Chris Acton (January 3, 2023)
generously sponsored by Supporters of Indie Fiber Arts

Watch Video

Chris Acton randomly took a weaving class in 2005 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

Gasali Adeyemo (August 23, 2022)

generously sponsored by Contemporary Handweavers of Houston

Watch Video

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.

Dawn Ahlert (July 25, 2023)

generously sponsored by Springfield Fiber Artists

Watch Video

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 contributed 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.

Andrea Alexander with guest host Katy P. Clements (September 24, 2024)

generously sponsored by the New York Guild of Handweavers

Liz Alpert Fay (September 19, 2023)

generously sponsored by Patricia Jordan

Watch Video

Liz Alpert Fay received a degree in Textile Design from the Program in Artisanry at Boston University in 1981. For years she created art quilts, exhibiting nationally and in Japan. These can be found in private and corporate collections and many publications. In 1998 Liz became intrigued with the traditional rug hooking and began pushing the art form in new directions. The artist’s studio practice has evolved to include innovative contemporary hand-hooked rugs and large-scale installations, sometimes incorporating a variety of textile techniques, and making use of mixed media materials. Embroidery, punch needle embroidery, and various hand quilting and stitching techniques can often be found within the same piece. These award-winning works have appeared in many juried shows, invitational museum exhibitions, and private and museum collections.

Corey Alston (September 26, 2023)

generously sponsored by National Basketry Organization

Watch Video

Corey Alston is a fifth generation Sweetgrass Basket Weaver. He currently runs the family business in the Charleston City Market. Sweetgrass Basket Weaving has been a major part of the Gullah Geechee Culture, dating back to days of Enslavement. This coastal artform has been recognized as the South Carolina State Handcraft and has been known to be kept alive the longest along the Sweetgrass Basket Makers Highway of South Carolina. This skill is one of the rare arts of our country that is found nowhere else in America. Gullah Sweetgrass Baskets are a national treasure.

Cathryn Amidei (February 15, 2022)

generously sponsored by Weavers' Guild of Rochester, Inc.

Watch Video

Cathryn Amidei received an 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.

Venancio Aragon (October 4, 2022)

generously sponsored by Weavers' Guild of St. Louis, in Memory of Dorothy Haddock

Watch Video

Venancio Aragon weaves on an upright tension loom, a technology of Indigenous origin. He views his loom as a powerful connection to culture, identity, and history. His quest to learn and preserve his peoples’ textile traditions has led to an ongoing journey of piecing together fragments of memory, oral histories, and archaeological materials into his work. His textiles draw on ancient techniques once developed for utilitarian needs and purposes. He fuses bold geometric designs with polychromatic saturation to reflect his individual and technical freedom of expression. He views his tapestries as a living record of the cultural survival of his people and as a testament to the current vitality of his heritage. Each tapestry he creates is unique not only to him but to the genre of Navajo textiles his work is descended from.

Tabitha Arnold (November 1, 2022)

generously sponsored by South Coast Weavers and Spinners Guild in honor of the life of Eva McCracken

Watch Video

Tabitha Arnold makes labor-intensive art. She studied painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia, then transitioned into weaving and punch needle embroidery. Her meticulous, tactile tapestries speak to the radical past and ongoing struggle that threads all working people together. She’s inspired by the history of the labor movement, as well as her own direct experiences as a worker, organizer, and artist coming of age during a wave of unionization and class consciousness. Arnold’s textiles were recently featured in Jacobin Magazine, Hyperallergic, and on this year's issue covers of Dissent Magazine. She has completed residencies at Glen Foerd, Philadelphia, and Cortex Frontal, Arraiolos, Portugal. In 2022, Arnold was selected for the American Craft Council's Emerging Artist Cohort. She now lives and works in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Elizabeth Ashdown (February 27, 2024)

generously sponsored by FiberArt.STUDIO in Bethesda, MD

Watch Video

One of only a few hand passementerie artists working in the UK today, Elizabeth Ashdown combines traditional and endangered craft skills with a contemporary aesthetic to create intriguing, energetic, and playful artworks and bespoke lengths of passementerie. Working from her studio in London, Elizabeth creates work for a diverse range of clients including creating hand-woven, bespoke artwork commissions for private collectors, creating artworks for exhibitions, and weaving bespoke passementerie lengths. Elizabeth has exhibited her passementerie artworks both nationally and internationally. In 2023, Elizabeth was awarded the first Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust ADAM Architecture Scholarship for passementerie.

Becky Ashenden (January 30, 2024)

generously sponsored by Ruby the Wonder Dog

Watch Video

Becky Ashenden owns Vävstuga Weaving School in Shelburne, Massachusetts where, since 1991, she has taught Swedish Weaving, using traditional equipment and techniques. Becky’s 1981 visit to Sätergläntan Institutet in Sweden provided her an introduction to the Swedish textile world. This training gave her the motivation and passion to pursue weaving as a career. The following 13 years of production and sales allowed her to build a unique set of skills in the theory and practice of weaving. Through decades of teaching, Becky has formulated her courses to provide maximum exposure to her techniques and expertise at the loom. Her natural need to provide warm hospitality, including home-cooked meals within a cozy environment, is well satisfied at Vävstuga. Becky’s Vävstuga Press allows her to be involved in many publishing projects, including translating weaving books from Swedish to English and republishing Swedish weaving books that have gone out of print.

Karen Baker (June 13, 2023)

generously sponsored by Peters Valley School of Craft

Watch Video

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.

Suzi Ballenger (March 12, 2024)

generously sponsored by A Place to Weave

Watch Video

Born and raised in Indiana, Suzi Ballenger, MFA, is a Rhode Island handweaver, fiber artist, and educator known for thinking outside the box. She has a curiosity for material that stimulates her language of craft, believing the fullest expression of a fiber can be realized through observation, rhythm, and structure. This communication breaks boundaries to reveal unexpected beauty and inspiration. When not in the studio Suzi can be found outside in the garden, swimming in the ocean, and walking on local trails.

Loren Batt (October 19, 2021)

generously sponsored by Greener Shades

Watch Video

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.

May 21, 2024: Paula Becker

generously sponsored by Woodland Weavers and Spinners Guild

Watch Video

Paula Stebbins Becker is a fiber artist, textile designer, and educator residing in Rhode Island. She studied Textile Design at University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and earned an MFA in Fiber from Cranbrook Academy of Art. Paula researched and hand wove a series of reproduction curtains, originally designed and woven by Studio Loja Saarinen at Cranbrook. In 2022, she returned to Cranbrook to “re-weave” one of Loja’s curtains. She has taught TD/Fiber at Philadelphia College of Textiles and Science and Rhode Island School of Design and is currently the Fibers MFA advisor and PT Faculty at UMass Dartmouth. Paula creates artworks that are reproduced as woven, printed and embroidered textiles. She designs and weaves custom textiles and artworks and her weavings have been exhibited in the United States and Taiwan. Paula’s work was recently featured in the book Mendings by Megan Sweeney.

