Textiles & Tea
The Handweavers Guild of America, Inc. (HGA) is excited to announce our new program, Textiles & Tea. Each week HGA will host a conversation with some of the most respected fiber artists in the field today. In our 45-minute discussion we will focus on their artwork and their creative journey. We will allow 15 minutes at the end of our conversation for questions from the audience. Textiles & Tea will take place every Tuesday at 4:00 PM (EST) beginning in January 2021 and will be broadcast via Zoom. These broadcasts will be free to view and open to all.
2021 Schedule
Textiles & Tea takes place online every Tuesday, 4:00 - 5:00 PM EST.
Click on the date for more information and to register (registration open through January).
Zoom allows up to 500 guests to view the program on the platform at any given time. Registrants who are not able to login to Zoom at the time of the event may also watch the program live on HGA's Facebook page. A link will be provided in the registration confirmation email.
 Joan Ruane has been teaching spinning for almost 30 years. As a graduate from Springfield College, she taught in the Tucson Public Schools before going to New Zealand in 1971. While there she learned to spin from Ruth Reid. When she returned to the U.S., Joan continued to spin and began teaching and demonstrating at the Pioneer Settlement in Florida. Joan has owned two retail shops and is the maker of Easy to Spin cotton fiber. She has produced two DVD's on spinning cotton. Now Joan concentrates on teaching workshops, writing, and promoting cotton and hemp wherever she can. |
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July 13, 2021: Helena Hernmarck
generously sponsored by Schiffer Publishing
 Helena Hernmarck's signature is her ability to harness light and color as conduits for spectacular illusion in handwoven textiles. Using a technique of her own invention, she conjures details from our visual world. Helena was born in Stockholm, Sweden in 1941. After graduating from art school in Stockholm in 1963, she moved her studio to Canada and later to England before settling in the United States in the mid-1970s. Hernmarck now maintains an active studio in Connecticut, USA. She continues to support Swedish textile arts, and collaborates with Swedish spinners, dyers, and weavers on each commission. |
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July 20, 2021: Evee Erb
generously sponsored by Austin School of Fiber Arts  Evee Erb is a nationally award-winning American artist who graduated from the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in 2016 with a BFA in Ceramics. While attending MICA, she also studied Illustration and Textile Design. Additionally, Erb studied ceramic sculpture in Florence, Italy at SACI College of Art and Design. After receiving her degree, Erb returned to her hometown of Durham, North Carolina where she has worked at the North Carolina Museum of Art, taught workshops at a variety of art centers, served on curatorial jury panels, and given lessons and artist talks at various institutions. |
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July 27, 2021: Julie Kornblum
generously sponsored by Austin School of Fiber Arts  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. |
Previous Episodes
All episodes of Textiles & Tea are recorded. For more information on previous episodes, click the links below.
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January 5, 2021: Mary Zicafoose
 “I strive to be an inspirational presence in the textile world.”
Mary Zicafoose’s fiber journey began with ikat cloth she received as a gift as a child. Her undergraduate degree was from St Mary’s College and graduate work was School of the Art Institute of Chicago and University of Nebraska. In pursuing a more painterly approach to fiber she was drawn to ikat technique which took her on her 30 year journey. She is the co-director emeritus of the American Tapestry Alliance. She has recently published a book Ikat: The Essential Guide to Weaving Resist-Dyed Cloth.
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January 12, 2021: Peggy Wiedemann
sponsored by Laurel Schwartz
 Peggy Wiedemann grew up in Long Beach, California. She graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles earning a degree in Fine Arts with an emphasis on drawing and painting. After college, she experimented in a variety of art mediums including oil painting, pen-and-ink drawing, printmaking, sculpture, and ceramics. Peggy found basketry and was hooked. Peggy uses a wide variety of materials and has a strong preference for natural fibers. To these natural materials, she adds metal, beads and “found” objects to form unique pieces.
