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

Chris Acton randomly took a weaving class in 2005 as a way to counteract her boredom with a corporate job in the Chicago suburbs. It was love at first sight. Little did she know, this would be a major turning point in her life. Because of that class, she then left her job, moved to Indiana, and became a full-time weaver. Over the years, she has participated in art fairs all over the country and created hundreds of yards of handwoven fabric that have been transformed into unique handbags and home goods. These days you can find her carving a new path with weaving classes and resources, encouraging people everywhere to give weaving a try.

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

Melvenea Hodges is a Fiber Artist residing Indiana. She creates clothing and accessories using traditional techniques such as block printing, sewing, weaving, spinning, knitting, crocheting, and embroidery. In 2006 Melvenea earned a bachelor’s in Apparel, Textiles, and Merchandising from Eastern Michigan University.  She was inspired to begin growing, spinning, and weaving cotton to reclaim an undocumented heritage of fiber arts as a Black American maker. Melvenea finds tremendous joy in helping others learn new skills; she teaches at a primary school, and she connects with other textile enthusiasts through community events, social media, and her local weaving guild. Her mission is to honor and preserve our fiber arts heritage through practice. She blogs about her work and traditional textile techniques on her website and on Instagram as Traditionsincloth where she also offers handcrafted accessories and spinning supplies. She has also published articles with SpinOff magazine.

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

Máximo Laura, born in Peru in 1959, is a tapestry weaver, designer, consultant, and lecturer recognized as one of South America’s pre-eminent textile artists. His work is featured in collections worldwide and he has exhibited in many museums, art centers and galleries. Laura has won awards in both national and international competitions including a UNESCO Prize for Latin America and the Caribbean, Spain, 1992; Best in Show Award—Latin American Art VIII, USA, 2005; People’s Choice Award—Land the tapestry foundation of Victoria, Australia, 2008; Outstanding Award—From Lausanne to Beijing International Fiber Art Biennale, China, 2008, 2010 and 2022; HGA Award—USA, 2009; Award—10th Latin America Sustainable Luxury, 2022, Argentina, among others. He teaches national and international workshops, has a studio in Lima, and opened the Maximo Laura Museum in Cusco in 2014. Máximo Laura was nominated a “National Living Human Treasure” in his native Peru in 2010.

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January 24, 2023  |  Walter Turpening
generously sponsored by Myrna Lindstrom

Walter Turpening grew up in Southeastern Michigan, earning degrees in Physics and Geology/Geophysics. In 1972, he began work in oil and gas exploration doing geophysics research, development, and technology support. His wife, Ellen, and he lived in Texas and Pennsylvania from 1977 through 1998 where Walter took woodworking classes from a Pittsburgh furniture maker. In 1998 the couple moved to Kingsport, TN. There, Walter made chairmaking fulltime and set up a small shop. In July 1998, Walter experienced his first national show at the Handweavers Guild of America Convergence in Atlanta, GA. Then, one year Walter vacationed in the Southern Appalachians and saw Shaker and rush woven chairs. Inspired, Walter began teaching himself how to weave seats with commercial braided cord with Ellen teaching him weaving patterns and color blending. In 2003, Walther tried hand dyeing commercial cord and later taught himself how to braid cord. Today, two apprentices have joined Walter.

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January 31, 2023  | Omar Chávez Santiago
generously sponsored by Weave A Real Peace

February 7, 2023 | Jane Stafford

generously sponsored by Colour.Woven   

Jane Stafford began weaving in 1978 and attended the Banff School of Fine Arts from 1981-1988 where she explored both traditional weaving and 3-dimensional weaving. In the years that have followed, Jane has had the great fortune of earning a livelihood based on what she loves most—weaving and sharing her passion for excellence in cloth.

In earlier years Jane was a production weaver and workshop leader throughout Canada and the US. She has worked closely with Louet for 30 years creating their early instructional DVDs and consulting on the Louet Jane Loom. For many years, Jane taught exclusively in her studio on Salt Spring Island, offering 5-day retreats to weavers from all over the continent. In 2014 she was named Teacher of the Year by Handwoven magazine. 

