the time honored techniques of weaving and the responses from the viewer which most excite her. A year spent living in India and more recently, the dynamic graffiti and houses in her Bristol neighborhood, have influenced the fabulously joyful palette which is intrinsic to her weaving.
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March 15, 2022: Norma Smayda
generously sponsored by a Student of Norma Smayda
 Norma Smayda, a weaver, teacher, exhibitor, and juror, learned to weave in Norway and occasionally returned to teach. In 1974 she established and continues to run the Saunderstown Weaving School. She has an MFA in Visual Design from UMass-Dartmouth, and has received the HGA Award of Excellence, the NEWS Weaver of Distinction, and the WGB Distinguished Achievement Award. Norma has written articles for various weaving journals and has had work featured in several books. Norma's special interests include Scandinavian weaving, the works of William Henry Harrison Rose and Bertha Gray Hayes, and ondulé weaving with the fan reed. She coauthored Weaving Designs by Bertha Gray Hayes in 2009, and published Ondulé Textiles in 2017. She especially likes weaving functional pieces and reducing complicated designs to as few shafts as possible.
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March 22, 2022: Daryl Lancaster
generously sponsored by Grace Tully
 Daryl Lancaster, a hand-weaver and fiber artist known for her award-winning hand-woven fabric and garments, has been constructing garments for more than half a century. She gives lectures and workshops to guilds, conferences, and craft centers all over the United States. The former Features Editor for Handwoven Magazine, she has written more than 100 articles and digital content, frequently contributes to various weaving and sewing publications, including Threads Magazine. She now has a YouTube channel, The Weaver Sews, where she shares her extensive experience sewing handwoven garments.
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March 29, 2022: Alice Schlein
generously sponsored by Michaela McIntosh  A self-taught weaver for the past 40 years, Alice Schlein weaves in her South Carolina studio. She has taught at numerous schools and conferences, including The Penland School and at Convergence® and Complex Weavers Seminars. Her work has been exhibited widely. She is a former contributing editor of Weaver's Magazine, The author of Network Drafting—An Introduction and Co-Author (with Bhakti Ziek) of The Woven Pixel: Designing For Jacquard And Dobby Looms Using Photoshop®.
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April 5, 2022: Robyn Spady
generously sponsored by Weavers' Guild of Boston
 Robyn Spady was introduced to handweaving as a baby with her handwoven baby blanket woven by her great-grandmother. Inspired by her blankie, she learned to weave at a young age and has been weaving for over 50 years. She completed HGA's Certificate of Excellence in Handweaving (COE-W) in 2004 with the specialized study Loom-controlled Stitched Double Cloth. Robyn is fascinated by the infinite possibilities of crossing threads and loves coming up with new ideas to create fabric and transform it into something new and exciting. She is committed to turning the weaving world on to double-faced fabrics, four-shaft weaves, uncommon and advanced weave structures, and passementerie techniques. Robyn is also the founder and editor of Heddlecraft® magazine.
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April 12, 2022: Tommye Scanlin
generously sponsored by Schiffer Publishing
 Tommye Scanlin is Professor Emerita at the University of North Georgia, Dahlonega, where she began the weaving program in the early 1970s. She explored different ways to create imagery with weaving until at last embracing handwoven tapestry as her medium of choice three decades ago. She is the author of The Nature of Things: Essays of a Tapestry Weaver and Tapestry Design Basics and Beyond: Planning and Weaving with Confidence.
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April 19, 2022: Heather Hietala
generously sponsored by Fettah and Karen Anadol
 Heather Hietala is a studio artist, educator, and permaculture gardener. She received her BFA in painting and sculpture from the University of New Hampshire and her MFA in textiles from the University of Massachusetts - Dartmouth. She has lectured and conducted workshops across North America and internationally. Her work is exhibited in galleries and museums and is included in many private and public collections including the Racine Art Museum, WI, Asheville Art Museum, NC, Gregg Museum of Art and Design, Raleigh, NC, Wingate University, Wingate, NC, Agnico Eagle Gold Corporation, Toronto, ON, and the Horn Collection of Contemporary Craft, Little Rock, AK. She has received a NEA Regional Fellowship, a TN Arts Commission Fellowship and two artist residencies at Centrum Center for the Arts (WA). Her work is available at Momentum Gallery, Asheville, NC and Oeno Gallery, Ontario, Canada.
