Excellence In Fibers VI

December 1, 2020 – March 28, 2021

Fiber Art Network/Fiber Art Now and New Bedford Art Museum/ArtWorks! (NBAM) present Excellence in Fibers VI, an online exhibition sponsored by Fiber Optic Center. Exhibition jurors, Caroline Kipp, Curator of Contemporary Art, The Textile Museum, George Washington University, and Lisa L. Kriner, President of the Textile Society of America and Professor of Art at Berea College, have selected 52 outstanding works of art from over 1100 entries.

Artists:

Nicole Asselin & Leslie Smith | Mary Babcock| Brenna Murphy | Sara Rockinger | Tali Weinberg

Fault Lines | Tali Weinberg | Urbana, Illinois | 2019

In 2018, the US became the largest extractor of oil and gas in the world. Fault Lines is composed of 94–125 years of temperature data for each of the six top oil-extracting states in the US ,Texas, North Dakota, Alaska, California, New Mexico, and Oklahoma. The size of the piece 5 x 9.5 feet mimics that of the flags used to drape military coffins. This is a nod to the patriotic language used to justify the violence of fossil fuel extraction and the many casualties it leaves behind, human and nonhuman, inside and outside of the industry. The color palette drew from sedimented earth and Oklahoma’s landscapes, from red clay soil to prairie grass. Parts of the cloth are left unwoven, pointing to the scars and voids resulting from extraction. Roughly stitched together, the panels reveal fault lines that reference breaks in the earth and a fractured social structure.

Fault Lines | Detail

94-124 Years of temperature data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for the top six oil extracting states in the US, plant fibers, plant and insect derived dyes, petrochemical derived dye; handwoven; 60 x 114 x .25 in. taliweinberg.com, @tali.weinberg | Photo credit: Philip Maisel

Open Harvest: Receiver | Nicole Asselin Leslie Smith | Salem, North Carolina | 2020

We started making paper during the lockdown in North Carolina with locally grown and discarded fibers we found. In our group studio of eight artists, we were alone, with more time than we have ever had, but it was not carefree time because of COVID-19. The transformative process of making paper from harvested fiber was grounding and motivating. We took comfort in the tactile, the concrete. The organization of the fibers from formlessness to form aided us in making meaning during the transition and changes that touched even the smallest details of everyday life. As the last two in the studio, we became interested in intermingling our ways of working. Nicole immerses herself in materials, entering into conversation with historic practices. Synthesizing and carding the raw fibers, she weaves baskets—traditional harvesting vessels—asking what we can and will gather during this unprecedented time. Leslie communicates through symbols, making receptive forms, and structures that transmit, listening and signaling ready to understand. In the installation, every part of the plants we collected are included in the open harvest. The frame showcases many ways to receive, process, and create using these simple raw materials. This is the collection, the process, the forms, the collaboration, and an opening to a great unknown. This is the second edition of many in a series of installation pieces with the same topic.

Open Harvest: Receiver | Detail

Handmade banana paper, handmade linden paper, linden tannin lake pigment, banana silk, linden fiber, linden branches, indigo dyed Cotton string, handmade cotton/flax paper, handmade paper thread; hand-coiled baskets, organic indigo dyeing, embroidery, hand-stitched paper, macramé; 48 x 60 in. nicoleasselindesign.com, @nicoleasselindesign, leslie-a-smith.com

Lotic Sea | Mary Babcock | Kailu, Hawaii | 2020

Lotic is a term referencing rapidly moving fresh water. Lotic Sea questions our understanding of borders in light of the rapidly changing topographies presented by glacial melts and sea level rise. Likewise challenges discourses that prioritize economies over communities and ecologies. Salt collected on the floor below the expanse of pieced wax paper references the melting polar ice caps, one source of rising sea levels. On the fragile surface of the paper, hand-stitched lines represent the Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) borders of several Pacific Island nations, contested territories made more vulnerable to exploitation as climate change threatens viability. The islands themselves, outlined with simple holes pricked in the surface of the wax paper, and off to the right of the EEZ lines, appear to have slipped or flowed outside geopolitical boundaries.

Lotic Sea | Detail

Household wax paper, sea salt, thread; hand laminated, hand stitched; 168 x 168 x 168 in. marybabcock.com, @marybabcock. | Photo credit: Kelly Ciurej.

Grief Work (Shroud) | Brenna Murphy | Claremont, California | 2017

For me, making and grieving can be one and the same; I trust my body to show me how grief works. Rather than minimize or ignore, I embrace my experiences of loss—one thread at a time—through the labor of weaving, stitching, and other fiber-based processes. When told that my closest friend had two months left to live, I spent hours over the loom weaving her a 100-foot symbolic burial shroud, periodically interlacing hair from my own head to acknowledge the laborious, rhythmic, cyclical, and bodily nature of grief. As we are in physical contact with cloth our entire lives (swaddled at birth, covered by clothing, and shrouded upon death), textiles poignantly embody our life cycle. Jessica Hemmings conveys this sentiment in the introduction to The Textile Reader when she writes, “… the lifespan of textiles is not dissimilar to that of our own bodies: newness, gradually replaced by wear and tear until worn out.” This connection creates an intimate relationship between cloth and the body, making cloth itself a metaphor for life and death—the impermanence of our existence in material form. In my work, I employ this metaphor as well as the labor-intensive processes inherent to the creation of textiles to express my experience of loss and to do the arduous work of grief.

Grief Work (Shroud) | Detail

Cotton yarn, artist's hair; hand woven; 1200 x 480 x .25 in. brennakmurphy.artspan.com, @brenna.k.murphy

Persistence of Memory | Sara Rockinger | Lafayette, Colorado | 2019

Memory is a fickle friend. Some memories are gone as soon as they happen, while others persist for a lifetime. When compared to the memories of others, we sometimes discover our memories are not the record of history we thought they were. Merging with the subconscious, our memories tell a unique and revealing story about us. The five dresses of Persistence of Memory explore memories from my childhood. Clothing, is worn to protect and conceal. My choice to use sheer silk organza fabric to construct this clothing visually challenges that purpose and alludes to our own human vulnerability. The sheer, hand-dyed, hand and machine-stitched imagery references our inner world, that which we prefer to keep concealed yet is often worn like armor for all to see. These childhood memories, of getting bucked off a horse, a favorite tree, the loss of my brother, vacations with grandparents, and child abuse, have persisted. They form me as much as I have formed them.