In 2016 Jane decided to offer her foundational workshops to a broader student base by creating the JST Online Guild which has since grown into the Jane Stafford School of Weaving with thousands of students around the world. Each episode builds on the previous moving the weaver along a pathway of structural and artistic development. In January of 2023 they started their 7th season. 

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February 14, 2023 | Carl Stewart

generously sponsored by Ottawa Valley Weavers & Spinners Guild    

Carl Stewart is a weaver living and working in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. For more than 30 years his socially and politically engaged, and enraged, textiles have celebrated, memorialized, documented and commemorated the intimate, the fabulous, the egregious and the tragic. 

Born and raised on Prince Edward Island on Canada’s east coast he attended the University of Prince Edward Island the Holland College School of Visual Arts in Charlottetown. 

Carl was a 2020 recipient of a Study Collection Scholarship from the Marshfield School of Weaving in Marshfield VT. He was the 2019 recipient of the Cultural Commentary and Social Change Grant from the Fiber Art Network for his project clò mòr. He was a visiting artist in the Master of Fine Arts Program at the University of Victoria in Victoria, British Columbia in 2019.  

His work has been presented exhibitions in galleries across Canada and in the United States the Mississippi Valley Textile Museum, Almonte ON; Schmidt Art Centre, Southwestern Illinois College, Belleville, Il; Gallery 101, Ottawa, ON; the Cambridge Art Galleries|Idea Exchange, Cambridge, ON; Victoria Arts Council, Victoria, BC; Little Berlin Collective, Philadelphia, PA; Ottawa Art Gallery, Ottawa, ON; Art Museum of the Americas, Washington, DC; Textile Museum of Canada, Toronto, ON; Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, New York, NY.  

He has received professional grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, the City of Ottawa and the Ontario Arts Council. 

Carl’s work hangs in the collections of the Canada Council Art Bank, the City of Ottawa, and the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art in NY and the Ottawa Art Gallery. 

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February 21, 2023 | Irene Heckel-Volpe

generously sponsored by Myrna Lindstrom 

Irene Heckel-Volpe has creating collectible soft sculpture since 1986. Starting with collectible mohair teddy bears, she has been designing and creating the teddies for over 30 years. They have been featured in several US magazines, including Teddy Bear and Friends and Teddy Bear Review and in several overseas publications, with an emphasis on some unique innovations and mixing of media.  

During the time that she was creating teddy bears, in 2002 Irene discovered the art of needle felting. The use of wool fibers to sculpt became part of the teddy bears also, but as time went on it became apparent that this new art form was going to become a very large part of Irene’s creative process and she began to create sculptures that were beyond the teddy bears. She developed techniques that pushed her to continue designing and developing. Most of her work makes use of mixing her media. Needle felting itself was new to most people, so Irene was called on to demonstrate and educate at many shows. She has also developed needle felting classes which teach the how to, but also using imagination and technique to create everything from 3D sculpture to embellishment and using fiber to create 2D fiber paintings and shadow boxes to allow for deeper dimensional paintings. 

Irene is originally from Long Island, NY and relocated to the Asheville area in 2014, with her husband and her “fur-family”. 

Irene teaches classes in the art of needle felting and has taught in many locations including Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts (Gatlinburg TN) at Southeast Fiber Forum Association Fiber Forum, Tryon School of Arts and Crafts, SEFAA (Southeast Fiber Arts Alliance, Atlanta GA) as well as many other locations.  She also gives presentations on the art of needle felting. She is also a member of WNCFHG, Heritage Weavers and Fiber Arts of WNC, Local Cloth and the Go Figure Guild. 

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February 28, 2023 | Mary Burgess

generously sponsored by Barbara Decker   

Mary Burgess is an Australian hand weaver with a focus on memory and mourning.  She runs the Woven Memories project from her studio in Melbourne. Mary has partnered with the Hong Kong University Social Work Department researching the impact of hand weaving on grief, been Artist in Residence in hospitals, and exhibited in Paris and Rome. She designs and weaves items to honour loved family members who have died. Mary uses the clothes of the person who has died.  She deconstructs these textiles and works with her clients to weave something that speaks of the life of the person into the future. Examples include cushions, baby blankets, bed spreads and scarves. There is a transformative process at work both in the material and psychological as new fabrics are created from cloth worn in a past life, encompassing experiences that can be held and contemplated without words.