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January 19, 2021: Janet Phillips
sponsored by Made In America Yarns
 Janet Phillips studied industrial textile design at the Scottish College of Textiles, graduating with a First Class Honours Degree in 1972. After working in industry for three years she bought a 16-shaft Dobby loom and built up a career as a commission weaver, designing and weaving functional fabrics for private clients. From 1987 to 2004 she taught a one-day, weekly community education class in Oxford. In 2009 she stopped her commission weaving work to focus on teaching weaving and weave design from her studio in Somerset, UK. Janet is the author of The Weavers Book of Fabric Design, Designing Woven Fabrics, and recently published Exploring Woven Fabrics. |
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January 26, 2021: Rebecca Mezoff
sponsored by Appalachian Yarn Company
 Rebecca Mezoff is a contemporary tapestry weaver with a studio in Fort Collins, Colorado. Her work is drawn from the colors, open skies, and symbols of the southwestern United States. She hand-dyes all her own yarn to get the color gradations she loves, and she weaves most of her tapestries on her grandfather's Harrisville rug loom. Her work is in various public and private collections and you can see some of the tapestries in the gallery on her website. |
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February 2, 2021: Laura Viada
generously sponsored by The Textile Museum Journal
 Laura Viada is an artist who works in the medium of fiber, primarily as a handweaver. Using linen, silk, cotton, and metallic threads as her “paints”, Laura creates visually complex works using the simple elements of geometric form and the interaction of color. She employs many different weaving techniques, but her “go to” favorites are diversified plain weave and transparency. She has taught both topics widely over the last 15 years, including numerous regional and three Convergence® conferences. Her most recent works explore color using Theo Moorman technique. |
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February 9, 2021: Nathalie Miebach
generously sponsored by The Woolery
 Nathalie Miebach explores the intersection of art and science by translating scientific data related to meteorology, ecology and oceanography into woven sculptures and musical scores/performances. Her main method of data translation is that of basket weaving, which functions as a simple, tactile grid through which to interpret data into 3D space. Central to this work is her desire to explore the role visual and musical aesthetics play in the translation and understanding of complex scientific systems, such as weather. |
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February 16, 2021: Lucienne Coifman
generously sponsored by Made in America Yarns
.jpg) Lucienne Coifman has taught weaving for almost 45 years at the Guilford Art Center (Guilford, CT), The Creative Art workshop (New Haven, CT) and in her own studio. She's also conducted workshops throughout the Northeast and the Midwest, including the last 4 Convergence® conferences. For 35 years, Lucienne has been studying Rep Weave, experimenting with different fibers. Her main interest has centered on color interactions and patterns, using up to 8 harnesses and using pick-up techniques when needed. She has researched many unusual ways to weave Rep Weave that do not follow the traditional path. Her weavings have appeared in Shuttle Spindle & Dyepot, Handwoven, and have been included in many juried exhibits. Her book, REP - RIPS - REPS Weaves (2015), is a complete workshop for both beginning and advanced weavers. |
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 Robbie LaFleur has been following a thread of Scandinavian textiles since she studied weaving at Valdres Husflidsskole in Fagernes, Norway in 1977. She has continued her study with Scandinavian instructors at workshops in Norway and the U.S. Recent projects include interpreting Edvard Munch’s “Scream” painting into a variety of textile techniques (British Journal for Weavers, Spinners and Dyers' article) and weaving tapestry portraits of her relatives. She was awarded the Gold Medal in Weaving from the Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum in 2006. Robbie coordinates the Weavers Guild of Minnesota's Scandinavian Weavers Study Group and is the editor and publisher of the quarterly Norwegian Textile Letter. |
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March 2, 2021: Denise Kovnat
generously sponsored by the Whatcom Weavers Guild of Bellingham, WA, in memory of Leslie Comstock
 A weaver since 1998, Denise Kovnat has taught at conferences and guilds across the United States, Canada, and Australia with a focus on parallel threadings, collapse techniques, painted warps and Deflected Double Weave. Her garments have been juried into Convergence® fashion shows since 2008 and have won awards from Complexity (Complex Weavers), the Handweavers Guild of America and the Seattle Weavers Guild. |
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March 9, 2021: Heavenly Bresser
generously sponsored by the 2020-21 HGA Board of Directors
Heavenly Bresser is an award-winning handspinner, published author, and proud owner of Heavenly Knitchet. After discovering a love for spinning yarn, Heavenly became determined to learn something new every day from spinning wheel to spindle. Taking a project from raw fleece to finished product is one her favorite things. She teaches classes for a local spinning guild and also at fiber festivals. Heavenly has led two sheep to shawl teams. She has written for major publications including Ply magazine, Spin Off magazine as well as tinyStudio Creative Life. When Heavenly isn't teaching, vending, or playing in fibers and yarn, she repairs antique spinning wheels.
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March 16, 2021: Cameron Taylor-Brown
generously sponsored by Made in America Yarns
Cameron Taylor-Brown was introduced to textiles by artist Ed Rossbach at the University of California, Berkeley. She studied textile design at the Philadelphia College of Textiles and Science, where she subsequently taught design and weaving. Since 1985 she has lived in Los Angeles where she is active in arts and education, and founded ARTSgarage, a textile resource center. Her work is widely exhibited and has been featured in American Craft, Handwoven, Fiber Art Now, and Shuttle, Spindle and Dyepot. She teaches workshops at schools, guilds, museums and conferences throughout the United States and at ARTSgarage in Los Angeles. She is a past president of California Fibers and serves on the advisory boards of the Fowler Textile Council and Textile Arts Los Angeles. In 2019, she curated the critically acclaimed exhibition, Material Meaning: A Living Legacy of Anni Albers at the Craft in America Center in Los Angeles.