Persistence of Memory | Detail

Silk organza, thread, wire; hand dyed, hand stitched, free motion machine stitched, appliquéd; 42 x 120 x 8 in.

Use the left and right arrows to navigate through the artwork and read more about each piece. Click the image to enlarge.

Artists:

Southland Odyssey | Charlotte Bird | San Diego, California | 2019

Much of my work expresses my curiosity and love for nature—and my desire to preserve it. That work involves distant places, some by geography (the far North) and others by scale (tiny to microscopic). Here I explore my own Southern California neighborhood. I found remarkable diversity from the surf zone, through disappearing wetlands, to the sky islands of our mountains. In the vast desert, I found regions internally bio-diverse and also distinct from one another because of elevation and superficially small differences in rainfall. People have been in this country for centuries, some leaving behind rock art like the Nazca lines, other building cities and suburbs. And every part of the place faces challenges familiar to us colonizers such as not enough water and unfamiliar—warming and acidification of the near-shore ocean.

Southland Odyssey | Detail

Commercial and hand dyed cotton, eco felt, Lutradur, Kraft-tex paper hinges; 24 quilted panels mounted on plexiglass, hand cut and fused appliqué, machine stitched, machine quilted, hand embroidered; 17.5 x 16 x 102 in. birdworks-fiberarts.com, @bird5902 | Photo Credit: Gary Conaughton

Vegan Sausages | Laura Burch | Jaffa, Israel | 2019

These sausages are needle felted in wool, waxed with bee’s wax, and sculpted; the sausages are technically encaustic needle felting. It is important to consider the color of the wool for each piece because the wax alters the wool colors slightly. There are several layers of wax applied and each layer is sculpted until a final texture is achieved. While experimenting with encaustic needle felting, I noticed that this medium lends itself to certain objects that appear naturally waxy, like sausages and some fruits and vegetables. My family and I don't eat meat, so to me this piece represents vegan food, and it reminds us of how far our eating habits and scientific food advancement have come.

Vegan Sausages | Detail

Wool, bee's wax, string; encaustic needle felted, sculpted; 12 x 3 x 3 in. lauraleeburch.com, @lauraleeburch

Serendipity | Jeffrey Lloyd Dever | Silver Spring, Maryland | 2011

All my pieces are sculptural studies—explorations of the structures, colors, patterns, and textures I encounter at the point where the material world intersects my naturalistic musings. Basketry, in particular, is an opportunity to explore the hybridization of several of my signature techniques. The sinuous skeletal nature of woven tinkered wire basketry conjoined with the voluptuous polymer forms echoes the very cycle of life: death, decomposition, and rebirth. That redemptive quality of nature is the poetic essence of my work.

Serendipity | Detail

Polymer clay, plastic coated wire, steel wire; tinkered wire wrapped basketry, polychrome veneers on sculpted reinforced armatures, fabricated, assembled; 13.5 x 20 x 10.5 in. jeffreylloyddever.com, @jeffreylloyddever | Photo Credit: Gregory R. Staley

Repair | Kevan Lunney | Helmetta, New Jersey | 2016

Repair is about the journey to wholeness, from chaos to connection. Two different materials create fabric of strength and integrity. A simple knitted construction is a series of interlocking loops that depend on one another for strength and integrity. If one loop fails, the structure is weakened. When a yarn breaks, a hole forms. In order to begin to repair the hole, only a single strand is required to stretch across the gap to connect with the other broken end. These weaknesses or detachments in our bodies are repaired by blood flow and the creation of new tissue, and in our families, communities, and the larger world, breaks are repaired with communication, compassion, and patience—perhaps only a single word. In this work, light repairs the lost connection. From chaos to repair and connection, this is the process of healing.

Repair | Detail

Aluminum base, neon glass tubes, industrial wool felt, white electric cord; back fully enclosed with removable aluminum plate, knitted construction, hangs with metal cleat in center or D-rings, video about development of the work on my Vimeo channel vimeo.com/user11031333; 24 x 64 x 7 in. kevanart.com, @kevanart

Red Flaring Algae BS | Gabriele Meyer | Madison, Wisconsin | 2015

This sculpture began as a long, crocheted tube. Along its perimeter, I crocheted two spiraling axes on opposite sides of the cylinder. On one side I did this in darker shades of red, on the other in lighter shades of red. Through the central cylinder, I passed a lighting tube to turn the sculpture into a light feature.

Red Flaring Algae | Detail

Yarn, shaped line, lighting tube; crocheted; 92 x 20 x 20 in. math.wisc.edu

String Into Action | Carol Milne | Seattle , Washington | 2020

String into Action is a pair of hands knitting themselves. It is one in a series of works that were initially inspired by M.C. Escher’s drawing of two hands drawing each other. The series began as a joke, poking fun at the absurdity of knitting oneself, but the second piece in the series evolved from a place of self-nurturing. It was created in a year of losing several key mentors in my life. I began (and continue) to see these pieces as a meditation on what it means to become your own mentor—to pull yourself up, or knit yourself together, and carry on. String into Action is twisted and coiled like a snake. It’s still knitting itself, but it’s also ready to strike. Why do I knit in glass? The work serves as a metaphor for social structure. Individual strands are weak and brittle on their own, but deceptively strong when bound together. You can crack or break single threads without the whole structure falling apart. And even when the structure is broken, pieces remain bound together. The connections are what bring strength and integrity to the whole and what keep it intact. In this time of global warming, this metaphor has heightened relevance for me. Like glass, we are simultaneously strong and fragile. Our lives depend upon balancing our needs with those of our planet. Like glass threads that are easily shattered, individually we are almost powerless. But by working together, we have great strength.