Marcelyn Bennett-Carpenter (January 2, 2024)

generously sponsored by PLY Spinners Guild

Watch Video

Marcelyn Bennett-Carpenter is an interdisciplinary fiber artist and educator. Marcelyn earned an MFA in Fiber from Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2003. She served as the Artist-in-Residence of the Kingswood Weaving Studio from 2003 to 2023. She taught at Haystack Mountain School of Craft in Maine and Penland School of Craft in North Carolina, attended the Open Residency at Haystack, and was a recent Good Hart Artist-in-Residence. She is also co-founder of the Namtenga Soundo Babisi Studio, an active weaving co-operative in Burkina Faso, West Africa, that was established in 2007. Bennett-Carpenter maintains an active practice through her studio in Michigan and exhibits throughout North America. Recent work includes a large-scale installation for the Detroit Symphony Orchestra Fisher Music Center.

Joan Berner (August 31, 2021)
generously sponsored by Yarn Barn of Kansas

Watch Video

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 taught at HGA's Convergence^® conference that took place in July 2022 in Knoxville.

Mary Berry (May 31, 2022)
generously sponsored by Spokane Handweavers Guild

Watch Video

Mary Berry is the Owner and Resident Teacher at the Fancy Fibers Fiber Arts Center in northeast Texas. Formerly a middle school teacher, she now teaches weaving, spinning, dyeing, rug hooking, and rug punch in her shop and at fiber festivals nationwide. Her Fiber Arts Center sells supplies and equipment for the crafts she teaches, as well as spinning fiber from the Shetland sheep, Angora goats, and Suri alpacas that she raised for 12 years. For Mary, every day is an opportunity to create something beautiful.

Bryana Bibbs (January 23, 2024)

generously sponsored by Weavers Guild of the North Shore

Watch Video

Bryana Bibbs is a Chicago-based artist who works at the intersection of textiles, painting, and community-based practices. Bryana earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts with an emphasis in Fiber and Material Studies at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She is the founder of The We Were Never Alone Project - A Weaving Workshop for Victims and Survivors of Domestic Violence and serves on the Surface Design Association’s Education Committee. Bryana has exhibited at galleries and museums such as Chicago Artists Coalition, the Museum of Science and Industry, Praxis Fiber Workshop, Purple Window Gallery, and George Marshall Store Gallery. Recent awards and residencies include the Lunder Institute for American Art Summer Residential Fellowship, Surf Point Foundation Artist Residency, and Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts Winter Pentaculum.

Boisali Biswas (September 28, 2021)

generously sponsored by Michigan League of Handweavers

Watch Video

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 melded through her art.

Cally Booker (May 9, 2023)
generously sponsored by Weaving Friends

Watch Video

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 that hide and reveal. She combines drawing, data, and digital tools with the slow processes of hand-dyeing and hand-weaving to create cloth that 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 program of resources and workshops based online.

Natalie Boyett (November 26, 2024)

generously sponsored in Memory of Mark Jacobson

Watch Video

Natalie Boyett founded The Chicago Weaving School twenty years ago. She is a visual artist who primarily uses cloth to create sculptural abstract forms.

As a teacher, Natalie seeks to give new weavers a grounding in the fundamentals, but always with a mind open to new discovery and unique expression. She teaches daily loom weaving classes to weavers working at all levels of experience, as well as monthly basketry workshops.

Heavenly Bresser (March 9, 2021)

generously sponsored by the 2020-21 HGA Board of Directors

Watch Video

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 of her favorite things. She teaches classes for a local spinning guild and 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.

Edwina Bringle (December 13, 2022)

generously sponsored by Penland School of Craft

Watch Video

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.

Elizabeth Buckley (February 20, 2024)

generously sponsored by Camilyn K. Leone

Watch Video

Elizabeth Buckley is a second-generation tapestry artist and teacher of over 50 years. Elizabeth teaches online to an international student base and in person at regional weaving conferences, retreat centers, and weaving guilds around the USA. She draws from multiple tapestry traditions to provide her students with the technique vocabulary for finding and expressing their own unique voice. Her work evolved from using techniques of the Mexican and Rio Grande traditions to those of French tapestry. She further honed her skills in Aubusson, France. With her degree in art, Elizabeth brings to the classroom her deep grounding in design principles and color theory that specifically apply to tapestry. Her tapestries have a lengthy exhibition history, including 2023’s American Tapestry Biennial 14, where her work won the second place Teitelbaum award. Elizabeth and her work have been featured in Fiber Art Now, and books by Carol K. Russell, Micala Sidore, and Tommye Scanlin.

Abraham Buddish (May 17, 2022)

generously sponsored by Suanne Pasquarella, supporting weavers of the future

Watch Video

Abraham Buddish is a fiber artist, craftsman, and professional Textile Designer. He began his fiber journey at age eight after receiving an Angora goat. His fascination with fiber, animals, and textile techniques flourished throughout his childhood and he found community in the Weavers Guild of Greater Kansas City. Abraham received a BFA in Crafts with an emphasis in Fiber and Textile Design from the College for Creative Studies, Detroit, MI. Abraham works for Brentano inc. (upholstery, drapery, & wallcovering) in Wheeling, IL and with help from his parents maintains a herd of fiber goats and sheep in Kansas. His artwork often explores the many qualities related to the human experience and aims to portray narratives involving the physical and spiritual being. He has had the privilege to showcase his artwork on the national and international levels.

Mary Burgess (February 28, 2023)

generously sponsored by Barbara Decker   

Watch Video

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 to research the impact of hand weaving on grief, has been an Artist in Residence in hospitals, and exhibited in Paris and Rome. She designs and weaves items to honor 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 in the future. Examples include cushions, baby blankets, bedspreads, and scarves. There is a transformative process at work both in the material and psychologically as new fabrics are created from cloth worn in a past life, encompassing experiences that can be held and contemplated without words.

Al Canner (March 21, 2023)

with Guest Host Daryl Lancaster

generously sponsored by Tabby Tree Weaver

Watch Video

Al Canner began creating macramé works, both wall-hanging and sculptural, in the 1970s. Since he retired 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 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.

May 28, 2024: Jacqui Carey

generously sponsored by The Braid Society

Watch Video

Whilst attending an art foundation course, Jacqui Carey discovered that weaving combined her love of mathematics and art. This led to a BA (Hons) degree in woven textiles. Here, Jacqui studied a range of related subjects, including braid making. Her passion for working with complex weaves enabled her to start unravelling the mysteries of kumihimo, and she has specialized in the subject since graduating in 1985. Her work as a practicing craftsperson is known worldwide, and her knowledge shared through teaching and numerous publications. Jacqui’s creative work pushes out the boundaries beyond the traditional, whilst making connections between seemingly diverse subjects, interlacing both the material and the intangible. Jacqui continues to broaden her scope in analyzing historic structures and techniques and is now also recognized for her groundbreaking discoveries within English historical embroidery.

Deborah Chandler (October 18, 2022)

generously sponsored by Weave A Real Peace

Watch Video

Deborah Chandler’s adult life story seems complicated but think of it as a wheel. At the hub is weaving, and the rim is her rolling through life, first as Debbie Redding, then as Deborah Chandler. The spokes – that’s where the good stuff is. They include all the following, and maybe more: shop owner, student, teacher, guild member, writer, editor, and publisher, for- and non-profit administrator, production weaver, fair trade advocate, founder of quite a few projects, explorer. In her first 50 years she was based in Colorado more than anywhere else, then she moved to Guatemala, where she has been since the year 2000. She loves looms because they do not require electricity, and still does all her drafting on graph paper with a pencil. She’s been called a Luddite more than once, but her resistance to technology does not go so far as trying to destroy it, rather she just leaves it to others. And hey – she has even learned to work with Zoom!

