TSA News
Member Monday with Yumiko Kamada
Tribal carpets and textiles have been enthusiastically collected by connoisseurs and ordinary people in Europe and the U.S. for years. In contrast, tribal carpets and textiles did not gain the ...
Member Monday with Laura J. Allen
For this year’s Textile Society of America symposium, I researched one special item often overlooked in the American Museum of Natural History's vast collection—the nineteenth-century at káté daakéit or Tlingit ...
First Friday: “Bisa Butler: Portraits” at the Art Institute of Chicago
Bisa Butler: Portraits, an exhibition featuring twenty-two of the artist’s arresting portrait quilts, opened at the Art Institute of Chicago on November 16, 2020. Although the Art Institute had to ...
The Emergence of Artisan Designers in Kutch, India
By Judy Frater Indian artisans are reeling from COVID-19 and its economic repercussions, and people are concerned that they face an existential crisis. Once again, we face the fundamental question: ...
Member Monday with Annabelle Camp
As a researcher and a conservator, I feel it is my responsibility to understand and preserve not only the tangible aspects of an object, but also the intangible: how it ...
“A Decade in Fiber” from Haywood Community College
By: Amy Putansu A Decade in Fiber is an exhibition with surprising technical breadth, especially considering the work is all made by recent alumni of a two-year college textiles program ...
Book Review: Every Thread A Story and The Secret Language of Miao Embroidery
Reviewed by Kristin Scheel Lunde This boxed set containing Every Thread A Story and The Secret Language of Miao Embroidery charts the artistry of seventeen villages located in the southwestern ...
Book Review: Ikat: The Essential Handbook to Weaving Resist-Dyed Cloth
Ikat: The Essential Handbook to Weaving Resist-Dyed Cloth Reviewed by Wendy Weiss “Ikat is not a technique for the faint of heart,” says the author, Mary Zicafoose. Writing a how-to ...
Member Monday with Professor Jeana Klein
When my students at Appalachian State University left for spring break in March 2020, their first major projects were almost finished on the looms. They had just started learning the ...
Interview with Annie Evelyn and Corey Pemberton of Crafting The Future
Caroline Hayes Charuk As the Textile Society of America works to make our membership and our field more representative and inclusive of people with marginalized identities, it is clear that ...
Museum from Home at SJMQT
By Amy DiPlacido Since the temporary closure of San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles in March 2020, many people have asked me, “Now that the museum is closed, what ...
I Was India: Embroidering Exoticism
Kira Dominguez Hultgren at San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles by Shilpa Shah Arose, 2020. 132 x 132 x 26 in. Virgin and less pure wool in homespun marigold ...
Book Review: How to Weave a Navajo Rug And Other Lessons from Spider Woman
By Lynda Teller Pete and Barbara Teller Ornelas Reviewed by Deborah Corsini How to Weave a Navajo RugAnd Other Lessons from Spider Woman Navajo weaving is a precise, complicated and ...
Member Monday with Magali An Berthon
Preparation of a polychromic weft ikat at IKTT, Chot Sam village, Siem Reap, personal picture, 2016. In preparation for our upcoming symposium, we would like to introduce our members to ...
The Persian Carpet Tradition Wins R. L. Shep Award
The Persian Carpet Tradition by P.R.J. Ford P. R. J. “Jim” Ford’s The Persian Carpet Tradition, from Hali Publications, is the winner of TSA’s R. L. Shep Award for the ...
Textile Month 2020: Cooper Hewitt’s Object of the Week Blog
By: Susan Brown and Kat Diuguid Since 2017, Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, has hosted the Textile Society of America on its Object of the Day blog to celebrate New ...
Member Monday with Jennifer Byram
Continuity During Times of Coronavirus – Bringing Together the Choctaw Textile Community By: TSA Member Jennifer Byram Originating in Mississippi and Alabama, Choctaw communities have been dispersed due to colonial ...
The Craft Economy
On July 2nd, TSA hosted its first of many Affinity Group Conversations focused on the craft economy. I worked alongside Mimi Robinson, a textile designer and author, to launch this ...
Announcing the 2019 R.L. Shep Ethnic Textiles Book Award Short List
Given annually to a publication judged to be the best book in the field of ethnic textile studies, the R.L. Shep Ethnic Textiles Book Award consists of a cash prize ...
Melissa Cody Honored with 2020 Brandford/Elliott Award
The Textile Society of America’s Brandford/Elliott Award for Excellence in Fiber Art (BEA) honors the lives and work of the late and beloved fiber artists Joanne Segal Brandford and Lillian ...
First Friday: July- More Virtual Exhibitions and Lectures
Since our first post on virtual events and exhibitions in May, we have discovered many more resources to share with the TSA Community. As quarantine continued and everyone adjusted to ...
Welcome Amy DiPlacido as our TSA News Digital Content Editor
Amy DiPlacido is currently the Head Curator at San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles, where she has collaborated on shows involving historic and contemporary fashion and textiles. Amy oversees ...
Member Monday with Textile Artist Precious Lovell
Please note: This interview was originally planned as a celebration of Juneteenth, the day commemorating the ending of enslavement in the United States of America and had been scheduled with ...
First Friday: Textile Traditions in Contemporary Muslim Fashions
By Laura L. Camerlengo, Associate Curator of Costume and Textile Arts, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco Organized by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF), Contemporary Muslim Fashions ...
TSA President’s Letter Spring 2020
Dear TSA Members, As this letter was in its final draft and going to press, the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis and the senseless death of so many other ...
TSA’s Statement Against Police Violence
To our members, our siblings of color, our friends, families and communities affected by racism and systemic injustice across the United States and around the world, How are you doing? ...
Virtual Exhibitions and Events: May 2020
"Installation View of Anni Albers at Tate Modern", 2018. Courtesy of the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation. Due to the ongoing Covid-19 Crisis, exhibitions and related events have been canceled ...
Member News: Lindsay Olson Textile x Science The Joys and Challenges of Sci/Art
Scientists and artists both thrive on uncertainty and a sense of adventure.These two ideas inspire my studio practice. I make textile art about science and because of this, my work ...
Exhibition Review: Lenore Tawney: Mirror of the Universe
Reviewed by Diane Newbury John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, Wisconsin August 18, 2019 — January 19, 2020 Visit exhibition page here In Poetry and Silence: The Work and Studio ...
COVID-19 Resources and Related TSA Updates
As we all navigate the many challenges resulting from the developing COVID-19 crisis, we need to make the following TSA announcements: - The April TCU in Toronto is canceled and ...