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April 26, 2022: Dianne Totten
generously sponsored by Chattahoochee Handweavers Guild  Dianne Totten has been a weaver and workshop junkie for 40 years and a teacher for twenty-five. She is well known for her garments using “crimp cloth,” a technique she developed and teaches nationally/internationally for guilds and conferences. Her expertise in sewing complements her passion for weaving. She teaches at John C. Campbell Folk School in NC and for guilds and regional conferences in the US and Canada, and at Convergence®. She has two crimp cloth DVD’s available and has been published in SS&D, Handwoven, Weavers, Complex Weavers Journal, and Vävmagasinet, as well as Catherine Ellis’ book, Woven Shibori, Revised and Updated, IP, 2016. |
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May 3, 2022: Micala Sidore
generously sponsored by Schiffer Craft Publishing
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May 10, 2022: Rabbit Goody
generously sponsored by Heddlecraft
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May 17, 2022: Abraham Buddish
generously sponsored by Suanne Pasquarella, supporting weavers of the future
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May 24, 2022: David Heustess
generously sponsored by Handweavers Guild of Nashville
David Heustess is an artist and arts educator in Nashville, TN, and his work makes use of clay, fiber arts, and beadwork. After many years of working as a modern dancer/teacher, David began pursuing his interest in pottery and other art mediums. He attended the Appalachian Center for Crafts and in 1995 he earned a BFA degree with studio concentrations in clay and fiber arts. Currently, David directs a gallery space and a community arts education program (Sarratt Art Studios) at Vanderbilt University. Fall 2021 will mark David’s 25th year of working for Vanderbilt. His passion for teaching and his love for making artwork has allowed him the opportunity to share a variety of mediums with students from all parts of the Nashville community. David is treasurer/membership director for the Handweavers Guild of Nashville and the Director of Exhibitions for the American Tapestry Alliance.
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May 31, 2022: Mary Berry
generously sponsored by Spokane Handweavers Guild
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Myra Wood is an internationally known fiber artist, designer, author and teacher. She teaches a wide range of classes in knitting, crochet, embroidery and beading specializing in all things creative. Myra is the author of Crazyshot! and Crazyshot Companion, Knit in New Directions, Creative Crochet Lace and Crazy Lace along with numerous published patterns in books and magazines. Myra’s been a guest instructor on numerous episodes of Knit and Crochet Now, Knitty Gritty, Uncommon Threads, and Knitting Daily on PBS, HGTV and DIY Network. Myra has been crafting, sewing, knitting and crocheting since she was young and studied fine art painting and drawing at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and the Philadelphia College of Art. She’s enjoyed a long career in commercial art and lives in Haverford, PA with her husband, Page and her Italian Greyhound, Beanie Wood.
Anita Luvera Mayer was introduced to looms and weaving by her mother-in-law and following six years of self-study, experimentation, and selling, Anita’s focus on garments began in 1972. The clothing designed and worn by Anita relates to ethnic garments of other cultures and are constructed from simple shapes with each piece considered an investment in clothing because of its timelessness and wear ability. Anita’s fiber art now includes a wide range of surface decorations as a result of her seven years of study in embroidery and design at the Gail Harker Creative Design Center. Anita’s work has been included in national and international shows and she has presented lectures and workshops throughout the United States and Canada. She has published three books and three monographs and is a frequent contributor to national magazines. Anita believes there should be something magical and unique about what is worn each day and wants to share this concept of clothing with others.
generously sponsored by Crafty Housewife Yarns
 July 5, 2022: Tegan Frisino
generously sponsored by Tabby Tree Weaver
Tegan Frisino has been weaving since 2007, as part of her BFA program in Fiber Design from SUNY Buffalo State College. During her last semester of college, she decided to start weaving as a business and formed Comfortcloth Weaving. She has been slowly growing and expanding her business to include both wholesale and retail markets; focusing on creating house goods and handwoven yardage that combine elements of art, history, and modern textile trends. She exclusively uses natural fibers in her work, which are hand-dyed in her studio. Her biggest passion within the weaving world, and which she has dedicated a substantial portion of her business, is supporting and weaving for local and regional fiber producers providing value-added products that farmers and fiber producers can either resell themselves or use for advertising or gifts.