Cael Chappell (August 15, 2023)

generously sponsored by National Basketry Organization

Watch Video

Cael Chappell has been working with basket weavers in Africa since 1991. In 2017 he started weaving his own baskets, primarily using waxed linen thread. Because of his innate understanding of basketry, he quickly developed his own unique style of whimsical weaving. His baskets exhibit personality and life which engages viewers. Cael was selected as one of Fiber Art Network’s 20 Emerging Artists in 2020. His baskets were featured by the National Basketry Organization in a museum exhibit in 2019. One of his pieces was selected for the Handweaver Guild of America’s Small Expressions traveling show. His work has been featured in many other exhibitions and publications. He often does presentations to weaving guilds and groups across the country.

Tien Chiu (March 30, 2021)

generously sponsored by Marcy Petrini & Terry Dwyer

Watch Video

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.

Karen Clancy (September 20, 2022)

generously sponsored by Williamsburg Spinners and Weavers Guild

Watch Video

For Karen Clancy, using her hands to create has been a lifetime of exploration. From sewing her own clothes in 4H to painting, crocheting, and woodworking. Nothing really fed the soul until she discovered weaving and spinning…dyeing came a bit later. Dabbling in different methods of weaving, tiny looms, triangular and rectangular looms, potholder looms, of course, and then floor looms. Many workshops and classes later, she was hired into the weaving shop at Colonial Williamsburg. Being with the Foundation now for 34 years, she has worn many hats, but this is her home. Karen has taught many apprentices and journeyman to spin, weave, and natural dye using original 18th century sources and has created hands on programming for guests and special interest groups. Additionally, Karen has co-taught at the John C. Campbell Folk School. Karne’s sociology degree with math and art focuses has served her well as a teacher, mentor, student, and craftsman. She has overcome obstacles like severe psoriatic arthritis by having fiber as a go-to keep her going. Karen looks forward to setting up her studio at home and focusing on honing and sharpening her skills to better understand past practices and how they can be relevant still today.

Majeda Clarke (June 8, 2021)

generously sponsored by Schiffer Publishing  

Watch Video

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.

Lucienne Coifman (February 16, 2021)

generously sponsored by Made in America Yarns

Watch Video

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.

Kristin Crane (October 1, 2024)

generously sponsored by Claudia Cocco

Watch Video

Kristin Crane is a weaver and designer living in Providence, Rhode Island. She graduated from Philadelphia College of Textiles and Science (today Thomas Jefferson University) with a degree in textile design with a concentration in wovens. Kristin began her career designing jacquard fabrics for the residential home furnishings market with mills in the United States and China. Her designs were sold primarily to jobbers such as Robert Allen, Kravet, and Duralee. Today she is the Director of Marketing for Design Pool, an online pattern library, and maintains an art practice from her home studio. Kristin loves to travel and is fascinated with what cloth tells us about a place and the people who live there. She weaves on a Macomber loom, has recently started to explore tapestry weaving, and sometimes weaves on the go with a tiny Hello Loom.

Betty Davenport (July 23, 2024)

generously sponsored by Desert Fiber Arts

Watch Video

Betty Davenport is basically self-taught. She started out learning weaving and spinning from books and building her own frame loom and inkle loom. Once her local guild began, she had more resources. She started with a rigid heddle loom and was fascinated with the use of a pick-up stick to create textures. She decided to explore this more with specialized study for the Handweaver's Guild Certificate of Excellence (COE). The COE opened up opportunities for publishing the study as a book and designing projects for Handwoven Magazine. She likes the freedom of designing texture weaves on the rigid heddle and translating them to her 16-harness AVL Dobby.

Nick DeFord (July 11, 2023)

generously sponsored by Rebecca Hebert

Watch Video

Nick DeFord is an artist, educator, and arts administrator who resides in Knoxville, TN. He received his MFA from Arizona State University and an MS and BFA from the University of Tennessee. Nick has exhibited at the Bascom Center for Visual Arts, The Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, and the Knoxville Museum of Art. His artwork and writing have been published in Surface Design Journal, Elephant Magazine, Hayden Ferry Review, and Willow Springs. Currently, Nick is the Chief Programs Officer at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, as well as a board member for the National Basketry Organization. He also regularly teaches fiber workshops, with past workshops at the University of Louisville, East Carolina University, Arrowmont, and Penland School of Craft. In the fall of 2018, he was a resident at the Rauschenberg Residency in Captiva, Florida. Additionally, he has been a reviewer for the Ohio Arts Council and a juror for the American Tapestry Biennial 13.

Cassie Dickson (May 18, 2021)

generously sponsored by Yarn Barn of Kansas

Watch Video

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 recorded for video 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.

Sean Dougall & Andrew Paulson (August 3, 2021)

generously sponsored by Schacht Spindle Company

Watch Video

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.

Allie Dudley (August 9, 2022)

generously sponsored by Weavers' Guild of St. Louis, in Memory of Dorothy Haddock

Watch Video

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.”

Emily Dvorin (April 11, 2023)

generously sponsored by Rebecca Hebert in honor of Sara Bixler, Tom Knisley, and all of the instructors and volunteers at Red Stone Glen 

Watch Video

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 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 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 studio 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.

Dawn Edwards (October 26, 2021)
generously sponsored by Michigan League of Handweavers

Watch Video

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.

Catharine Ellis (September 6, 2022)

generously sponsored by Schiffer Craft Publishing

Watch Video

Catharine Ellis has been a weaver and a dyer for over 40 years. After three decades of teaching the Fiber Program at Haywood Community College in North Carolina, she is now dedicated to studio work, focusing on natural dye processes. She also does select teaching, in the U.S. and internationally. Recent projects include teaching natural dyeing in Guatemalan through Mayan Hands. Catharine is the originator of the woven shibori process and author of the instructional book, Woven Shibori (Interweave Press, 2005). Her textile work is shown extensively in exhibitions and shows. She is currently working collaboratively with the Oriole Mill in North Carolina to produce specialty Jacquard fabrics. Catharine is actively involved in the Surface Design Association and the World Shibori Network, and she is a founding member of the Southeastern Fiber Educators Association. She has served on the boards of Penland School of Crafts and the Center for Craft, Creativity, and Design and established the Western North Carolina Textile Study Group in 2012.

Melissa English Campbell (August 24, 2021)

generously sponsored by Weavers Guild of St. Louis in memory of Laura Blumenfeld

Watch Video

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’s 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.

Evee Erb (July 20, 2021)

generously sponsored by Austin School of Fiber Arts

Watch Video

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, Evee studied ceramic sculpture in Florence, Italy at SACI College of Art and Design. After receiving her degree, Evee 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.

Deb Essen (September 3, 2024)

generously sponsored by Celebrating 50 Years, Jacksonville Weavers' Guild

Watch Video

Deb Essen lives, weaves, and runs her business dje handwovens in the Bitterroot Valley, nestled in the Rocky Mountains of western Montana. In 2004, Deb achieved the Certificate of Excellence (COE) in Handweaving - Level 1 through the Handweaver’s Guild of America. In 2011, she was inducted into the Montana Circle of American Masters in Folk and Traditional Art. Her book, Easy Weaving with Supplemental Warps, was published originally by Interweave Press in 2016. In 2022, the book was re-released as an expanded revised edition by Schiffer Publishing with more projects and weave structures. She has recorded five weaving videos, available through Long Thread Media, ranging from supplemental warps to profile drafting. She has written multiple feature articles for Handwoven and Little Looms magazines. Deb is passionate about teaching about the wonders of weaving and teaches at shops, guilds, regional and national conferences, and festivals.