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March 23, 2021: Deborah Robson
generously sponsored by Marcy Petrini & Terry Dwyer  Deborah Robson is a fiber generalist who specializes in spinning, knitting, and weaving, although she experiments with all aspects of textiles. She is the fiber author of The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook and of The Field Guide to Fleece, in collaboration with livestock expert Carol Ekarius. For fourteen years she worked at Interweave Press, editing both books and Spin-Off magazine. She has a DVD set available from Long Thread Media, a free class on wool types available at Craftsy.com, has done several guest appearances on KDTV, and is publishing focused fiber-topic monographs. |
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March 30, 2021: Tien Chiu
generously sponsored by Marcy Petrini & Terry Dwyer  Tien Chiu is an expert on color in weaving. Her work has been exhibited in museums and featured on the cover of Handwoven, and she has taught over 10,000 students in her online classes. She has woven hundreds of handwoven fabric swatches and dyed over 2,500 yarn samples in a quest to understand color. She teaches about color in weaving on her website. |
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April 6, 2021: Gene Shepherd
generously sponsored by Tabby Tree Weaver
 Although Gene Shepherd did not start rug hooking until 1998, it has been his only outside interest since that time. Described as a “self taught artist who hooks by ear,” Gene hooks, does commission work for individuals and museums, designs, dyes, develops tools, and teaches and writes about rug hooking. His work has been featured many times in Rug Hooking Magazine, ATHA Newsletter and A Celebration of Hand Hooked Rugs. As a way of developing and refining his own artistic journey, he has written three books: The Rug Hooker’s Bible, Prodded Hooking for a Three Dimensional Effect, and Prepared to Dye. He has also written and appeared in over 125 instruction videos on dyeing, rug hooking, proddy and a various topics related to the art form. A prolific blogger, Gene has written thousands of blog posts on topics concerning the techniques, tools, inspiration and experiences that compel him to create fiber art–a venue that has allowed him to connect on an almost daily basis with fiber artists around the world. Based out of his Anaheim, CA studio, where Gene regularly teaches classes, he also travels all over the U.S. and Canada teaching and speaking on his artistic interests, as well as makes occasional trips to Australia, England, Russia and Haiti. |
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April 13, 2021: Kelly Marshall
generously sponsored by Meridian Mill House
 Kelly Marshall is owner of Custom Woven Interiors and creates hand-woven textiles for both residential and commercial settings. She designs and weaves rugs, wall-hangings, table coverings and much more. Her work is characterized by rich colors combined with wonderful textures. Her work has been featured in a number of magazines including Better Homes and Gardens, Spaces Magazine, and Niche Magazine. Her book Custom Woven Interiors is an inspiration in color use and design, complete with drafts for 18 gorgeous rep weave projects. |
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April 20, 2021: Jacqueline James
generously sponsored by Meridian Mill House
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 Lilly Marsh is the owner of Lilly Marsh Studios of Glen Falls, New York. She specializes in transforming local farm fibers into home décor and wearable fabric. As a fiber artist using a variety of modalities including fiber sculptures, her work has been exhibited throughout the United States and Canada. She has a PhD from Purdue University in their American Studies program combining art history, studio art, anthropology, and culture. Lilly is a founding member of the Hudson Valley Project who are working to strengthen the fiber supply chain of local cloth production. |
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May 4, 2021: Sue Weil
generously sponsored by Meridian Mill House
 Sue Weil earned her Bachelor of Arts, Cum Laude in Social Anthropology from Harvard University, taking many studio art classes alongside her academic studies. Early in her career, she wove one-of-a-kind fabric for her line of women’s clothing which was sold in galleries and boutiques and was regularly featured in the Chicago edition of Women’s Wear Daily. After leaving the field for a couple of decades, in 2011 Sue returned to weaving, this time with a focus on tapestry. Combining Sue’s interests in anthropology and art, she finds herself especially drawn to weaving’s cultural universality, noting the connection between ancient and modern cultures through solving the need for warmth and beauty by manipulating fiber to create cloth, rugs and tapestries. Sue is especially drawn to the sensual, tactile warmth of the fibers and the way the image draws the viewer beneath the surface. Her works have appeared in numerous juried exhibitions at venues throughout the US and abroad. Additionally, Sue has been featured in solo shows in the San Francisco Bay Area. |
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May 11, 2021: Nazanin Amiri Meers
generously sponsored by Central Coast Weavers
 Nazanin Amiri Meers studied Textile Design and Print and received her MA in Design Technology. Immigrating to the United States in 2014 and earning an MFA in Fiber Arts at the University of Kansas was a turning point in her artistic life. Nazanin currently lives in San Diego, California and making large scale installations and multimedia 2D work, combining various techniques and media to address the importance of privacy and quietude in public spaces. Iranian architecture influenced by Islamic philosophy and decorative patterns are endless sources of inspiration for her work. Amiri Meers has worked as an instructor of art and Research Assistant since 2014, Instructing various summer camps, kids workshops, adult classes and managing various art projects at the Lawrence Arts Center, University of Kansas and Kansas State University. Nazanin's artwork has been exhibited internationally. |