String Into Action | Detail

Wax, glass; originally knitted in wax, cast in glass using the lost wax casting technique: A refractory mold is built around the wax, the wax is melted out of the mold, the mold goes in a kiln and glass is melted into the space where the wax was, the mold is destroyed to reveal the glass. 12 x 14 x 13 in. carolmilne.com, @carolmilneart

Caribbean Friendship Bracelet |Theda Sandiford |Jersey City, New Jersey | 2019

I Am My Hair is an interactive community yarn wrapping and knotting exploration of hair and identity. Created during open studio sessions, I invited the community to wrap and knot thousands of yards of yarn onto 100 feet of cotton ropes. The participants imbue their essence, becoming a part of the rope, as we discuss the trials and tribulations of our lives, finding a common denominator amongst us all: hair. When the community joins me in knotting, weaving, wrapping, and braiding rope with yarn and ribbon, the repetitive action has each individual relax, creating a safe space for open conversation and sharing. It begins with our individual hair experiences and goes from there. Our connection grows in much the same way hair does, bit by bit. After the yarn wrapping sessions, I embellish the rope and get to experience each participant anew.

Caribbean Friendship Bracelet | Detail

100 Feet of knotted cotton rope, yarn, chenille, recycled sari silk; wrapped, knotted; 77 x 10 x 11 in. thedasandiford.com, @misstheda Photo Credit: April Tracey

Spring at the Bog | Judy Titche | West Lafayette, Indiana| 2017

My favorite time of year is spring when nature is coming back to life after a dark winter. Everything is renewing and growing. Everything is fresh and fragrant. I have tried to capture this time of year in Spring at the Bog. Ducklings are perched on a log all together, but all doing their own thing. One is sounding an alarm at an intruding turtle, one is trying to catch a mayfly, another is checking out a frog. My hope is to capture a moment in time in the spring of the year.

Spring at the Bog | Detail

Wool, driftwood, cattails and leaves are fiber with a wire core, polymer clay and glass beads are beaks and eyes; needle felted; 14 x 36 x 13 in. @judytitche Photo Credit: Alex Buntin

Use the left and right arrows to navigate through the artwork and read more about each piece. Click the image to enlarge.

Artists:

Octavia | Beth Blankenship | Anchorage, Alaska | 2019

CClimate change is creating winners and losers. Warming oceans are making octopus populations boom and crab populations dwindle. The highly intelligent and voracious octopus loves to eat crab. This vessel depicts the moment when the crab realizes it's in trouble. In our changing world, who will be next?

Octavia | Detail

Thread; machine embroidery on water-soluble stabilizer; 10 x 8 x 8 in. bethblankenshipartist.com, @bethblankenshipartist

Shell Form Basket | Cheri Dunnigan | Naples, Florida | 2020

This piece is the result of an exploration of technique. This type of metal knitting is a chain-making technique that metalsmiths have employed for centuries. I have expanded on that technique to create larger, more complex forms.

Shell Form Basket | Detail

18-Karat gold, sterling silver, pearls; metal knitting, coiling; 3 x 5.5 x 11 in. cheridunniganjewelry.com, @creativehye | Photo Credit: Berlian Arts

Boiling Point | Karen Krieger | Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania | 2020

Using architectural forms and floral motifs combined with geometry, pattern, and color, I impose order on chaos. I work primarily in metals and paper, with repetitive fabrication processes that are both comforting and meditative. Boiling Point is one of a series of pieces I have've constructed using pages from the ACLU Pocket Constitution to push people to consider how our legal system, and by extension our criminal justice system, is applied to black and brown citizens. The catalyst for this specific piece was the shooting, subsequent protests, and acquittal of a Pittsburgh police officer in the killing of 17-year-old Antwon Rose in 2018. Since then, despite public outcry, police brutality continues unabated with the recent murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, two more in a growing number of victims.

Boiling Point | Detail

Paper, ACLU pocket US Constitution, chiyogami, paste paper, archival backing paper, embroidery floss; pieced pages of the US Constitution, appliquéd hands, hollow formed, hand-stitched; 7 x 8 x 8 in. karenkrieger.com, @karenkmetals | Photo Credit: David Montgomery

Pylon: Where Giant Barnacles Grow | Jill Nordfors Clark | Tacoma, Washington | 2019

My sculptural baskets, made from hog casings, are inspired by nature and by the work of Indigenous people from the far North, who historically used seal and walrus guts to make clothing and vessels. Seal and walrus guts are protected by law and can be used only by Indigenous people, but hog gut serves as a readily available substitute. The hog casings in my piece Pylon: Where Giant Barnacles Grow are layered and stitched over a mold using needle lace, a form of embroidery, combined with pencil drawings and lashed willow.

Pylon: Where Giant Barnacles Grow | Detail

Hog casings (gut), pencil drawing, photo transfer, lashed willow; layered, stitched; 31.5 x 11 x 11 in. jillnordforsclark.com, @jillnordforsclark | Photo Credit: Tom Holt

3 Pines Watching | Barbara Osborne | Seattle, Washington | 2020

This group was inspired by the spaces and breath in the work of Pat Hickman and by the daily walks I took this spring when grounded by the COVID-19 pandemic, where I collected cones, branches, and seed pods in my Ravenna neighborhood. Many of the techniques were new to me, developed by trial, error, and trial again. All three vessels showcase natural materials: stone slices for beauty and strength, fossil sand dollars for longevity and shape, longleaf pine needles coiled or wrapped to create a stable base and upswept height. Each piece encloses a sphere that in turn encloses space. The biggest challenges were creating balance in pieces that are five times as high as they are wide and figuring out the lattice work. This intense exploration mirrors all our lives at this time, figuring out new ways to negotiate our commitments, our joys, and our daily activities amidst the challenges we face.