Leslie Fesperman (September 5, 2023)

generously sponsored by Dedrea Greer

Watch Video

Founder and director of The Yadkin Valley Fiber Center, Leslie Fesperman loves to share her passion for the fiber arts through ongoing teaching and programing for weavers. She has woven miles of samples, and completed the Olds College Master Weaving Program, where she researched rags and the history of rag style weaving, which brought about an awareness of the textile industry and worldwide textile waste. In her private practice, Leslie is beginning to explore using natural recycled yarns in weaving.

Donna Foley Brush (November 8, 2022)

generously sponsored by Southwest Women's Fiber Art Collective

Watch Video

Donna Foley Brush is a weaver, dyer and, for many years, a shepherd. Although she began her career working in the woods on a Forest Ecology project, a weaving class at a local college changed her trajectory. Continuing with her passion for working with plants, she embarked on a self-study of native dye plants. To get all the nuance and beauty of the natural dyes on her fiber she experimented with different breeds of sheep wool. Once she worked with Lincoln Longwool fiber, she knew she had found her breed. She raised registered Lincoln sheep for more than twenty-five years and the custom-spun yarn from their wool, along with natural dyes, are the foundation of her main work – weaving contemporary Southwest tapestries. She did contract weaving of rayon chenille scarves for Frittelli & Lockwood Textiles where she learned valuable tips on being a production weaver. Donna enjoys passing on her absolute passion for weaving and dyeing to her students, both young and old. For many years she ran the weaving studio at Camp Treetops in Lake Placid, NY. She also created a Fiber Arts curriculum for Paul Smiths College and she has taught at various conferences throughout the U.S. including the Intermountain Weaving Conference and Convergence^®. She exhibits her work at art shows throughout the Southwest as well as at Wild West Weaving Gallery in Silver City, New Mexico.

Alex Friedman (November 12, 2024; Episode #200)

generously sponsored by Cheryl Riniker

Watch Video

While working as a model builder in an architectural office in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Alex Friedman took an evening weaving class and became instantly fascinated with the many possibilities of woven textiles. This led her to a job in New York City, weaving shaped tapestries for the bulkheads of a fleet of Pan Am 747 jumbo jets. Since then, Alex has maintained an active tapestry studio. By manipulating the warp, using eccentric weft, leaving slits, and/or adding embellishments, she creates unique dynamic surface movement.

She has participated in solo and juried exhibitions in the US and abroad, including the Textile Symposium in St. Petersburg, Russia. She was an Artist in Residence in Surrey, England and her tapestries have been featured in the Art in Embassies program. Her work has received awards and been published in numerous catalogs and recent textile books.

Alex served as the President and Co-Director of the American Tapestry Alliance, and currently serves on the Board of the Textile Arts Council at the deYoung Museum in San Francisco.

July 26, 2022: Eric Frisino
generously sponsored by Hudson-Mohawk Weavers’ Guild

Watch Video

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.

Tegan Frisino (July 5, 2022)

generously sponsored by Tabby Tree Weaver

Watch Video

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.

Sally Garner (December 20, 2022)

generously sponsored by Grace Tully

Watch Video

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.

Adrienne Gaskell (June 14, 2022)

generously sponsored by American Kumihimo Society

Watch Video

Adrienne Gaskell feels that her journey into jewelry making started in Miami, Florida, in the 1930s, when, her uncle, for whom she is named, first opened his import business that sold souvenirs and jewelry to Miami tourists. After twenty years as a marketing sales executive, Adrienne has crafted a second career in jewelry fabrication and instruction. In a field that has become fairly predictable, her unique combination of kumihimo braiding, bead weaving, and metal fabrication techniques places her extraordinary pieces in a class of their own. Being raised in a family of engineers means Gaskell is driven by the need for the process to be technically interesting. The engineering gene also influences her interest in finding new jewelry fabrication techniques. It is what first attracted her to kumihimo braiding, now one of the predominant techniques used in her work. Her mother, who taught her needlework and how to make her own clothing, was fond of saying that Adrienne was born with a needle in her hand.

Patrice George (November 19, 2025)

generously sponsored by Weaving Friends

Watch Video

Patrice George recently retired from the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) where she was Associate Professor in the Textile Development and Marketing Department for 18 years. She specialized in woven textile design, history of the textile industry, and sustainable solutions for textile production.

She fell in love with weaving as a high-school exchange student to Sweden; this interest grew at University of Michigan. Post-graduation, she spent a year exploring textiles in India, then studied traditional handweaving in Sweden.  In 1974, she  moved to NYC  to work as a handweaver/designer.

In 1979, she founded her studio, Patrice George Designs, specializing in woven fabrics for interiors. Patrice later developed courses in computer-aided woven design for the School of Visual Arts, Parsons and FIT. She taught digital woven design at the University of Industrial Arts in Helsinki, Finland, as a Fulbright Scholar. She has also worked with global textile development projects in Jamaica, Mexico, and Laos.

Murray Gibson (January 25, 2022)
generously sponsored by The Woolgatherers

Watch Video

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.

Liz Gipson (April 16, 2024)

generously sponsored by Weave A Real Peace

Watch Video

Smitten by small looms and big plans, Liz Gipson is a writer, weaver, teacher, and rigid-heddle weaving enthusiast who hosts Yarnworker, a popular site for rigid-heddle weavers, and the associated Yarnworker School, an online, community-funded classroom. Liz has published four books on rigid-heddle weaving and previously worked for Interweave, Schacht Spindle Company, and Craftsy in various editorial, marketing, and video production capacities. Liz embraces the idea that through weaving, we see all things—history, culture, science, technology, personal expression, economics, medicine, and so much more. It is the perfect medium for exploring mind, body, and spirit.  

June 25, 2024: Sam Goates

generously sponsored by Claudia Cocco in Memory of Irma Cocco

Watch Video

Sam Goates began her own journey around the world of the textile industry at the Glasgow School of Art, though the make-do-and-mend approach of her parents was the real beginning, with sewing, dressmaking, and handspinning. After graduation, a 20-year "holiday" in Australia followed, being paid to be creative and design woven textiles. In 2008 Sam swapped busy Sydney for the seas and skies of Scotland’s Moray Firth coast. She took on a range of project work, from freelance design to product development as well as training projects across the textile industry. The common theme was a desire to promote weaving and wool at both the industry and artisan level. In a rickety shed by a fishing harbour, Sam has brought into the world her very own mini-micro weaving mill, Woven In The Bone. Here she tends to her nursery of vintage machines and foot-treadle looms, each with their own cantankerous characters, cajoling them into life to produce artisan woollen cloth to export around the world. 