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 July 12, 2022: Bonnie Tarses
generously sponsored by Montana Association of Weavers and Spinners
Bonnie Tarses is a graduate of Rhode Island School of Design in Textile Design and Art Education and has been weaving since 1960. Inspired by ethnic textiles, color symbolism, and the non-verbal language of color, Bonnie specializes in one-of-a-kind art cloth and private commissions. She operated her studio in Seattle from 1980 to 2010 where she perfected her original techniques: Color Horoscope Weaving and Woven Words and developed two new slants to the ancient technique of Ikat which she calls Turned Weft Ikat and Almost Ikat. In 2010, Bonnie moved to Montana to continue her weaving journey. Today her weavings appear in homes and on bodies throughout the world. In addition to presenting innovative workshops and lectures (now mostly through zoom), Bonnie has teamed up with the talented Kathie Roig to blend Color Horoscope Weaving with Block Double Weave with deliciously amazing results. |
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 July 19, 2022: Ann Richards
generously sponsored by Denise Kovnat
Ann Richards trained and worked as a biologist, before studying woven textiles at West Surrey College of Art & Design (now the University for the Creative Arts, Farnham, UK), where she later also worked as a lecturer. Her background in biology feeds into her textile work, which often draws on natural forms and uses contrasts of fiber and yarn twist to create highly textured and elastic fabrics. She has exhibited widely and in 1989 won First Prize at the International Textile Design Contest in Tokyo. Her work is in many public collections, including the Crafts Study Centre, UK, Design Museum Denmark, and the Deutsches Technikmuseum. Over the past twenty years, she has lectured and given workshops in the UK and elsewhere, including Europe, Scandinavia, the USA, and Canada. She has published two books: Weaving Textiles That Shape Themselves and Weaving: Structure and Substance. |
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 July 26, 2022: Eric Frisino
Sponsorship Available Eric Frisino started his career as a Graphic Designer and Developer. In 2016, he decided to switch paths and join his wife, Tegan Frisino, in growing their own weaving business, Comfortcloth Weaving LLC. He saw that she had a need for lots of colors in her work but was struggling to find suppliers for the kind of material she wanted. He taught himself how to dye different types of fiber (cotton, silk, linen, wool, etc.) and then how to scale up for larger production. While he was learning to dye, he also began weaving custom rugs for clients and retail. Eric contributes a significant amount of his time to not just dyeing or weaving rugs, but also to developing and fine-tuning designs and colorways for client projects and new products. Eric’s current project is building a small to mid-scale dye house so that he can accept various types of dyeing jobs to provide this service to local and regional mills, farmers, yarn companies, and other fiber artisans looking for custom dyeing services.
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 August 2, 2022: Concepcion Tharin
generously sponsored by Rebekah Jones
Concepcion Poou Coy Tharin learned the traditional back-strap weaving style of pik'bil, a fine gauze-like cotton weave, when she was eight years old and growing up in the village of Samac, Guatemala. Traditional back-strap weaving is one of the few sources of income for the women of her village, though each blouse takes a month to weave. Concepcion sold weavings to fund her education and represented the women weavers of her village as they sold their products throughout their country. Now known as a master back-strap weaver, Concepcion currently resides in Tarpon Springs, Florida, and teaches weaving throughout Pinellas County.
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 August 9, 2022: Allie Dudley
generously sponsored by Weavers' Guild of St. Louis, in Memory of Dorothy Haddock
Allie Dudley is a textile artist, working within multiple traditional Appalachian handweaving styles. They first learned to weave as a college student and, since moving to Western North Carolina, have joined a community of weavers from whom they continues to learn. Allie weaves tapestries on a frame loom built out of galvanized plumbing pipe, and they also weave historical overshot drafts, or weaving patterns, on a counterbalance loom, a type of floor loom that was the primary tool for Appalachian weavers prior to the twentieth century. As the Textiles & Natural Fibers Coordinator at the John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, North Carolina, Allie manages the Folk School’s weaving & quilting studios and teaches classes in tapestry and needlework. Allie’s work also appeared in the 2021 exhibition, Pulling the Thread: A Brief Survey of Appalachian Textiles, at the Rabun Gap-Nacoochee School in Clayton, Georgia, alongside the work of their mentors, Tommye Scanlin and 2020 In These Mountains Folk & Traditional Arts Master Artist Fellowship recipient Susan Leveille. “In short,” Allie says, “the history of weaving is the history of humanity, as well as its future; losing the knowledge of handweaving would mean losing a part of our human selves.”