3 Pines Watching | Detail

Florida longleaf pine needles, fossil sand dollars, stone slices, jasper pendants, waxed linen thread; traditional and invented techniques, artist lapidary work; 28 x 7 dia., 28 x 6 dia., 28 x 5.5 dia. in. pineneedlerock.com, @pineneedlerock

Three of a Kind | Elizabeth Runyon| Paris, Kentucky | 2018

I work with reed, a natural fiber, to create contemporary forms based on traditional Appalachian ribbed basket techniques. In Three of a Kind, I focused on evolving one into three forms. My works often play with ideas of trinity. It takes an old concept and interprets it in a modern way.

Three of a Kind | Detail

Reed, seagrass; ribbed basketry; 12 x 32 x 17 in. elizabethrunyon.com | Photo Credit: Jeff Sabo

Yes No | Carol Ventura | Baxter, Tennessee | 2019

Read from top to bottom: Three rounds of Yes and three rounds of No, Twelve Yes and Twelve No on every row, Twenty-four up and down all around, Twenty-four diamonds in a row, Twelve merged hearts below, How many times is Yes a No?

Yes No | Detail

Multiple threads each loaded with one bead color; tapestry, crochet, beginning at the bottom the basket spiraled out and up towards the rim, one bead fell to the back of each single crochet stitch; 7.5 x 8.5 x 8.5 in. tapestrycrochet.com

Use the left and right arrows to navigate through the artwork and read more about each piece. Click the image to enlarge.

Artists:

Embrace | Alyssa Ackerman | Waukesha, Wisconsin | 2020

This piece is a continuation of my investigation into physical touch. Depicted are two figures in an embrace with their identities left anonymous. I created this piece during the peak of the pandemic and the stay-at-home order in my home state, Wisconsin. During this strange and isolating time, I found myself appreciating the value of physical touch with my partner even more as these touches calmed and centred me. Simultaneously, I longed for physical connections with others—to hug my mother or to shake a stranger's hand—in a time where these behaviours had been deemed dangerous. This piece emerged from both a place of appreciation and of longing and a consideration of the role that physical touch plays in our daily lives.

Embrace | Detail

2 Ply cotton thread, vintage doily; hand-embroidered; 7.5 x7.5 x .25 in. alyssaackerman.art, @alyssaackermanart

Sounding: Ripple Effect | Heather Allen Hietala | Asheville, North Carolina | 2017

I use the vessel in all its many forms to distill and express my response to life. Seedpods, canoes, sailboats, dinghies, weaving shuttles, and kayaks are part of my personal history. They symbolize journeys. They symbolize the self. Sounding explores one's relationship to another, a nonverbal interconnectedness. The visual layering, stitching, drawn and stitched lines symbolize the layers of our energetic subconsciousness. We are not alone, we are all connected. The words in the blue area represent tour stories and the groundwater that connects us all.

The Docent | Wendi Bucey | Chico, California | 2018

My motivation for making this quilt came from a personal experience at an educational exhibit on art quilts at a national quilt show. The show contained an abundance of traditional quilts along with some “outside the box” artwork that used experimental techniques and materials. I observed a docent trained to look at traditional quilts bring some visitors over to look at my quilt. He began to explain what was wrong with my work in terms of traditional technique. Although this was disheartening, the overwhelming majority of viewers had extremely positive comments and the piece sold on the first day! I often make art to work through ideas, solve problems, and deal with stress in a meditative manner. The idea for The Docent came to mind immediately but took over three years to start making. I decided to make a very abstract art quilt for my docent to view. He is in black and white because that is how he thought about quilts as art.

The Docent | Detail

Hot wax batik on raw silk, reclaimed and new cotton fabrics, acrylic paint, pencil, ink; painting, drawing, traditional piecing, raw edge appliqué, free-motion machine quilted; 80 x 64 x .25 in. wendibucey.com, @wendibucey

Willow | Melissa Campbell | Kent, Ohio | 2020

I am primarily interested in studying relationships. Currently in my studio, I explore the relationships that can be created between weaving and painting. Inspired by the flattening rhythmic structure that weaving imposes onto painted warp, I'm drawn to the way the woven structure creates both demarcations and dissolution in the paintings. Keeping the same simple weave pattern across the series allows for a more complex conversation, leaving space to explore the relationships more deeply. This is a portrait of my eldest child, Willow. They recently had surgery to become more outwardly gender neutral. Currently I am working on a series of portraits of friends and family members. Like the portrait of Willow, these works are disrupted or distorted, but also familiar. For me, this captures the evolution of the person and our relationship. A friend once said to me that “We are always becoming more ourselves,” and this series often reminds me of that saying.

Willow | Detail

Cotton yarn, ink, watercolors, fabric dye; double weave on a sixteen harness loom; 20.25 x 20.25 x 1 in. melissaenglishcampbell.com, @me_campbell

Two Men | Gregory Climer | San Francisco, California | 2020

I am very interested in the idea of making quilts that are specific to my identity as a queer man. The medium owes so much to women, specifically women of color. I've always approached quilting with the mindset of not replicating what the women who inspired me do but asking how to make work that embodies my experiences and histories just as their work embodies their experiences and histories. The imagery is intimate and yet the identities are obscured by replicating the pixelation process of the internet with fabrics. My work focuses on documenting queer bodies as objects of both love (the intimate gaze) and lust (the anonymity of the figures).

Two Men | Detail

100% Cotton; pieced, quilted; 48 x 36 in. gregclimer.com, @GregoryClimer

Mangroves | Liliana Crespi Port | Saint Lucie, Florida | 2020

In this tapestry, the peaceful environment of the mangrove forest reflecting on the surface of the water is enhanced with bright colors to highlight the teeming life between its roots.

Mangroves | Detail

Wool, cotton; tapestry; 60 x 40 in. lilianafibers.com, @lilianacrespi

3:00:00 AM | Dance Doyle | Oakland, California | 2019

In this work, a young woman is shooting heroin in a bathroom somewhere in the city. In her manic high, she’s floating above the city and she’s headed to the steps of city hall, bringing her issues there. The explosive lines and the look of desperation on her face are there as a reminder that addiction is a progressive illness; it always gets worse, never better.