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March 7, 2023 | Liz Spear

March 14, 2023 | Pat Hilts

March 21, 2023 | Al Canner

generously sponsored by Tabby Tree Weaver

With Guest Host Daryl Lancaster

Al Canner began creating macramé works, both wall-hanging and sculptural, in the 1970s. Since his retirement from professional pursuits in 2013, he has devoted much of his energy to knotting, usually producing five or six works each year. His pieces have been shown at local, national, and international juried exhibits.

Some of his works incorporate found objects, and many are inspired by nature. Color plays a central role in all the pieces, which commonly combine fiber made of cotton, hemp, jute, and rattail. Rather than rely on an infrastructure for support or shape, his pieces depend solely on the robust strength of the knots themselves, almost always the humble double half-hitch.

Completely self-taught, he has developed techniques for achieving the results he intends while regularly surrendering to the instruction offered by the cords passing through his hands.

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March 28, 2023 | Sarah Lasswell

April 4, 2023 | Peggy Hart

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

With Guest Host Dianne Totten

Peggy Hart is a production weaver and teacher who designs, produces, and markets hundreds of blankets each year, including custom blankets for sheep and alpaca farmers using their own yarn. She attended the Rhode Island School of Design, worked as a weaver in one of the last mills in Rhode Island, and has woven for the last thirty years on Crompton and Knowles W-3 looms. She has a special affinity for wool, and her book Wool: Unraveling an American Story of Artists and Innovation was published in December of 2017. Since then, she has been studying wool quilts and the fabrics therein. 

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April 11, 2023 | Emily Dvorin

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

Emily Dvorin never imagined she would stumble upon an artistic passion later in life. As a child, she was encouraged to pursue a “sensible” career. To that end, she studied hard, married young, and became a 3rd grade teacher. When her husband’s job brought them to California, her life took two important turns. She partnered with a friend to open a contemporary crafts store in San Anselmo and also discovered macrame! Her love for fiber art was launched! From her first basket-making workshop in the basement of the old Academy of Sciences building in San Francisco, she was certain that basketry and three-dimensional art were her true passions. 

Today she’s proud to say that after countless hours spent creating vessels out of just about everything, Emily has developed what she believes is her own unique interpretation of the traditional craft of basket making. With a nod to humor, a passion for innovation, and a reverence for engineering, architecture, and aesthetic harmony, Emily has been fortunate enough to build an award-winning career transforming mundane things, such as cable ties and plastic bags, into contemporary pieces of fine art. 

Emily’s work is exhibited widely across the country, and she regularly participates in booth shows and open studios events. In addition, Emily teaches monthly classes and travels for speaking engagements and various consulting opportunities. Most importantly, Emily continues to create with a passion that’s as vibrant and abundant as the everyday items that inspire her art.  

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April 18, 2023 | Brenda Osborn

generously sponsored by the Handweavers Guild of Connecticut

Brenda Osborn has been weaving for more than 45 years since she took a college semester class in 1976. In the late 1990s, she turned her attention to tapestry weaving, and shortly afterward she joined the Wednesday Group, whose members were devoted tapestry weavers, led by Archie Brennan and Susan Martin Maffei. The Wednesday Group exhibited together and collaborated on several projects for more than a dozen years, until the group dissolved in 2015. Brenda collaborated with Archie Brennan over the course of more than a decade to document his life and work in a book which was released in 2022 by Schiffer Publishing. 

In the 1990s Brenda began to make kumihimo on both the marudai and takadai, under the tutelage of Rodrick Owen. Her current tapestry work combines traditional Gobelins tapestry techniques with kumihimo. 

Brenda has participated in numerous exhibitions: 

The American Tapestry Alliance Biennial  

Handweavers Guild of America’s juried show at Convergence®

New England Weavers’ Seminar 

Mid-Atlantic Fiber Association’s juried exhibition

She has also participated in exhibitions in northern Europe and has received numerous awards from the Handweavers Guild of America and New England Weavers’ Seminar. 