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 August 16, 2022: Rebecca Winter
generously sponsored by Schiffer Craft Publishing
Rebecca Winter is an accomplished Quilt Artist, Doll Maker, and Seamstress, and holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Boise State University. Her works have been displayed in various shows, including a doll she made of 100% handwoven fabric that placed first place in the nationwide, "Handmaiden Doll Contest.” Rebecca’s work has appeared in six Weaver’s issues and her quilts have been featured in Patchwork Quilts. Rebecca is a Master Weaver, awarded by the Handweaver’s Guild of America. She is the 51st person to receive this honor worldwide. Over the years, Rebecca has worked as a nurse in several Idaho hospitals, and, at times, all her creative force has been channeled completely into those endeavors. However, recently, her focus has shifted back to the pursuit of fiber arts. |
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 August 23, 2022: Gasali Adeyemo
generously sponsored by Contemporary Handweavers of Houston
Gasali Adeyemo was born in the small rural village of Ofatedo, located in Osun State Nigeria. From a very young age, he realized his artistic potential and would attend social gatherings such as weddings, naming, and burial ceremonies, as well as other cultural parties offering to sketch portraits of the guests for a small donation. He discovered the Nike Center for Arts and Culture in 1990, where he remained for a total of six years. The first two years were spent mastering batik painting on fabric, indigo dyeing, quilt making, embroidery, appliqué, and batik painting on rice paper with the following four years spent teaching these skills to incoming students. In 1995, Gasali’s artwork was exhibited in Bayreuth, Germany alongside the work of five other artists from Nigeria launching his career. In 1996, the opportunity arose for him to travel outside of Nigeria for the first time when he was invited to come to the University of Iowa to do a series of exhibitions and workshops. Once there, the Octagon Gallery in Ames, Iowa took notice of his work and offered to exhibit it and he was also invited to work with a group of teenagers doing storytelling and art workshops to share with them the traditions of his own Yoruba culture. He has recently taught workshops at the World Batik Conference, Cross Culture Collaborative Inc., Snow Farm, and the Fiber Arts Center. He currently resides in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
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.jpg) August 30, 2022: Kathie Roig
generously sponsored by Harriett Ringold As a weaver, Kathie Roig expresses herself through her handwoven cloth. Weaving is a series of steps, a process that is methodical and meditative, contemplative, rhythmic, and solitary. Her work is functional, such as placemats or baby blankets, and it is expressive, as she creates weavings that reflect her life in time and place. Her story is told through her handwoven cloth. Kathie has lived in various towns and cities in North Carolina and Ohio. In 2015, she moved to Charlotte where she works from her home studio as well as a shared workspace alongside other artists and makers.
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 December 6, 2022 | Pam Howard generously sponsored by Heddlecraft
Pam Howard has focused on weaving, natural dyeing, spinning, and the fiber arts for more than thirty-five years. During those years she realized that teaching beginning weavers was her calling. Pam has made it her mission to make sure that those who wanted to learn to weave could learn in a positive and easy-going atmosphere. Pam is the former Weaving Resident Artist at the John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, North Carolina. After twenty-one years, she decided to retire and work in her own studio but still is teaching at the Folk School. In 2016 Pam enrolled in a five-year Master Weaving Course through Olds College in Alberta, Canada. In the spring of 2022 she graduated with her Master Weaver’s Certification. Since retirement, Pam became a member of the Yadkin Valley Fiber Center’s Steering Committee, which is designing a Master Weaving Program that will be taught in the United States.
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December 13, 2022 | Edwina Bringle generously sponsored by Penland School of Craft
Edwina Bringle lives and works in Penland, NC. As a fiber artist she is known for her use of color and design in her woven textiles and free motion embroidered pieces. Bringle also runs a gallery with her twin sister, where she sells her work. She taught at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte as a Professor of Art for many years. She has been a Penland School of Crafts Resident Artist and frequently teaches at the school. Her work is in the collection of the North Carolina Museum of History and the Greenville Museum of Art.
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%20copy.jpg) December 20, 2022 | Sally Garner Sally Garner is a textile artist and educator based in Atlanta. Her current work explores the various opposing forces in our everyday lives and our relationship to the environment through the metaphors of weaving. She has been teaching a variety of textile techniques over the past ten years in both classroom and small workshop settings. Her work has been published multiple times in Fiber Art Now magazine and has received awards from Fiber Art Now, the National Basketry Organization, and Surface Design Association. Sally is currently an instructor of textiles and foundational art at Georgia State University, where she is also pursuing her Master of Fine Arts degree.