3:00:00 AM | Detail

Hand-dyed wool, merino wool, mohair, metal twine, cotton, silk, linen, mixed media; tapestry woven on eight-harness floor loom; 101 x 37 in. dancedoyle.com, @dance_doyle

Refugee Abstract #7 | Margaret Jo Feldman | San Francisco, California | 2019

My work explores content without context and the manner in which current and historical events are recounted, with a focus on examining issues of gun violence, the Bill of Rights, and the world refugee crisis. I examine these topics through the deconstructing and manipulating of found images and language. Without context, an image is open to new interpretations and abstracted from its original meaning. I am interested in removing the details of faces, rearranging language, and transforming the images into a visual experience. The news of refugees in Europe and Africa affected me deeply with the descriptions of desperate attempts by people willing to endure dangerous crossings to escape harsh political and socioeconomic conditions. This motivated me to use found images and embroidery to reflect on their humanity. My intention is to create a first impression that reads as purely aesthetic and then challenge that assumption with embedded details that hint at the human condition.

Refugee Abstract #7 | Detail

Cotton, polyester thread; free motion embroidered; 16.5 x 16. 75 x 2 in. (framed) margaretjofeldman.com, @margaretjofeldman Photo Credit: Dana Davis Photography

Broadway | Robert Forman | Hoboken, New Jersey | 2020

New York is my city, and walking the city streets is my preferred form of interaction with NYC. Inspired by pre-pandemic Manhattan, Broadway is a mashup of a crowded New York street scene with historical and personal references. This picture is a hallucinogenic walk down fabled Broadway, the oldest and longest street in Manhattan.

Broadway | Detail

Cotton, polyester thread; free motion embroidered; 16.5 x 16. 75 x 2 in. (framed) margaretjofeldman.com | @margaretjofeldman | Photo Credit: Dana Davis Photography

Turnings | Chie Hitchner | Montgomery, Alabama | 2017

My art seeks to explore the creative possibilities of a textile artist working directly with natural fiber (usually silk) on a four-harness floor loom without any kind of computer assistance. I dye the fiber in small batches in my studio, using locally available natural materials whenever possible. Warp and weft ikat, and supplemental weft techniques, are employed extensively. Naturally dyed silk fibers, one by one, do not have the presence to stand alone. I have woven such fibers in a wall hanging here that conveys a strong sense of both purpose and direction.

Turnings | Detail

Silk fiber, dyes: Japanese maple leaves, fig leaves, loquat leaves, anatto fruit, cochineal, acorns; handwoven using ikat and supplemental weft techniques on a four harness Loom; 91 x 33 in. chiehitchner.com, @chiehitchner.textileart

Indigo Composition No. 8 | Judy Kirpich | Tacoma Park, Maryland | 2018

In 2014, I became interested in the cloth created by a Chinese ethnic minority who over-dye their indigo cotton with mixtures of ox or pig blood and peppers. They cover one side of the fabric with egg whites and then beat the cloth with mallets. This results in a piece of fabric that is very shiny on one side and matte on the reverse. I have spent the last five years working with this fabric. The later pieces in this series are self-portraits of a sort. To most people I seem very strong and self-sufficient. Only upon closer inspection can you see the detail, complexity, and fragility of my emotional base. Like this fabric, for the careful observer there is a lot to discover.

Indigo Composition No. 8

Chinese indigo cotton, hand-dyed cotton; machine pieced, machine and hand quilted; 55 x 55 in. judykirpich.com, @judykirpich | Photo Credit: Mark Gulezian

Social Diary of the City | Anneke Klein | Zaltbommel, The Netherlands | 2019

Social sustainability is often viewed from the point of view of minimum means of subsistence: that all global citizens must be able to provide for their material necessities of life (Human Rights Charter –UN). The basic condition, a socially sustainable society, hardly receives any attention. Therefore, my artwork: The Social Diary of the City, a sustainable society in terms and patterns. The diary consists of 365 days, visualized in four quarters of 13 weeks. During a year, daily social stimulus represented by a term was translated into a pattern. The changing society, the pressure on social cohesion, interactions from a personal interpretation, this complexity is observed within a regular grid. In addition to my hand-woven, embroidered work, this project also consists of a document with the 365 terms that form the principle for the elaborated patterns. These terms are printed in the same grid and translated into English, Spanish, and Korean. The observer is attracted by certain patterns and challenged to make an association with his impressions—the terms. Recognition and doubts will lead to further investigation and awareness of his role within a sustainable society.

Social Diary of the City | Detail

Hemp, silk, cotton, wool, acrylic, text print; hand woven, embroidered, written text; 280 x 150 x 2 cm annekeklein-textileart.nl, @annekeklein_oogappel

Squares and Roots Metamorphosis | Victoria Potrovitza | Lancaster, California | 2019

As a visual artist, I started by drawing and painting on paper. As I experimented with various media, I chose hand embroidery on canvas, not in its traditional form, but as an extra dimension to the artwork to express my creative ideas. Stitching with bold, vibrant colored threads and applying acrylic or gouache paints, I create geometric abstract, playful compositions, influenced by my architectural background and the universal symbols of tribal arts. My works are intuitive creations meant to invoke feelings rather than conveying concepts.

Squares and Roots Metamorphosis | Detail

Cotton threads on silk; hand embroidered; 36 x 22 x 1 in. victoriapotrovitza.com, @victoriapotrovitza

The House That Sam Built | Trish Johnson | Toronto, Ontario, Canada | 2019

I had my DNA analyzed and I received a list of my “new” relatives. One name stood out on the list: John Harvey. He was the only one with the same surname as my maternal grandmother, so I wrote to him and asked, “Are you a Harvey from Grand Manan?” and he was. The summer of 2018, I went to Grand Manan and on the night I arrived, I went to the lobster roll dinner at the church hall and someone said to me, “Are you Trish Johnson?” and that is how I met John Harvey. It turns out that he owns the house built by our mutual ancestor, Sam Harvey, and I was invited to see the house. Sam Harvey was a shipbuilder and a fisherman. He built the house himself and in the attic you can still see the marks of the axe on the hand hewn beams. This house was built about 1880. This rug depicts that house, the house that Sam, my great-great-grandfather, built. This house is just south of the village of Seal Cove.