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May 18, 2021: Cassie Dickson
generously sponsored by Yarn Barn of Kansas
 A Mississippi native, Cassie Dickson has lived in western North Carolina for the past 30 years. As a heritage member of the Southern Highland Craft Guild, Cassie specializes in the weaving of historical coverlets and linens. In addition, she spins, natural dyes, grows flax and raises silkworms. She processes the flax for linen and the silk for yarns and instructional purposes. Cassie's recent honors include being interviewed and video'd by the Smithsonian National Museum of History for the National Woven Coverlet Collection (available on their website and YouTube), and weaving a coverlet for one of the bedrooms of the Arlington House in Washington, D.C. |
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 Carol James has been exploring sprang and other low-tech, easily transportable textile methods for 30 years. Self-taught, she has examined sprang items in collections across North American and Europe, and has made replicas of some of these items for clients such as George Washington’s Mount Vernon, the German Archaeological Institute, and the Norwegian Army Museum. She has taught in Canada, the U.S., New Zealand, and Europe; and her students describe her as patient, knowledgeable, and quite enthusiastic. Carol is the author of numerous articles and four books: Fingerweaving Untangled, Sprang Unsprung, two books of Sprang Lace Patterns, and two instructional DVDs. She has spent much of her Covid isolation time writing out more sprang lace patterns and instruction sheets. |
 Gerhardt Knodel has contributed to and reshaped the fiber arts for more than 40 years. Early experiences in theatre design resulted in his use of textiles as interior architecture. He has exhibited and taught around the world, and he is widely known for his numerous commissions for contemporary architecture. For 25 years he led the graduate program in Fiber at Cranbrook Academy of Art and subsequently was named the director. He now maintains a full-time studio practice in Pontiac, Michigan. |
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June 8, 2021: Majeda Clarke
generously sponsored by Schiffer Publishing
 Inspired by her own cultural background, Majeda Clarke’s designs celebrate regional weave techniques and the identity of the maker. Whether in small batch production or entirely handmade she seeks sustainable, local production. All the designs deconstruct the geometry of weave while color and pattern are reconsidered in a fresh modern approach. She works closely with local communities such as UNESCO Jamdani weavers of Dhaka, renewing ancient techniques. Majeda's mill woven pieces also explore a lost weaving heritage which can be traced back generations. Her work has been exhibited extensively throughout Europe. She sells her work online and through commissions. |
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June 15, 2021: Linda Hartshorn
generously sponsored by Yarn Barn of Kansas
 Linda Hartshorn is a weaver and dyer, known for her unique dye-work and lively use of color in her handwoven textiles. Linda weaves and dyes in her home on the redwood coast of California and teaches weaving at the Ink People Center for the Arts in Eureka, California. Linda enjoys leading workshops and brings her positive, fun and supportive teaching style to events all over the country. She is a two-time recipient of the Victor Thomas Jacoby Award for spinners, weavers, and dyers. |
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June 22, 2021: Justin Squizzero
generously sponsored by Schiffer Publishing
 Handweaver Justin Squizzero challenges modern definitions of progress by creating functional textiles that celebrate the natural world and the dignity of human labor. Echoing a time when utilitarian objects were entirely handcrafted, his work connects material, maker, and user across time and place. Squizzero’s venture, The Burroughs Garret, draws on the textile traditions of his northern Vermont home, marrying natural dyes and fibers with a reserved aesthetic rooted in early New England. Produced on his 19th-century farm using 200-year-old hand looms, Squizzero’s textiles examine the role of handcraft in a post-industrial society, questioning the human experience in a digital age. |
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June 29, 2021: Jessica Pinsky
generously sponsored by Fiber Arts Guild of Pittsburgh, producer of the Fiber Arts International Exhibition  Jessica Pinsky grew up in Akron, Ohio and moved to Cleveland in 2011 after receiving a BFA in Studio Art from New York University in 2006 and an MFA in painting from Boston University in 2009. She began teaching at Cleveland Institute of Art in 2011 and is currently serving as faculty in the Sculpture and Expanded Media department. Together with Cleveland Institute of Art, Jessica founded Praxis Fiber Workshop in June 2015. |
Be a Sponsor & Support Textiles & Tea
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Recognition at the beginning and end of each broadcast (also to be recorded and shared on Facebook Live and HGA's YouTube channel)
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Emails sent to HGA’s mailing list of nearly 11,000 promoting the event with you listed as a sponsor and a link to your website
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Identified as event sponsor on HGA's website and on the event listing on the HGA Fiber Art Calendar