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 December 27, 2022 | Christine Keller German-born New Zealand based artist Christine Keller holds an MFA from Concordia University (2004) in Montreal and a Masters equivalent from Gesamthochschule Uni Kassel (1994), Germany. She learnt weaving in a traditional full-time apprenticeship in Hamburg. Christine has exhibited her award-winning work nationally and internationally since 1987. She was the academic leader of the Textile Section of Dunedin School of Art at Otago Polytechnic 2005–2010. In late 2012 she founded the Dunedin-based studio Weaving on Hillingdon and in 2015 added the community space Dunedin's LoomRoom. She uses her art to tell contemporary stories about science, environment, community, power and value. Based on her knowledge of traditional techniques, textile design and contemporary art, Christine examines the clash of tradition and new technologies, and the social and political implications that emerge from this tension. |
January 3, 2023 | Chris Acton
generously sponsored by Supporters of Indie Fiber Arts
Chris Acton randomly took a weaving class in 2005 as a way to counteract her boredom with a corporate job in the Chicago suburbs. It was love at first sight. Little did she know, this would be a major turning point in her life. Because of that class, she then left her job, moved to Indiana, and became a full-time weaver. Over the years, she has participated in art fairs all over the country and created hundreds of yards of handwoven fabric that have been transformed into unique handbags and home goods. These days you can find her carving a new path with weaving classes and resources, encouraging people everywhere to give weaving a try.
January 10, 2023 | Melvenea Hodges
generously sponsored by Weavers Guild of the North Shore
Melvenea Hodges is a Fiber Artist residing Indiana. She creates clothing and accessories using traditional techniques such as block printing, sewing, weaving, spinning, knitting, crocheting, and embroidery. In 2006 Melvenea earned a bachelor’s in Apparel, Textiles, and Merchandising from Eastern Michigan University. She was inspired to begin growing, spinning, and weaving cotton to reclaim an undocumented heritage of fiber arts as a Black American maker. Melvenea finds tremendous joy in helping others learn new skills; she teaches at a primary school, and she connects with other textile enthusiasts through community events, social media, and her local weaving guild. Her mission is to honor and preserve our fiber arts heritage through practice. She blogs about her work and traditional textile techniques on her website and on Instagram as Traditionsincloth where she also offers handcrafted accessories and spinning supplies. She has also published articles with SpinOff magazine.
January 17, 2023 | Máximo Laura
generously sponsored by Weave A Real Peace
Máximo Laura, born in Peru in 1959, is a tapestry weaver, designer, consultant, and lecturer recognized as one of South America’s pre-eminent textile artists. His work is featured in collections worldwide and he has exhibited in many museums, art centers and galleries. Laura has won awards in both national and international competitions including a UNESCO Prize for Latin America and the Caribbean, Spain, 1992; Best in Show Award—Latin American Art VIII, USA, 2005; People’s Choice Award—Land the tapestry foundation of Victoria, Australia, 2008; Outstanding Award—From Lausanne to Beijing International Fiber Art Biennale, China, 2008, 2010 and 2022; HGA Award—USA, 2009; Award—10th Latin America Sustainable Luxury, 2022, Argentina, among others. He teaches national and international workshops, has a studio in Lima, and opened the Maximo Laura Museum in Cusco in 2014. Máximo Laura was nominated a “National Living Human Treasure” in his native Peru in 2010.
January 24, 2023 | Walter Turpening
generously sponsored by Myrna Lindstrom
Walter Turpening grew up in Southeastern Michigan, earning degrees in Physics and Geology/Geophysics. In 1972, he began work in oil and gas exploration doing geophysics research, development, and technology support. His wife, Ellen, and he lived in Texas and Pennsylvania from 1977 through 1998 where Walter took woodworking classes from a Pittsburgh furniture maker. In 1998 the couple moved to Kingsport, TN. There, Walter made chairmaking fulltime and set up a small shop. In July 1998, Walter experienced his first national show at the Handweavers Guild of America Convergence in Atlanta, GA. Then, one year Walter vacationed in the Southern Appalachians and saw Shaker and rush woven chairs. Inspired, Walter began teaching himself how to weave seats with commercial braided cord with Ellen teaching him weaving patterns and color blending. In 2003, Walther tried hand dyeing commercial cord and later taught himself how to braid cord. Today, two apprentices have joined Walter.
January 31, 2023 | Omar Chávez Santiago
generously sponsored by Weave A Real Peace
February 7, 2023 | Jane Stafford
generously sponsored by Colour.Woven
Jane Stafford began weaving in 1978 and attended the Banff School of Fine Arts from 1981-1988 where she explored both traditional weaving and 3-dimensional weaving. In the years that have followed, Jane has had the great fortune of earning a livelihood based on what she loves most—weaving and sharing her passion for excellence in cloth.