The House That Sam Built | Detail

Wool on linen; rug hooking; 18.5 x 28.5 in. @TrishJohnsonHookedRugs

Burst | Marge Tucker | Norwell, Massachusetts | 2018

I am drawn to circles; of all the geometric shapes they are the most mobile. And in fiber, they can be challenging to construct. Improvisationally pieced wedges come together to form circular shapes. The variation in wedge length contributes to a sense of motion moving from the center out. The concentric quilting lines ripple out from each unit and enhance this outward movement. The mosaic look comes from a dark fabric layered behind the center which accentuates the seam lines. Half units meet their quilted counterparts at the borders.

Burst | Detail

Cotton fabric top, white batting, white linen back, cotton and polyester thread; machine pieced, machine quilted; 42 x 35 in. margetuckerquilts.com, @margetuckerquilts | Photo Credit: Joe Ofria

10:23 (Phase One) | Marie Wohadlo | Thompsonville, Michigan | 2020

Using 151,000 matte black, iris, and clear glass beads, this woven “fodomosaic” consists as Phase One of a larger project using one bead to represent one hour of my grandmother’s life spanning almost 90 years. The complete hanging will depict my grandparents as they were always seated either side of me during visits at mealtime, while playing Scrabble, or just looking out the window into the yard. The photographic portion was analog, done decades ago on film with natural light. More recently, I used digital files and my own manipulations to create precise patterns using algorithms. The visual space between them is determined by a chance system using a custom “recipe” of black, color, and clear beads which is a metaphor for our lives in which we make plans but then so much of it is subject to happenstance. Similarly, when chance pixel-stars collide (appear in sequence) abstract quilt-like, starburst, or meteoric formations shall be created, analogous to holidays and other important memorable events in our lives. The title, 10:23 is taken from my grandparents’ street address as I have observed over the years since their deaths, I frequently find myself looking at the clock at 10:23. Whether this is them sending me a message from beyond or whether it is merely a memory mechanism, the calming and therapeutic effect is the same. In making this contemplative piece, I continually find analogies, metaphors, and reminders. I hope you do, too.

10:23 (Phase One | Detail

151,000 Glass beads; woven fodomosaic; 67 x 47 x .15 in. (without attached rod and eyelets) bit-by-bit.me, @fodopro

Migration 2015: Wind Doesn't Know for Borders | Minna Rothman | Brookline, Massachusetts | 2020

This is the latest tapestry from my Migration 2015 series. The whole series presents my reflections on various aspects of mass migrations and their impact on the internal life of refugees. I use abstract shapes to symbolically represent fragmentation of the refugee life once they are displaced from their communities where they were integrated for generations. In the Wind Doesn’t Know for Borders tapestry, I use the presence of sunlight, day moon, and the dimensionality of a sand dune to create a perspective of time: from astronomical (daily) to geological (existential) time, when the fragmentation of daily life transcends into grains of sand. There are many parallels that can be drawn from this landscape by the viewer. One, that all of a human’s life is carried like grains of sand around the planet that created us, where artificial borders among us become meaningless. Another parallel could be with the COVID-19 virus (as the most primitive life form) which is carried by air, across borders and continents. From the standpoint of traditional tapestry weaving, which creates a stable, draping, semi-permanent fabric known to stand with time, the execution of this tapestry faced several challenges. In particular, the sand ripples of the smaller dune were created with a variety of handweaving techniques with a great attention to preserving a flat fabric drape without distortions.

Migration 2015: Wind Doesn't Know for Borders | Detail

Wool, metallic on linen warp, cotton lining; hand woven; 27 x 38 in. MZRStudio.com, @minnarothman

Female Regulator | Juliet Martin | Brooklyn, New York | 2020

I sculpt fiber memoirs. I’m not drawing figures, I’m capturing feelings. The pieces include weaving, sewing, and illustration to tell my stories with visual one-liners and satire. I am not always funny, but I am always sincere. Starting from nothing, I use my loom to create a canvas, a blank screen, with no model. I do not disguise my process: the yarn, the pins, the threads are exposed. Working with my hands reveals how I feel while I am working as well as how I work. I’m in an open relationship. My materials and my mission are for everyone to see. Weaving is my noun and my verb. I turn on my weavings, cut them up, rearrange them, paint on them. Risking everything, I deconstruct what I make and make it into something new, something sexy. Precarious situations are exhilarating. I love to draw. I love to write. Note-taking, I record emotions through words and images. I combine visual notation with journal-scrawls. I create comic illustrations that speak to me, and then they tell you what I meant. I print the images on fabric and sew them on my chopped-up weavings. These drawings bandage the notes to the fabric, healing the wounds I inflicted. Bringing together my sculptures is an integrated process creating cohesive, humorous pictures of myself. An eyeball covered in self-deprecating scrawl: Funny-ha-ha? Funny-awkward? Funny-uncomfortable? Using humor as a sling for heavy subjects, it is easier for me to make a joke to convey a serious subject. Humor is the white-glove touch to bring people in. Inside that fabric is the serious me. My moods come out as colors. I can bring together bright blue bodies and raveled pink tassels, redefining what colors feel like—cheery blues, depressed pinks. I combine colors, patterns, textures to propose questions and answers. You will see me when you see my work

Female Regulator | Detail

Machine made fabric, inkjet prints on fabric, fabric paint; hand woven (SAORI weaving); 14 x 20 in. julietmartin.com, @remotelyjuliet

Deep in the Mangroves | Jean Howard | Auxvasse, Missouri | 2019

Deep in The Mangroves is the third quilt in a series that uses organic shapes that bask in the bold colors found in nature. This quilt evokes the luxurious colors of the landscape of a mangrove forest in the tropics.