Brenda has taught weaving and given programs to guilds in the New York/New Jersey area and southern New England, and she has taught ongoing classes at local fine craft schools in Connecticut.  She has maintained a blog about fibers arts for more than a decade.

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April 25, 2023 | Maria Sigma

generously sponsored by Jacksonville Weavers Guild, Inc. in memory of Barbara Wroten and Sandy Stranahan

Maria Sigma is an award-winning textile designer and weaver specializing in zero waste, ethical hand-woven textiles for interiors. She studied at the Chelsea College of Art & Design and, after graduating in 2014, developed her own weaving practice in London. She is the author of Weaving: The Art of Sustainable Textile Creation and teaches a “Weaving from Waste” workshop. 

She’s collaborated with interior designers, architects, fashion designers, furniture makers, magazines and galleries such as Susie Atkinson Interior Design Studio, MAKE Hauser & Wirth Somerset Gallery, and Hole & Corner Magazine.  

Inspired by her Greek heritage, love for math, and craftsmanship, Maria makes vibrant, but minimal, contemporary textiles. She strives to decrease yarn waste and unnecessary cuts, carbon footprints, the use of machinery, water and electricity. By adhering to a ‘zero waste’ philosophy, she aspires to make hand-weaving an even more sustainable craft.  

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

Connie Lippert’s work has been exhibited in 30 states. She has received several artist grants from the South Carolina Arts Commission. Her work is represented in museum, corporate, academic, and private collections and is widely published. Her tapestries are represented in several new books, including Tapestry Design Basics and Beyond by Tommye Scanlin, The Art is the Cloth by Micala Sidore and in The Art of Tapestry Weaving by Rebecca Mezoff. Connie’s journey with weaving is documented in a book by author Carole Green in Connie Lippert: A Wedge Weaver’s Storied Cloth. She has taught wedge weave workshops and given seminars across the United States.

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May 9, 2023  |  Cally Booker
generously sponsored by Weaving Friends

Cally Booker weaves on the top floor of a converted jute mill on Scotland’s East Coast. Weaving can be meticulously planned or improvised at the loom, and Cally finds that a mix of these approaches appeals to the different parts of her nature. Creatively, she is drawn to places at the edge, where land and water meet, and in her work explores lines and boundaries, positive and negative, using layered structures which hide and reveal. She combines drawing, data and digital tools with the slow processes of hand-dyeing and hand-weaving to create cloth which holds stories. Cally’s work has been exhibited around the UK and internationally. She is a member of the Society of Designer Craftsmen and a past president of Complex Weavers. Cally is passionate about making things by hand and shares her love of weaving through The Weaving Space, a programme of resources and workshops based online.

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May 16, 2023 | Lauren Stichweh
generously sponsored by Cross Border Weavers of Michigan in Memory of Ken Allen

Lauren Stichweh is a transmedia artist and textile designer currently based in Athens, Georgia. She works primarily in handweaving and has recently begun experimenting with more sculptural works. The abstract patterns and bold color combinations of her work create a world to explore identity, peering through the lens of childhood memories, queer experiences, and the scope of human connection. She received her BFA in Fabric Design from the Lamar Dodd School of Art at the University of Georgia in 2022. Lauren's piece received the third place award and Complex Weavers award in HGA's Vistas Along the Appalachian Trail Yardage Exhibit at Convergence^® 2022 in Knoxville, Tennessee.

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May 23, 2023 | Nithikul Nimkulrat
generously sponsored by Harriett E. Ringold

Nithikul Nimkulrat (she/her) is a Thai, Toronto-based textile artist, researcher, and educator who intertwines textile practice with academic research, focusing on experiential knowledge in hands-on craft processes. Before joining Ontario College of Art & Design as an Associate Professor in Material Art & Design and currently Acting Chair of the program, Nithikul taught full-time at the Estonian Academy of Arts (Estonia, 2013–2018) and Loughborough University (UK, 2011–2013), and part-time at Aalto University (Finland, 2004–2010), where she earned a doctorate in 2009. While her creative work has received awards and been exhibited internationally, her research has been published in peer-reviewed publications and presented in international conferences. Her recent books include Crafting Textiles in the Digital Age and her forthcoming book is Craft and Design Practice from an Embodied Perspective.