Rabbit Goody (May 10, 2022)

generously sponsored by Heddlecraft

Watch Video

Rabbit Goody knew how to weave from the very beginning, as if from some past life, or like someone who can pick up a musical instrument and play without thinking about it. She started weaving when she was in her late teens, without any real instruction, but it came very naturally to her. Her curiosity and interest in hand and early power technology was something that she developed throughout high school and college. The understanding of process – how things come into being – is the guiding question in all her work. After working for many years at the Farmers’ Museum in Cooperstown, NY as the head of Domestic Arts and as Assistant Curator for Textiles, she established the mill which has been producing fabrics for over 26 years. She has spent a great deal of time studying historic textiles in museum collections because being a curator has given her access to many, many collections. She has studied weavers’ draft books and has learned to read the weavers’ recipes and receipts from the past so that she can recreate textiles that have not been seen for hundreds of years. In addition to historic patterns, she designs very modern textiles that look as if they were hand woven but are in fact woven on our power looms.

Sarah Gotowka (June 27, 2023)

generously sponsored by Weave A Real Peace (WARP) 

Watch Video

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.

Rhiannon Griego (October 8, 2024)

generously sponsored by Vacation With An Artist

Watch Video

Rhiannon Griego, a textile artist based in Santa Fe, New Mexico, has found harmonic resonance in the philosophies of Saori Zen Weaving, a tradition she studied and has practiced for the last 10 years. In its free form, wabi-sabi nature has moved her to create dimensional landscapes and embrace the beauty of imperfection within her textiles. Her work is moved by the spirit of the land and the deserts of the American Southwest, which her lineage hails. Her Mexican, Tohono O’odham & Spanish heritage provides artistic portals through which she communes with her ancestors to bring forth the legacy of textiles as timeless objects of art. From the language of plants as medicine to dyeing material, Rhiannon’s reverence for the relationship between humans & land, soil & sky births the foundation to bring more beauty into the world through her art.

Karen Hampton (May 30, 2023)
generously sponsored by Fancy Fibers

Watch Video

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.

Peggy Hart (April 4, 2023)

with Guest Host Dianne Totten

generously sponsored by Rebecca Hebert to acknowledge the Weavers Guild of Greater Baltimore

Watch Video

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 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.

Linda Hartshorn (June 15, 2021)

generously sponsored by  Yarn Barn of Kansas 

Watch Video

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.

Sarah Haskell (January 4, 2022)

generously sponsored by Lunatic Fringe Yarns

Watch Video

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.

Jennie Hawkey (March 19, 2024)

generously sponsored by Carla Tilghman in honor of Elizabeth Howard

Watch Video

Jennie Hawkey is a weaver, weaving teacher, and the owner of Hopewell Weaving. She finds weaving to be endlessly fascinating and a wonderful creative outlet. Although weaving has been a long-time interest, teaching is Jennie’s passion. She teaches at her home in Central Illinois, online, and at various schools and conferences. She loves teaching weavers of all levels, but she especially loves teaching beginners, who bring enthusiasm and excitement to her classes. Recently, Jennie started a new weaving program for people with developmental disabilities, called Picket Fence Weavers. This talented group of fiber artists weaves rugs, tote bags and other items to sell. Volunteers and parents help finish products and prepare weaving materials. At Picket Fence Weavers, “We believe in the dignity of work, the beauty of art and the satisfaction of producing beautiful cloth by hand.”

Irene Heckel-Volpe (February 21, 2023)

generously sponsored by Myrna Lindstrom 

Watch Video

Irene Heckel-Volpe has creating collectible soft sculptures since 1986. Starting with collectible mohair teddy bears, she has been designing and creating teddies for over 30 years. They have been featured in several US magazines, including Teddy Bear and Friends, Teddy Bear Review, and 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 that 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.

Ana Lisa Hedstrom (February 6, 2024)

generously sponsored by Weavers Guild of Greater Baltimore

Watch Video

Ana Lisa Hedstrom’s signature shibori textiles are in the collections of the Cooper Hewitt, the Museum of Arts and Design, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the De Young Museum, the Oakland Museum, and the Racine Museum. She has completed public art commissions for the Emeryville City Hall in California, and the American Embassy in Brunei. Exhibitions include: group show at TAMA University, Tokyo; group show at Kansas University, 2022; Philadelphia Museum, 2019; one person show at the San Luis Obispo Museum of Art, 2017; The Box Project: The Cotsen Collection, Fowler Art Museum and the Textile Museum 2016 & 2017; Focus: Fiber 2016; Quilt Visions 2016; Quilt National 2015 & 2017; Materials Hard and Soft, Denton, Texas, 2014; International Shibori Symposium, Hangzhou, China, 2014. She is a frequent instructor at craft schools and international symposiums, has received two National Endowment for the Arts grants, and is a fellow of The American Craft Council.

Helena Hernmarck (July 13, 2021)

generously sponsored by Schiffer Publishing  

Watch Video

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.

David Heustess (May 24, 2022)

generously sponsored by Handweavers Guild of Nashville

Watch Video

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.

Sheila Hicks (November 29, 2022)

generously sponsored by Weavers Guild of St. Louis in memory of Dorothy Haddock

Watch Video

Sheila Hicks received BFA and MFA degrees from the Yale School of Art under the tutelage of Josef Albers. Awarded a Fulbright scholarship to paint in Chile, she photographed indigenous weavers and archeological sites in the Andes beginning an investigation into fiber as an artistic medium that Hicks continues to this day. Sheila Hicks’ earliest weaving exhibitions took place in the Galeria Antonio Souza, Mexico City (1961) and The Art Institute of Chicago (1963). Numerous solo exhibitions followed: Galerie Bab Rouah, Rabat, Morocco (1971); Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (1974); Lunds Konsthall, Lund, Sweden (1978); Israel Museum, Jerusalem (1980); Seoul Art Center (1991); and Uměleckoprůmyslové Museum, Prague (1992). A major retrospective, Sheila Hicks: 50 Years, debuted at the Addison Gallery of American Art in Andover, Massachusetts (2010) and traveled to the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia and the Mint Museum in Charlotte, North Carolina. Recent solo presentations include the exhibitions at Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino, Santiago, Chile (2019); The Bass, Miami Beach, FL (2019); Centre Pompidou, Paris, France (2018); Museo Amparo, Puebla, Mexico (2017); and Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, NE (2016). She also participates in numerous group and international perennial exhibitions, most Crafting America at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, AR (2021). Hicks has created monumental site-specific works for the Ford Foundation Headquarters and Federal Courthouse in New York; The Duke Endowment in Charlotte, North Carolina; King Saud University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey amongst others. Hicks’ work is in the permanent collections of Art Institute of Chicago; Tate Gallery, London; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Louis Vuitton Foundation, Paris; Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo; Museo de Bellas Artes, Santiago, Chile; Museum of Modern Art, the Jewish Museum, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. and the Pérez Art Museum, Miami. Hicks is the recipient of numerous awards including the Smithsonian Archives of American Art Medal (2010). She was named a Chevalier dans l’ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the government of France in 1987, and elevated to Officier in 1993. Additionally, she holds Honorary Doctorates from the Ecole nationale supérieure des Beaux Arts de Paris (2014) and the Rhode Island School of Design (1984). Sheila Hicks has resided and worked in Paris since 1964.

Heather Hietala (April 19, 2022)

generously sponsored by Fettah and Karen Anadol

Watch Video

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.