In earlier years Jane was a production weaver and workshop leader throughout Canada and the US. She has worked closely with Louet for 30 years creating their early instructional DVDs and consulting on the Louet Jane Loom. For many years, Jane taught exclusively in her studio on Salt Spring Island, offering 5-day retreats to weavers from all over the continent. In 2014 she was named Teacher of the Year by Handwoven magazine.
In 2016 Jane decided to offer her foundational workshops to a broader student base by creating the JST Online Guild which has since grown into the Jane Stafford School of Weaving with thousands of students around the world. Each episode builds on the previous moving the weaver along a pathway of structural and artistic development. In January of 2023 they started their 7th season.
February 14, 2023 | Carl Stewart
generously sponsored by Ottawa Valley Weavers & Spinners Guild
Carl Stewart is a weaver living and working in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. For more than 30 years his socially and politically engaged, and enraged, textiles have celebrated, memorialized, documented and commemorated the intimate, the fabulous, the egregious and the tragic.
Born and raised on Prince Edward Island on Canada’s east coast he attended the University of Prince Edward Island the Holland College School of Visual Arts in Charlottetown.
Carl was a 2020 recipient of a Study Collection Scholarship from the Marshfield School of Weaving in Marshfield VT. He was the 2019 recipient of the Cultural Commentary and Social Change Grant from the Fiber Art Network for his project clò mòr. He was a visiting artist in the Master of Fine Arts Program at the University of Victoria in Victoria, British Columbia in 2019.
His work has been presented exhibitions in galleries across Canada and in the United States the Mississippi Valley Textile Museum, Almonte ON; Schmidt Art Centre, Southwestern Illinois College, Belleville, Il; Gallery 101, Ottawa, ON; the Cambridge Art Galleries|Idea Exchange, Cambridge, ON; Victoria Arts Council, Victoria, BC; Little Berlin Collective, Philadelphia, PA; Ottawa Art Gallery, Ottawa, ON; Art Museum of the Americas, Washington, DC; Textile Museum of Canada, Toronto, ON; Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, New York, NY.
He has received professional grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, the City of Ottawa and the Ontario Arts Council.
Carl’s work hangs in the collections of the Canada Council Art Bank, the City of Ottawa, and the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art in NY and the Ottawa Art Gallery.
February 21, 2023 | Irene Heckel-Volpe
generously sponsored by Myrna Lindstrom
Irene Heckel-Volpe has creating collectible soft sculpture since 1986. Starting with collectible mohair teddy bears, she has been designing and creating the teddies for over 30 years. They have been featured in several US magazines, including Teddy Bear and Friends and Teddy Bear Review and in several overseas publications, with an emphasis on some unique innovations and mixing of media.
During the time that she was creating teddy bears, in 2002 Irene discovered the art of needle felting. The use of wool fibers to sculpt became part of the teddy bears also, but as time went on it became apparent that this new art form was going to become a very large part of Irene’s creative process and she began to create sculptures that were beyond the teddy bears. She developed techniques that pushed her to continue designing and developing. Most of her work makes use of mixing her media. Needle felting itself was new to most people, so Irene was called on to demonstrate and educate at many shows. She has also developed needle felting classes which teach the how to, but also using imagination and technique to create everything from 3D sculpture to embellishment and using fiber to create 2D fiber paintings and shadow boxes to allow for deeper dimensional paintings.
Irene is originally from Long Island, NY and relocated to the Asheville area in 2014, with her husband and her “fur-family”.
Irene teaches classes in the art of needle felting and has taught in many locations including Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts (Gatlinburg TN) at Southeast Fiber Forum Association Fiber Forum, Tryon School of Arts and Crafts, SEFAA (Southeast Fiber Arts Alliance, Atlanta GA) as well as many other locations. She also gives presentations on the art of needle felting. She is also a member of WNCFHG, Heritage Weavers and Fiber Arts of WNC, Local Cloth and the Go Figure Guild.
Register for Irene Heckel-Volpe
February 28, 2023 | Mary Burgess
generously sponsored by Barbara Decker
Mary Burgess is an Australian hand weaver with a focus on memory and mourning. She runs the Woven Memories project from her studio in Melbourne. Mary has partnered with the Hong Kong University Social Work Department researching the impact of hand weaving on grief, been Artist in Residence in hospitals, and exhibited in Paris and Rome. She designs and weaves items to honour loved family members who have died. Mary uses the clothes of the person who has died. She deconstructs these textiles and works with her clients to weave something that speaks of the life of the person into the future. Examples include cushions, baby blankets, bed spreads and scarves. There is a transformative process at work both in the material and psychological as new fabrics are created from cloth worn in a past life, encompassing experiences that can be held and contemplated without words.