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May 30, 2023 | Karen Hampton
generously sponsored by Fancy Fibers

Karen Hampton is a conceptually based fiber artist, addressing issues of colorism and kinship. She is recognized as a figurative storyteller weaving together textures and colors of the ancient world with an imagined future. Material and imagery are part of her methodology to access her ancestral and personal heritage. Using her training as a weaver/fiber artist with her training in anthropology, she synthesizes the weaver's role with that of a griot, the storyteller. Hampton's art practice easily flows between different fiber surfaces and materials.

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June 6, 2023: Nolan Wright

generously sponsored by Olympia Weavers Guild

with Guest Host Chris Acton

Nolan Wright is a fiber artist who uses coiling and knotting to make sculptural basketry forms, working with pine needles, waxed linen thread, other cords and copper wire. His work has been selected for a number of national juried exhibits, including Art Evolved: Intertwined, cosponsored by the National Basketry Association and Studio Art Quilt Associates, touring the United States through the end of 2026. Other recent selections include the Handweavers Guild of America’s Small Expressions and Dogwood to Kudzu exhibits, the Fiber Art Network’s Excellence in Fiber and Yarn, Rope, String exhibits, and Fantastic Fibers at the Yeiser Art Center. He points to the juxtaposition of shapes, textures, and colors that catch his eye in the world around him as the inspiration for his work. Not that he tries to recreate any specific object or scene. It is more that they resonate with something inside him at an emotional level as well as aesthetically, and he sees their influence in the materials he chooses and what happens as he works on a piece, each the result of a slow, organic, almost meditative process.

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June 13, 2023: Karen Baker

generously sponsored by Peters Valley School of Craft

As an Ethnographic Fiber Artist and Documentarian, Karen Baker has been weaving and knitting for 9 years. She designs ethnically handcrafted textiles, accessories, and rugs using natural and organic fibers and materials. Karen is researching the contribution of patterns and techniques of African American weavers before the Great Migration to fiber and textile design, and she integrates their techniques into her artwork. Karen is completing a documentary on the oral history and narratives uncovered in her research as a Doctor of Design Candidate at North Carolina State University. Karen is the founder of Fiber With A Cause. She is the 2023 DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities Artist Fellowship, sits on the Surface Design Association Board of Directors and the Equity, Access, and Integration Committee, and is a member of the National Museum of Women In the Arts, Textile Society of America, American Craft Council, Craft Industry Alliance, Costume Society of America, and Nest Co-Op. 

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June 20, 2023: Kathrin Weber

generously sponsored by Georgia Fans of Blazing Shuttles

Kathrin Weber has been dyeing and weaving professionally since 1980. For the first 30+ years, she focused on creating and selling her own finished woven products. Since then, she has focused on teaching techniques developed over the years and on dyeing yarn for other fiber artists. When teaching weaving, Kathrin’s goals are to give students alternative methods, techniques, and concepts to approach design and weaving. Her weaving class is titled Controlling Creative Chaos. Most who have spent time in workshops with Kathrin will agree that that is descriptive of the class energy. Kathrin’s goal for dyers is to learn to dye intuitively, much like playing music by ear, instead of relying on recipes for color. Though she encourages both sets of skills, if one can dye by eye, that person is never at a loss for color and not at the mercy of having a recipe at hand. 

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June 27, 2023: Sarah Gotowka

generously sponsored by Weave A Real Peace (WARP) 

Sarah Gotowka is a practicing textile artist and instructor. She has been weaving since 2005 and has been growing natural dyes since 2010. She received her BFA in Fibers and Material Studies from The Cleveland Institute of Art in 2007, and her MFA in Fibers and Material Practices from Concordia University in Montreal in 2013. Since moving to the Ithaca area, she has taught at SUNY Cortland, Cornell University, Ithaca College, The Johnson Museum of Art, Wells College, and New Roots Charter School to name a few. Sarah currently advises in the BFA Socially Engaged Art degree track at Goddard College. Sarah is a Korean adoptee and formerly worked for the Adoptive and Foster Family Coalition of New York. There she mentored youth adoptees and advocated around trans-racial adoption issues. Weaving and dyeing have been a powerful healing tool in Sarah’s journey of exploring her roots and connecting to her ancestral knowledge. 