Pat Hilts (March 14, 2023)

with Guest Host Melvenea Hodges

generously sponsored by Madison Weavers Guild

Watch Video

Pat Hilts is best known as a historian of weaving. Her facsimiles, translations, and studies of rare German weaving books dating from the 17th and 18th centuries have been published as volumes of the journal Ars Textrina. Pat has produced commissioned wall hangings incorporating inspiration and technical insights developed from her studies. Between 1977 and 2018, she wove a series of nine liturgical banners for St. Benedict Center/Holy Wisdom Monastery. As a weaving teacher, Pat’s best-known classes are on interpreting the weaving notation found in early books and manuscripts and on restoring antique timber-frame looms. These were taught at the Home Textile Tool Museum in Pennsylvania, where she is currently curator. She has reconstructed several nearly forgotten historic loom harnesses, with the results appearing in several weaving magazines. Her favorite loom is an antique Swedish-style timber-frame loom, which she has used to weave all her commissioned pieces.

Melvenea Hodges (January 10, 2023)
generously sponsored by Weavers Guild of the North Shore

Watch Video

Melvenea Hodges is a Fiber Artist residing in 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.

Neal Howard (August 20, 2024)

generously sponsored by Anonymous

Watch Video

A North Carolina native, Neal Howard began her journey with color and fiber at an early age. At 69, she has over 30 years of professional experience weaving and dyeing silk. Neal holds a B.A. degree with a double major in Sociology and Psychology from Guilford College, an Associate’s degree in Professional Crafts/Fiber from Haywood Community College, and a Certificate in Theology from the School of Theology, the University of the South. Her award-winning work can be seen in private collections and venues across the United States including—as part of a collaboration with Sari Srulovich and Ruth Cox—the Judaic collection of the North Carolina Museum of Art. She is a member of Southern Highland Craft Guild and Piedmont Craftsmen, Inc. Neal teaches weaving, dyeing and Nuno felting at John C. Campbell Folk School and other regional arts organizations. Recently, Neal has returned to her maternal family roots, incorporating embroidery into her handwoven, hand-dyed, and nunofelted pieces. The various techniques and processes Neal employs have become for her as much a spiritual practice as a career. 

Pam Howard (December 6, 2022)

generously sponsored by Heddlecraft

Watch Video

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 is still 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.

Kira Dominguez Hultgren (September 7, 2021)

generously sponsored by Austin School of Fiber Arts

Watch Video

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 a part-time faculty at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in Fiber and Material Studies.

Giovanna Imperia (January 9, 2024)

generously sponsored by Heddlecraft

Watch Video

Giovanna Imperia is the author of Kumihimo Wire Jewelry and has written many articles on braiding and weaving. Her work has been shown in many juried and invitational national and international exhibits. Selected work has also been reproduced in textile and jewelry books and can be found in private and museum collections. Giovanna’s work focuses on the exploration of the tactile and organic nature of fiber while pushing the boundaries of the expected definition of body adornment and 3D objects. This is accomplished by actively involving the user through the concept of “transformation”—the idea of actively engaging the user with shaping and transforming the art piece. The use of wire is an integral part of this concept as it allows the piece to retain the chosen shape.

Carol Irving (February 22, 2022)
generously sponsored by Michigan League of Handweavers

Watch Video

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.

June 18, 2024: Susan Iverson

generously sponsored by Tapestry Weavers South

Watch Video

Susan Iverson lives and weaves in rural Virginia near the small town of Montpelier. She had a long career as a Professor in Craft/Material Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia. She served two terms on the Board of Directors for the American Tapestry Alliance, one of them as President. Susan earned an MFA from Tyler School of Art, Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and a BFA from Colorado State University in Ft. Collins, Colorado. Her work has been exhibited widely and she is included in many collections including the Art in Embassies Program, Capital One, the Avenir Museum, and the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC. Her new book, Tapestry with Pulled Warp: Inspiration, Technique, and the Creative Process, has just been released.

Vandana Jain (October 15, 2024)

generously sponsored by Dell Christy

Watch Video

Vandana Jain is an artist and textile designer based in Brooklyn, New York. She received her Bachelor’s from New York University and studied Textile Design at the Fashion Institute of Technology. After working in the industry for many years, she currently works for Intertwine Arts, teaching weaving to people with cognitive and physical disabilities. Recently, she has started making weavings and sculpture with found materials, both on and off the loom. She is interested in what we value as a society and as individuals, and how this intersects with craft and art. Vandana's work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally. Her work has been profiled in Artforum, The New York Times, Art Slant, Mumbai Boss, Kyoorius and Beautiful Decay. She was a Visual Arts Resident at Pioneer Works, Brooklyn in Fall 2023.

Carol James (May 25, 2021)

generously sponsored by Taproot Video Co-operative

Watch Video

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.

Jacqueline James (April 20, 2021)

generously sponsored by Meridian Mill House

Watch Video

Jacqueline James was born in Scotland, grew up in the U.S., and currently lives in York in the United Kingdom. She attended the Harrogate College of Art with a focus on rug weaving. Her focus has been on using natural, sustainable, soft, and durable materials such as wool, cotton and linen, but recently she has been exploring more exotic natural fibers such as silk, ramie, and banana fiber. She studied with Peter Collingwood and uses his shaft switching technique to produce her unique geometric designs. To achieve her signature color combinations and gradations, she hand-dyes her yarns. Jacqueline has been awarded public commissions including weaving for Westminster Abbey, York Minster, and the British Library. She has exhibited extensively and has won a variety of awards and grants.

Deborah Jarchow (September 21, 2021)

generously sponsored by Ashford Wheels & Looms

Watch Video

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.

Marlowe Katoney (July 16, 2024)

generously sponsored by Myrna Lindstrom

Watch Video

Marlowe Katoney is a Navajo weaver raised in Northern Arizona. He is based in Winslow, Arizona, and trained as a painter at the University of Arizona before turning to the fiber arts.  His textile work borrows from his classical 2D education as well as a multitude of cultural influences. He regularly employs traditional Navajo iconography and alludes to both Navajo culture and history and popular culture, with references to Japanese anime, street art, and Western modernist abstraction. His work bridges weaving and contemporary art, but also acknowledges the influence of Navajo abstraction on the new contemporary. Some of his artwork is featured in prominent public and private collections.

Christine Keller (December 27, 2022)

generously sponsored by Myrna Lindstrom

Watch Video

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.

Lisa Klakulak (August 8, 2023)

generously sponsored by a Fiber Art Enthusiast

Watch Video

Lisa Klakulak is an artist, writer and educator communicating with a fiber-based language under the guise of STRONGFELT. Processes of material accretion and densification is her dialect while spacing, layering, and agitating is her cadence. Klakulak creates variances in tension, compaction and contortion inspired by analogies between the structures and forces of geology and sociology. The movement and broadening of perspectives offered by travel has been and continues to be her ideation spring. Her works have ranged in format from carrying vessels, wearables and fine jewelry to wall work, figurative pieces, and sculpture over the past 30 years. Klakulak’s work has been recognized through American Craft Council and James Renwick Alliance Awards, and publications such as Fiber Arts, Surface Design Journal, Shuttle Spindle & Dyepot, Fiber Art Now and American Craft. Klakulak’s technical approaches to teaching wet felting has placed her workshops and online coursework in demand worldwide.

Tom Knisely (November 28, 2023)

generously sponsored by Weavers Guild of Greater Baltimore

Watch Video

Tom Knisely has made his career from his interest and love of textiles from around the world. Tom has been studying, collecting, and teaching others about weaving and spinning for more than four decades.