March 7, 2023 | Liz Spear
March 14, 2023 | Pat Hilts
March 21, 2023 | Al Canner
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generously sponsored by Tabby Tree Weaver
With Guest Host Daryl Lancaster
Al Canner began creating macramé works, both wall-hanging and sculptural, in the 1970s. Since his retirement from professional pursuits in 2013, he has devoted much of his energy to knotting, usually producing five or six works each year. His pieces have been shown at local, national, and international juried exhibits.
Some of his works incorporate found objects, and many are inspired by nature. Color plays a central role in all the pieces, which commonly combine fiber made of cotton, hemp, jute, and rattail. Rather than rely on an infrastructure for support or shape, his pieces depend solely on the robust strength of the knots themselves, almost always the humble double half-hitch.
Completely self-taught, he has developed techniques for achieving the results he intends while regularly surrendering to the instruction offered by the cords passing through his hands.
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March 28, 2023 | Sarah Lasswell
April 4, 2023 | Peggy Hart
generously sponsored by Rebecca Hebert to acknowledge the Weavers Guild of Greater Baltimore
With Guest Host Dianne Totten
Peggy Hart is a production weaver and teacher who designs, produces, and markets hundreds of blankets each year, including custom blankets for sheep and alpaca farmers using their own yarn. She attended the Rhode Island School of Design, worked as a weaver in one of the last mills in Rhode Island, and has woven for the last thirty years on Crompton and Knowles W-3 looms. She has a special affinity for wool, and her book Wool: Unraveling an American Story of Artists and Innovation was published in December of 2017. Since then, she has been studying wool quilts and the fabrics therein.
April 11, 2023 | Emily Dvorin
generously sponsored by Rebecca Hebert in honor of Sara Bixler, Tom Knisley, and all of the instructors and volunteers at Red Stone Glen
Emily Dvorin never imagined she would stumble upon an artistic passion later in life. As a child, she was encouraged to pursue a “sensible” career. To that end, she studied hard, married young, and became a 3rd grade teacher. When her husband’s job brought them to California, her life took two important turns. She partnered with a friend to open a contemporary crafts store in San Anselmo and also discovered macrame! Her love for fiber art was launched! From her first basket-making workshop in the basement of the old Academy of Sciences building in San Francisco, she was certain that basketry and three-dimensional art were her true passions.
Today she’s proud to say that after countless hours spent creating vessels out of just about everything, Emily has developed what she believes is her own unique interpretation of the traditional craft of basket making. With a nod to humor, a passion for innovation, and a reverence for engineering, architecture, and aesthetic harmony, Emily has been fortunate enough to build an award-winning career transforming mundane things, such as cable ties and plastic bags, into contemporary pieces of fine art.
Emily’s work is exhibited widely across the country, and she regularly participates in booth shows and open studios events. In addition, Emily teaches monthly classes and travels for speaking engagements and various consulting opportunities. Most importantly, Emily continues to create with a passion that’s as vibrant and abundant as the everyday items that inspire her art.
April 18, 2023 | Brenda Osborn
generously sponsored by the Handweavers Guild of Connecticut
Brenda Osborn has been weaving for more than 45 years since she took a college semester class in 1976. In the late 1990s, she turned her attention to tapestry weaving, and shortly afterward she joined the Wednesday Group, whose members were devoted tapestry weavers, led by Archie Brennan and Susan Martin Maffei. The Wednesday Group exhibited together and collaborated on several projects for more than a dozen years, until the group dissolved in 2015. Brenda collaborated with Archie Brennan over the course of more than a decade to document his life and work in a book which was released in 2022 by Schiffer Publishing.
In the 1990s Brenda began to make kumihimo on both the marudai and takadai, under the tutelage of Rodrick Owen. Her current tapestry work combines traditional Gobelins tapestry techniques with kumihimo.
Brenda has participated in numerous exhibitions:
The American Tapestry Alliance Biennial
Handweavers Guild of America’s juried show at Convergence®
New England Weavers’ Seminar
Mid-Atlantic Fiber Association’s juried exhibition
She has also participated in exhibitions in northern Europe and has received numerous awards from the Handweavers Guild of America and New England Weavers’ Seminar.
Brenda has taught weaving and given programs to guilds in the New York/New Jersey area and southern New England, and she has taught ongoing classes at local fine craft schools in Connecticut. She has maintained a blog about fibers arts for more than a decade.
