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.

January 2021

January 5, 2021: Mary Zicafoose Watch Video “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.
January 12, 2021: Peggy Wiedemann sponsored by Laurel Schwartz Watch Video 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.
January 19, 2021: Janet Phillips sponsored by Made In America Yarns Watch Video 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.
January 26, 2021: Rebecca Mezoff 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.

February 2021

February 2, 2021: Laura Viada generously sponsored by The Textile Museum Journal Watch Video 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.
February 9, 2021: Nathalie Miebach 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.
February 16, 2021: Lucienne Coifman 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.
February 23, 2021: Robbie LaFleur generously sponsored by Meridian Mill House How to View 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.

March 2021

March 2, 2021: Denise Kovnat generously sponsored by the Whatcom Weavers Guild of Bellingham, WA, in memory of Leslie Comstock How to View 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.
March 9, 2021: Heavenly Bresser generously sponsored by the 2020-21 HGA Board of Directors How to View 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.
March 16, 2021: Cameron Taylor-Brown generously sponsored by Made in America Yarns How to View 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.
March 23, 2021: Deborah Robson generously sponsored by Marcy Petrini & Terry Dwyer How to View 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.
March 30, 2021: Tien Chiu generously sponsored by Marcy Petrini & Terry Dwyer How to View Tien Chiu is a textile artist, teacher, and writer. She has won many awards for her work, including “Best in Show” at the Conference of Northern California Handweavers (CNCH). Her Kodachrome Jacket was featured on the cover of Handwoven magazine. And her handwoven wedding dress is part of the permanent collection at the American Textile History Museum where it was displayed in their 2013 exhibition Behind the Veil: Brides and Their Stories.

April 2021

May 2021

June 2021

July 2021

August 2021

September 2021

October 2021

November 2021

December 2021

Be a Sponsor & Support Textiles & Tea

Through sponsorship you can reach new audiences and connect with the fiber community in their homes. We know from our Spinning & Weaving Week events that an average of 1,000 people viewed our videos either live or recorded. These numbers will only grow as our event grows in popularity.

Sponsorship includes:

Recognition at the beginning and end of each broadcast (also to be recorded and shared on Facebook Live and HGA's YouTube channel)
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
Promotion of the event along with your sponsorship on HGA’s social media platforms: Instagram (2,400+ followers), Twitter (1,300+ followers) and Facebook (5,700+ page likes and 6,200+ followers)
Identified as event sponsor on HGA's website and on the event listing on the HGA Fiber Art Calendar

We are offering introductory sponsorship packages at $150 per Textiles & Tea episode or four episodes for $500 (call HGA for 4-episode discount). Your sponsorship helps HGA to promote the fiber arts and support the artists who create. Will you be a sponsor?

How To Sponsor:

Purchase your sponsorship online or call (678) 730-0010.

For more information contact Kathi Grupp, HGA Advertising & Marketing Manager, at (470) 893-0556 or Advertising@WeaveSpinDye.org. Thank you for your consideration.

The Handweavers Guild of America, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit.

Our mission is to educate, support and inspire the fiber art community.