Gerhardt Knodel (June 1, 2021)

generously sponsored by Schiffer Publishing  

Watch Video

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.

Julie Kornblum (July 27, 2021)
generously sponsored by Austin School of Fiber Arts

Watch Video

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.

Denise Kovnat (March 2, 2021)

generously sponsored by the Whatcom Weavers Guild of Bellingham, WA, in memory of Leslie Comstock

Watch Video

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.

Annetta Kraayeveld (February 13, 2024)

generously sponsored by Carolina FiberFest

Watch Video

It’s hard for Annetta Kraayeveld to remember a time when she was not making something; she is a maker. In the early 1990s, she discovered basket weaving after stumbling upon a book and begging a lesson; she quickly began making baskets, experimenting, and teaching basketry. She has been teaching at fiber arts and basketry gatherings across North America since 2000. Over the years, Annetta’s work has won several awards and appeared in several national exhibits, including HGA’s 2023 Small Expressions. Annetta served as the National Basketry Organization Board President in 2022 & 2023. What started as a hobby soon became her life’s work. As a teacher, she focuses on mastery, basketry techniques and stretching perceived limits. As a maker, her work is somewhere between traditional and contemporary.

Penny Lacroix (March 5, 2024)

generously sponsored by Reno Fiber Guild

Watch Video

Penny Lacroix is a weaver, spinner, teacher, historian, manager, learner, creator and general lover of all things fiber. When she’s not actively learning something, she’s sharing with others in one way or another—making something by hand, demonstrating at historic events, or teaching a class. With past careers as an engineer, a mom, a museum educator, and a museum director, combined with her hobby as a historical reenactor, her worlds interweave in the creation of textiles and the study of historic textile tools. Penny is an active member of several local guilds. She lives in Westford, Massachusetts with her husband and their furry friends.

Robbie LaFleur (February 23, 2021)
generously sponsored by Meridian Mill House

Watch Video

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.

Daryl Lancaster (March 22, 2022)

generously sponsored by Grace Tully

Watch Video

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.

Sarah Lasswell (March 28, 2023)

generously sponsored by Handweavers Guild of Nashville

Watch Video

Sarah Lasswell is a willow casket weaver in the Appalachian foothills of North Carolina. She started growing willow on her farm in 2018 and learned to weave caskets from Mary Lauren Fraser in Vermont in 2020. The sustainability of willow, paired with a regional cottage industry that connects small family farms, artisan producers, and natural burial grounds, has resulted in beautiful community partnerships and support for the growing green burial movement. She welcomes clients to join her in the weaving of their own or their loved one’s casket and finds that the opportunity to participate in such a hands-on way offers a beautiful and healing experience.

Máximo Laura (January 17, 2023)
generously sponsored by Weave A Real Peace

Watch Video

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.

Demetrio Bautista Lazo (April 22, 2024)

generously sponsored by Textile Arts Los Angeles

Watch Video

Demetrio Bautista Lazo is considered by Mexican and international textile experts to be one of the best rug weavers and natural dyers of his generation. He began weaving at age seven at his grandfather’s side. Now aged 50, he has held solo exhibits and workshops in both Mexico and the US and has been featured in Zapotec Weavers (Museum of New Mexico Press) and Spin-Knit: Colorways (Interweave Press). Demetrio dyes his wool/mohair blend with locally grown plants plus cochineal, a small insect. Through experimentation, he has learned to combine dyes and use a variety of acid and base modifiers to achieve a rich and varied natural palette of over 300 colors for his innovative designs based on Mexican culture. 

Louise Lemieux Bérubé (October 24, 2023)

generously sponsored by Quebec Weavers Association

Watch Video

Born in Montréal, Louise Lemieux Bérubé has a B.A. from the Université du Québec à Montréal. She studied Jacquard weaving at Rhode Island School of Design. Her woven Jacquards have received numerous honors and have been exhibited and sold in Canada and in many countries. She co-founded the Montreal Centre for Contemporary Textiles in Montreal and served as its director from its opening until her retirement in 2012. She has inaugurated a gallery at MCCT and has curated numerous exhibitions on local and international artists’ works. She is the author of Le Tissage créateur, a comprehensive textbook on weaving, and the co-author, with Carole Greene, of Louise Lemieux Berube: Unwinding the Threads published in 2012.

Janice Lessman Moss (September 27, 2022)

generously sponsored by Illinois Prairie Weavers

Watch Video

Janice Lessman-Moss is a weaver who embraces the unique vocabulary of digital design in relation to the binary functioning of threads on the loom to create her art.  She has been awarded numerous Individual Artist Fellowships from the Ohio Arts Council beginning in 1984 and received an Arts Midwest/National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Crafts.  Lessman-Moss won the prestigious Governor’s Award for the Arts in Ohio in 2016, the Cleveland Arts Prize Lifetime Achievement Award in 2019, and a coveted United States Artists Fellowship also in 2019. Her work been presented throughout the United States and internationally, including solo exhibitions at the Kent State University Museum, Galleria Willa in Lodz, Poland, the Museum of Fine Art and Culture in Las Cruces, New Mexico, and Praxis Gallery in Cleveland.  Other exhibition highlights include: “Neo Geo,” at the Akron Art Museum; “Fiberarts International 2013 and 2016,” Society for Contemporary Craft and Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, Pittsburgh, PA; “New Material World,” Sheldon Museum, University of Nebraska, Lincoln; “Rijswijk Textile Biennial 2011,” Museum Rijswijk, Netherlands; the second and seventh ”Cheongju Juried Craft Exhibition,” Korea; and the first, second, third and fourth “International TECHstyle Art Biennial,” San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles, California.  A native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Lessman-Moss resides in Kent, Ohio where she is Emeritus Professor at Kent State University.

Suzie Liles (October 22, 2024)

generously sponsored by Heddlecraft

Watch Video

Suzie Liles is a life-long Oregonian who has four grown children and nine grandchildren. She loves traveling, whether it be in the tropics or the coolness of Iceland. Suzie is very enthusiastic and loves to share her knowledge. For over 35 years, she has taught weaving workshops and seminars for adults and children in the United States and Canada. She has been teaching at the Weavers' School with Madelyn van der Hoogt for 30 years. Suzie has a Master of Fine Arts in Fibers from the University of Oregon. She is a member of the Handweavers Guild of America and has written many articles for Handwoven Magazine. She is the owner of Eugene Textile Center and co-owner of Glimakra USA with her daughter Sarah Rambousek. In her "free time," she runs tours to Sweden and Egypt.

Connie Lippert (May 2, 2023)
generously sponsored by Tapestry Weavers South

Watch Video

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 museums, 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.

Felicia Lo (October 31, 2023)

generously sponsored by Rebecca Hebert

Watch Video

Felicia Lo is the Founder & Creative Director of SweetGeoriga Yarns and the School of SweetGeorgia. SweetGeorgia Yarns is an independent artisanal yarn company that has become synonymous with vibrant colours and exceptional quality and craftsmanship. Founded in 2005, SweetGeorgia's mission is to inspire and champion life-long creativity and courage by creating engaging and effective educational media and beautiful, artisan-designed materials for makers everywhere. In 2017, to help share the techniques and skills of weaving, knitting, spinning, dyeing, and more, Felicia founded the School of SweetGeorgia—an online learning platform and community for the fibre arts. We believe passionately that colour and craft can help people experience more joy through community, friendship, improved mental health and wellbeing, and personal fulfillment.