April 25, 2023 | Maria Sigma
generously sponsored by Jacksonville Weavers Guild, Inc. in memory of Barbara Wroten and Sandy Stranahan
Maria Sigma is an award-winning textile designer and weaver specializing in zero waste, ethical hand-woven textiles for interiors. She studied at the Chelsea College of Art & Design and, after graduating in 2014, developed her own weaving practice in London. She is the author of Weaving: The Art of Sustainable Textile Creation and teaches a “Weaving from Waste” workshop.
She’s collaborated with interior designers, architects, fashion designers, furniture makers, magazines and galleries such as Susie Atkinson Interior Design Studio, MAKE Hauser & Wirth Somerset Gallery, and Hole & Corner Magazine.
Inspired by her Greek heritage, love for math, and craftsmanship, Maria makes vibrant, but minimal, contemporary textiles. She strives to decrease yarn waste and unnecessary cuts, carbon footprints, the use of machinery, water and electricity. By adhering to a ‘zero waste’ philosophy, she aspires to make hand-weaving an even more sustainable craft.
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May 2, 2023 | Connie Lippert
generously sponsored by Tapestry Weavers South
Connie Lippert’s work has been exhibited in 30 states. She has received several artist grants from the South Carolina Arts Commission. Her work is represented in museum, corporate, academic, and private collections and is widely published. Her tapestries are represented in several new books, including Tapestry Design Basics and Beyond by Tommye Scanlin, The Art is the Cloth by Micala Sidore and in The Art of Tapestry Weaving by Rebecca Mezoff. Connie’s journey with weaving is documented in a book by author Carole Green in Connie Lippert: A Wedge Weaver’s Storied Cloth. She has taught wedge weave workshops and given seminars across the United States.
May 9, 2023 | Cally Bookergenerously sponsored by Weaving Friends
Cally Booker weaves on the top floor of a converted jute mill on Scotland’s East Coast. Weaving can be meticulously planned or improvised at the loom, and Cally finds that a mix of these approaches appeals to the different parts of her nature. Creatively, she is drawn to places at the edge, where land and water meet, and in her work explores lines and boundaries, positive and negative, using layered structures which hide and reveal. She combines drawing, data and digital tools with the slow processes of hand-dyeing and hand-weaving to create cloth which holds stories. Cally’s work has been exhibited around the UK and internationally. She is a member of the Society of Designer Craftsmen and a past president of Complex Weavers. Cally is passionate about making things by hand and shares her love of weaving through The Weaving Space, a programme of resources and workshops based online.
May 16, 2023 | Lauren Stichweh
generously sponsored by Crossborders in Memory of Ken Allen
Lauren Stichweh is a transmedia artist and textile designer currently based in Athens, Georgia. She works primarily in handweaving and has recently begun experimenting with more sculptural works. The abstract patterns and bold color combinations of her work create a world to explore identity, peering through the lens of childhood memories, queer experiences, and the scope of human connection. She received her BFA in Fabric Design from the Lamar Dodd School of Art at the University of Georgia in 2022. Lauren's piece received the third place award and Complex Weavers award in HGA's Vistas Along the Appalachian Trail Yardage Exhibit at Convergence® 2022 in Knoxville, Tennessee.
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May 23, 2023 | Nithikul Nimkulrat
generously sponsored by Harriett E. Ringold
Nithikul Nimkulrat (she/her) is a Thai, Toronto-based textile artist, researcher, and educator who intertwines textile practice with academic research, focusing on experiential knowledge in hands-on craft processes. Before joining Ontario College of Art & Design as an Associate Professor in Material Art & Design and currently Acting Chair of the program, Nithikul taught full-time at the Estonian Academy of Arts (Estonia, 2013–2018) and Loughborough University (UK, 2011–2013), and part-time at Aalto University (Finland, 2004–2010), where she earned a doctorate in 2009. While her creative work has received awards and been exhibited internationally, her research has been published in peer-reviewed publications and presented in international conferences. Her recent books include Crafting Textiles in the Digital Age and her forthcoming book is Craft and Design Practice from an Embodied Perspective.
Register for Nithikul Nimkulrat
May 30, 2023 | Karen Hampton
generously sponsored by Fancy Fibers
Karen Hampton is a conceptually based fiber artist, addressing issues of colorism and kinship. She is recognized as a figurative storyteller weaving together textures and colors of the ancient world with an imagined future. Material and imagery are part of her methodology to access her ancestral and personal heritage. Using her training as a weaver/fiber artist with her training in anthropology, she synthesizes the weaver's role with that of a griot, the storyteller. Hampton's art practice easily flows between different fiber surfaces and materials.