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July 4, 2023: No Textiles & Tea - Happy Independence Day!

July 11, 2023: Nick DeFord

generously sponsored by Rebecca Hebert

Register for Nick DeFord

July 18, 2023: Astrid Tauber

generously sponsored by Weavers & Spinners Society of Austin (WSSA)

Astrid Tauber of Summerville, South Carolina is a weaver, spinner, and garment designer. Having discovered her medium at the tender age of 7, she’s now taking the world by storm with unique garments made exclusively from handwoven fabric. Citing nature as one of her greatest sources of inspiration, she works with natural fibers and bold colors. She is currently studying fashion design virtually with The Cut Academy in Vancouver, British Columbia. Astrid’s handwoven dress appeared in HGA’s Seasons of the Smokies Wearable Art Exhibit in 2022. 

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July 25, 2023: Dawn Ahlert

generously sponsored by Springfield Fiber Artists

Like many weavers, Dawn Ahlert began exploring the fiber arts at a young age. Her passion for learning and fiber arts has driven her to explore many areas of the medium, and Dawn’s years as a hairstylist contribute to her deep understanding of fiber and color. Dawn received a Master of Fine Arts degree in painting from Montana State University in 2000. In 2018, she received the HGA Award, which honors outstanding exhibited works of fiber art. Dawn also earned the Handweavers Guild of America’s Certificate of Excellence for Level 1: Technical Skills in Handweaving in 2020, and Level 2: Master Weaver in 2022. Dawn is a member of the Southwest Montana Fiber Arts Guild, the Helena Spinners and Weavers Guild and the current president of the Montana Association of Weavers and Spinners (MAWS). Dawn would like to continue to share her knowledge through teaching and conducting workshops in weaving and spinning. 

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August 1, 2023: Carol Ventura 

generously sponsored by Weave A Real Peace (WARP)

Carol Ventura has degrees in ceramics and printmaking, and her doctoral dissertation focused on Mayan backstrap weaving. She has taught a variety of studio classes over the years and was the art historian at Tennessee Technological University until 2021, when she retired. Colorful tapestry crocheted shoulder bags caught Carol’s attention in the 1970s when she was a Peace Corps volunteer in Guatemala. She’s been researching the history and exploring the design potential of this incredibly versatile medium ever since. Her work includes bags, baskets, and introspective self-portraits. Recent work was inspired by the Me Too movement, the crisis of disinformation, the rejection of science, and the politicization of Covid-19. Carol exhibits, writes, and leads workshops. Her article about tapestry crochet around the world will be in Piecework’s winter 2023 issue and she will teach felted, beaded, and flat tapestry crochet at Touchstone Center for Crafts in Pennsylvania at the end of August. 

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August 8, 2023: Lisa Klakulak 

generously sponsored by a Fiber Art Enthusiast

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. 

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August 15, 2023: Cael Chappell

generously sponsored by National Basketry Organization

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. 

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August 22, 2023: Pat Maley

generously sponsored by Tabby Tree Weaver

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. 

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August 29, 2023: Emily Trujillo 

generously sponsored by Weave A Real Peace (WARP)

Emily Trujillo, daughter of master weavers Lisa and Irvin Trujillo, is an eighth-generation Rio Grande Weaver from Chimayo, New Mexico. She initially learned to weave when she was five but did not weave professionally until her twenties, after graduating with a dual major in Ethnology and Psychology. She now works for her family’s gallery, Centinela Traditional Arts, focusing on education and outreach. Since beginning her weaving career, she has given lectures around the country and internationally on Zoom. She is a teacher at the Española Valley Fiber Arts Center, a mentor with the Los Maestros program in Chimayo, an award-winning participant in the annual Spanish market in Santa Fe, and the head instructor and administrator of the Ariat Rio Grande Weaving Apprenticeship. She has dedicated her life to the art of Rio Grande weaving and the preservation of its culture and continues to passionately pursue a career in educating the world on the beauty, history, and art of Chimayo. 

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