Anita Luvera Mayer (June 21, 2022)

generously sponsored by Norma Smayda and the Saunderstown Weaving School

Watch Video

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 because 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.

Annie MacHale (November 15, 2022)

generously sponsored by Las Tejedoras Fiber Arts Guild

Watch Video

Annie MacHale, at the age of seventeen, first discovered the inkle loom, sparking a lifelong love affair. She built her first loom in 1976 with the help of her dad and a library book. Since then, she’s woven miles of bands including over 1,100 guitar straps. She loves to play with color and pattern and finds the inkle loom a very satisfying way to do this. She credits inkle weaving with bringing her many blessings in her life including a very excellent husband and an invitation to the White House. Annie is known to many through her blog, ASpinnerWeaver.com. The popularity of her patterns shared there has led to the 2019 publication of a book, In Celebration of Plain Weave: Color and Design Inspiration for Inkle Weavers. This was followed by another book in 2021, Three-Color Pickup for Inkle Weavers: A Modern Look at an Ancient Baltic-Style Technique in which she shares a rare, older Lithuanian technique which has fallen out of use. You can find her around the world wide web and on social media as ASpinnerWeaver, a name she comes by naturally, being born to Louie and Nancy Spinner. She has tried spinning yarn, but never really took to it.

Pat Maley (August 22, 2023)

generously sponsored by Tabby Tree Weaver

Watch Video

Pat Maley is a spinner, teacher and a dabbler in any area that uses fiber. While teaching textiles, clothing construction and related classes at Edgecliff College and the College of Mount Saint Joseph in Cincinnati, she studied weaving and eventually spinning. Her teacher and mentors at Edgecliff introduced her to the Weavers Guild of Greater Cincinnati, where she has been a member for over 50 years. Pat has attended Spin Off Autumn Retreat, Convergence^® and many fiber festivals and conferences, both teaching and learning spinning techniques. She achieved her Certificate of Excellence in Handspinning, levels I and II, and she has been a judge for the COE and is currently the mentor for the Handspinning COE. As a dabbler, besides spinning and weaving, Pat collects and fixes antique wheels, makes spindles of all types, dyes fiber, yarn and cloth, knits, crochets, sews, quilts, does sashiko and punch needle embroidery, ply splitting, and has raised cotton, dye plants, and Angora rabbits.

Lilly Marsh (April 27, 2021)
generously sponsored by Made in America Yarns

Watch Video

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.

John Marshall (October 25, 2022)

generously sponsored by Mary Meigs Atwater Weavers Guild

Watch Video

John Marshall is an American fiber artist specializing in natural dyes and the traditional Japanese techniques katazome (stencil dyeing) and tsutsugaki (cone drawing). He is internationally noted for his use of color and line to create truly one-of-a-kind art-to-wear, turning traditionally inspired aesthetics into contemporary treasures for daily life. As a teacher he is recognized for his ability to adapt traditional recipes and methods to suit local climates, resources, and temperaments – and for his ability to distill complex techniques into easy-to-understand steps.

Kelly Marshall (April 13, 2021)

generously sponsored by Meridian Mill House

Watch Video

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 several 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.

Susan Martin Maffei (February 1, 2022)

generously sponsored by Lunatic Fringe Yarns

Watch Video

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.

Michaela McIntosh (December 5, 2023)

generously sponsored by Montana Association of Weavers and Spinners

Watch Video

Michaela McIntosh spins and weaves in Seneca, South Carolina. Growing up, Michaela was a Navy child, traveling coast to coast on two continents. She earned a BA in Elementary Education and an MA in Learning Disabilities. Although she has never received a formal education in weaving, Michaela is not “self-taught,” thanks to numerous, wonderful teachers and mentors via HGA and other institutions. Her first weaving class was a recreational workshop in 1970 in New Hampshire, where she learned to make a "Cinture Fleche” from a lovely Canadian woman. Although it was a simple finger woven belt, Michaela was hooked. Michaela describes herself as an “ADDH” (attention deficit disordered handweaver), as she has woven the gamut from mug rugs to hug rugs (blankets). Michaela has shown her work at Charleston City Gallery, Newberry Arts Center, Gateway Arts, Blue Ridge Arts Center, and the Folk Art Center.

Molly McLaughlin (December 21, 2021)

generously sponsored by Complex Weavers

Watch Video

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).

Nazanin Amiri Meers (May 11, 2021)

generously sponsored by Central Coast Weavers 

Watch Video

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.

Rebecca Mezoff (January 26, 2021)

sponsored by Appalachian Yarn Company

Watch Video

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.

Nathalie Miebach (February 9, 2021)

generously sponsored by The Woolery

Watch Video

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.

Jane Milburn (October 10, 2023)

generously sponsored by Toledo Area Weavers Guild

Watch Video

After agricultural science and leadership study applied to a career in rural communications and advocacy, Jane Milburn OAM navigated a unique pathway to influence change in the way we dress. During recent Churchill Fellowship research, Jane interviewed many people in the US, UK and NZ undertaking personal acts of styling, mending, making, co-designing, redesigning, and upcycling to value natural-fibre garments, reduce waste and enhance wellbeing. She is the founder of Textile Beat, author of Slow Clothing: Finding meaning in what we wear, and a trained permaculture teacher.

Christine K. Miller (April 2, 2024)

generously sponsored by Melodie Usher & Pamela Bisson

Watch Video

Christine K. Miller is a lifelong fiber artist with experience in weaving, sewing, basketry, embroidery, felting, dyeing, knitting, crochet, and fiber sculpture. She has been weaving for 50 years, and for the last 30 years she has been weaving with wire to create sculptural expressions. She teaches how to weave with wire as warp and weft in face-to-face workshops, through her online fiber studio, and in her newly published book Weaving with Wire: Creating Woven Metal Fabric. Christine continues bringing fiber arts into the educational world with Visiting Artist programs and workshops. She is a retired visual arts educator with local, state, and national arts education recognition. She continues teaching in K-12 programs through her Visiting Artist program and leads professional development workshops for art educators in school districts across the state of Texas. 

Kathy Monaghan (April 30, 2024)

generously sponsored in memory of Kathy Stulgis, an intrepid weaver

Watch Video

With over 40 years of experience in weaving and textiles, Kathy Monaghan is a dedicated fiber artist and popular instructor. The author of You Can Weave! Projects for Young Weavers, she has taught weaving at every level for over 35 years. She loves sharing techniques and inspiration with all students, but particularly with beginners. Kathy excels at breaking complex tasks into easy-to-understand steps to ensure beginners’ success and never tires of seeing the joy in students when they master new skills. Her day job: she’s Director of Marketing for Pendleton Woolen Mills, designing experiences for the public to learn about the complete fabric production process, including fiber sourcing, dyeing, carding, spinning, warping, weaving, and the finishing of goods.

Jennifer Moore (December 7, 2021)

generously sponsored by Lunatic Fringe Yarns

Watch Video

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.

Elizabeth Morisette (August 17, 2021)

generously sponsored by Michigan League of Handweavers

Watch Video

Elizabeth Morisette is a graduate of NCSU College of Design and received a Master’s 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.

John Mullarkey (August 10, 2021)

generously sponsored by Yarn Barn of Kansas

Watch Video

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.