Deep in the Mangroves | Detail

Commercial 100% cotton fabric and batting; hand dyed, machine quilted; 56 x 44 x .25 in. Jeanhowardquilts.com, @jeanhowardquilts

It’s Complicated | Paula Kovarik | Memphis, Tennessee | 2019

This journey of stream-of-consciousness stitching reflects the daily thoughts that run through my mind regarding how complicated this earth is.

It’s Complicated | Detail

Cotton canvas, wool batting, cotton thread; free-motion stitched; 66 x 23 in. paulakovarik.com, @yellowbrickstudio

Hovering | Betty Vera | North Adams, Massachusetts | 2020

This piece is part of a series based on my ongoing fascination with the play of light on surfaces—in this case, reflected light on a scarred concrete floor in an industrial space that happened to be a textile mill. I often think of these marks and scratches as “found” abstract drawings. In Hovering, what I saw as I worked with the image was a pair of small shapes, one hovering above the other and creating a kind of tension in the space between them.

Hovering | Detail

Cotton, Jacquard tapestry; 59 x 46 in. bettyvera.com, @bettyvera | Photo Credit: John Polak Photography

Thom Brow | Fuzzy Mall | Dundas, Ontario, Canada | 2020

My work in portraiture is interaction driven. I get to know my subject by taking candid photos and studying their unique body language. Focusing on the person in mid-motion, I capture raised eyebrows, crooked smiles and waving hands that we all use to communicate. This is a response to the deluge of Instagram and Facebook images currently flooding our daily lives. My intention is to reinterpret fleeting imagery by slowing down the process and hand working it, slowly creating a permanent object from an image that we are accustomed to seeing swiped away by a finger. Ephemeral moments disappear unless made permanent in some way. My goal is to tap into the tradition of quilts and painted portraits as family heirlooms by creating contemporary portraits from these casual photographs that are snapped by cell phones, often live in the cloud, and usually disappear. In this current body of work, pieces continue to focus on personal identity and diversity, depicting people of various ages, races, and genders. I capture people in action, in personal settings, doing things they love to do. The work is a response to our current media landscape, which is jarring and anxiety-inducing. As an American living in Canada, I’ve been feeling helpless watching each news cycle. This work is a response to the number of depressing news stories coming out of my home country. I feel sad, angry, frustrated, and ineffective. I know the stories of school shootings, corporate greed, decaying environment, and corrupt politicians won’t stop anytime soon; as a result, I can only focus on a localized and momentary happiness. This series portrays people doing simple things that bring them bliss, whether it be gardening, biking, yoga, or playing with a pet. More than ever, I need to see people enjoying life’s small moments.

Thom Brow | Detail

Reclaimed textiles, thread, industrial felt, Velcro; appliquéd, satin stitched, machine sewn; 84 x 78 x .5 in. quiltedportrait.net

The Burr | Lialia Kuchma | Chicago, Illinois | 2019

Tapestries are fiber expressions of my ongoing query into personal purpose, and they objectify my state of mind. The world beyond my loom begs a conversation with materials and tools. I am also in conversation with the tools and processes in the print studio, where one media informs the other, wholly clarifying each—given ample time for exploration. Printmaking, specifically etching, was a discipline I had put aside when tapestry assumed a definitive place in my life. That was more than 30 years ago. Finding a need to revisit printmaking, specifically working with drypoint, directed the ongoing current conversation between the two distinctively different disciplines. Time is another important player in my work, time to keep asking—sometimes the same question without expecting the same answer! It is that known uncertainty that propels me.

The Burr | Detail

Cotton warp, wool weft; woven; 66 x 59 in. @lialiakuchma

Edge of Chaos | Niraja Lorenz | Eugene, Oregon | 2020

Edge of Chaos was created for the Art of the Cosmos Exhibition which was to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope. Many of the celestial objects depicted in my piece were inspired by photos taken by the Hubble, including spiral galaxies, nebulas, and star clusters. Unfortunately, the show was cancelled due to COVID-19. This is the largest piece I have made, spending more than a year piecing and quilting it. It is composed of shibori-dyed, solid colored hand-dyed, and commercial cotton fabrics. It was constructed in seven separate units that I assembled after I quilted it. My goal was to create a feeling of vastness and majesty. The lower edge, containing a city, mountains, and forest counters the enormity and mystery of the sky and hopefully inspires awe and wonder in the viewer.

Edge of Chaos | Detail

Dyed shibori cotton, hand dyed cotton by the artist and others, commercial cotton; improvisationally designed, machine pieced, machine quilted on home machine; 72 x 123 in. nirajalorenz.com, @nirajalorenz

Perennial | Maggy Rozycki Hiltner | Red Lodge, Montana | 2018

I’ve tasked myself with questioning the artifacts of my culture by changing their context and content. Working with handmade remnants of the past, I repurpose them to comment on the present. The history of a quilt pattern (this one Grandmother’s Flower Garden), as well as its geometric pattern is contrasted with the wild color and billowing abundance of found embroidery and the solemn beauty of the skeleton in linen. Working in found materials, I employ a multitude of anonymous assistants. I try to celebrate and elevate their abandoned handwork.

Perennial | Detail

Linen, found embroidery, overdyed found quilt (Grandmother's Flower Garden pattern); hand appliquéd, hand embroidered; 57 x 57 x .5 in. maggyrhiltner.com, @maggyhiltner | Photo Credit: Gene Rodman

Bigger in the Outside | Kathy Nida | El Cajon, California | 2019

Living in Southern California seems to mean the outdoors calls to us year round. The weather is always pretty good, sometimes too hot and sometimes too cold, but nature is usually waiting for us to come out and be in the mud, the sun, the sand, the trees. I feel bigger out there, outside. I can breathe in and then breathe out the stress, the bad, the irritating, and leave it outside. I can become the outside.

Bigger in the Outside

Commercial and hand dyed cottons; fused appliqué, machine stitched, machine quilted; 49.5 x 29.5 in. kathynida.com, @knida | Photo Credit: Gary Conaughton

Declarative | Michael Rohde | Westlake Village, California | 2018

Part of a series of tapestries, employing an imagined language. This idea began with a suggestion by a scholar of ancient Andean textiles. Her thesis was that some textiles with repeated but varied design elements encoded a language that had not yet been deciphered. My approach to this concept was to invent an unknown language with units of 5 x 5 inch squares in two colors per unit. While this imagined language is not decipherable, the color choices symbolically convey an idea. Here the brash red, tan, and black format evokes a strong statement of fact.

Declarative | Detail

Wool, mohair, goat hair, natural dyes; hand woven tapestry; 76 x 47 x 1 in. michaelrohde.com, @michaelfrohde | Photo Credit: W. Scott Miles

Poppy Profusion | Denise Oyama Miller | Fremont, California | 2018

My husband and I like to travel around in our motorhome and frequently camp by the ocean, where the weather is constantly changing. We found a garden of Icelandic poppies at Half Moon Bay. Although they look fragile, the hardy Icelandic poppies seem to thrive in these conditions, with color everywhere you look.

Poppy Profusion | Detail

Cotton fabric, batting, threads; broken color raw edge appliqué, free motion quilted, faced edges; 25 x 41 x .5 in. deniseoyaamiller.com, @deniseoyamamiller | Photo Credit: Sibila Savage

Use the left and right arrows to navigate through the artwork and read more about each piece. Click the image to enlarge.

Artists:

Carolyn Kohler | Irene Clark | Lily Hope | Cassie Arnold

The Moss Coat | Carolyn Kohler | Malua Bay, New South Wales, Australia | 2020

Daily walks on my local beach in Malua Bay, Australia, during COVID isolation have enabled me to witness Mother Nature in all her glory. At the end of the beach, rocks tumble down to the ocean and many are covered with a beautiful green moss that seems to glow in the late afternoon. The beautiful green of the moss was the inspiration for the coat color while the mohair curls pay homage to the texture of the weedy moss.

The Moss Coat | Detail

Australian merino wool, mohair curls, silk chiffon; nuno felted, dyed, hand-stitched; 48 x 24 in. (size 12 Australian) carolynkohlercollection.com.au, @carolynkohlercollection

Prairie August | Irene Clark | Madison, Wisconsin | 2020

While I am fascinated by many plants, the biosystem of a Northern Prairie captivates my imagination the most, maybe because I am so intimately familiar with it. The August version brought out purple coneflowers, yellow coneflowers, compass plants, milkweed pods, Joe-Pye weed, cardinal flowers, Indian dropseed, and big blue-stem grasses. The organized chaos of the blooming plants is supported by scores of insects, including endangered monarch butterflies. It is the biodiversity that brings together colors, shapes, and textures so pleasing to the eyes, so enchanting to our imagination. I will have a series of prairie scarves dedicated to each distinct prairie season. This one is August.

Prairie August | Detail

Silk sparse gauze, wool; nuno felted; 88 x 21 in. feltaccompli.com, @feltaccompli

Chilkat Protector | Lily Hope | Juneau, Alaska | 2020

For hundreds of years, Chilkat blankets have documented history, clan migration, and stories for the Indigenous peoples of the Northwest coast of America and Canada. Chilkat Protector will serve as a record of this time. In the future people will know we were here; we took care of each other and we survived. We are still weaving.

Chilkat Protector | Detail

High spun merino weft yarns, cedar bark warp, tin cones, ermine tails; Chilkat weaving; 12 x 7.5 x .187 in. lilyhope.com, @lilyhopeweaver | Photo Credit: Sydney Akagi Photography

Stereotype Sweater (Women's Edition) | Cassie Arnold | Denton, Texas | 2020

My current body of work explores the unspoken and taboo topics connected to life as a woman. Whether it be inspired by miscarriage, breastfeeding, or the transformative female form, my art encourages all people to engage in an open and unashamed dialogue. By using traditional fiber techniques like knitting, my hope is to change the cultural narrative of “women’s work.” Stitch by stitch, she challenges the stereotypes surrounding females, their bodies, their work, their capabilities, and their lives. The Stereotype Sweater started as an idea in 2016 when our president used inappropriate language to describe women. I wrote the word “NASTY” down in my journal and then slowly started adding to the list of negative words I saw in the media being used to describe strong women. In 2020, I conducted an Instagram survey asking women to share negative words that had been used to describe them, and the response was overwhelming. The Stereotype Sweater features just a handful of the words and stories that were shared with me, as the sweater is not big enough to hold them all. My hope is that the sweater raises awareness of the physical weight and psychological toll our words have on people.

Stereotype Sweater | Detail

Ultimate Merino® wool, pima cotton; hand knit; 36 x 36 x 4 in. cassiearnoldart.com, @cassiearnoldfiberart

Use the left and right arrows to navigate through the artwork and read more about each piece. Click the image to enlarge.

The Jurors

The Fiber Art Network engaged two jurors of note, Caroline Kipp, Curator of Contemporary Art, The Textile Museum, George Washington University, and Lisa L. Kriner, President of the Textile Society of America and Professor of Art at Berea College. They have selected 52 outstanding works of art from over 1100 entries.

It was a joy and an honor to serve as a juror for Excellence in Fibers, and see so many powerful examples of brilliance within the field. The works I was particularly enamored with and were most successful in my view, began with a clear concept that was seamlessly integrated with technique and produced a strong visual message. Thank you to everyone who submitted for creating such exceptional fiber-based artworks, and sharing your vision with the world. – Caroline Kipp, EIFVI Juror

It was a joy to serve as a juror for the Excellence In Fibers exhibition and selecting the final art was a true challenge. As President of Textile Society of America, it was wonderful to see all of the intellectually and visually engaging art being made in the textile tradition and medium. As a teacher, it was an inspiration to see the exciting art world my students are moving into. -Lisa Kriner, EIFIV Juror

About Fiber Art Now and The Fiber Art Network

The Fiber Art Network is a membership organization that inspires and connects the community while increasing support and opportunities for its members. Fiber Art Now is a quarterly (print and digital) magazine. Fiber Art Now magazine is included with a Membership. Click here to subscribe to Fiber Art Now magazine and click here to learn more about the Fiber Art Network.