SAVE THE DATE!

31st Annual Weaving History Conference October 19-21, 2026

Join us virtually on Zoom as we dive into another year of captivating weaving history! This conference brings together historians, artists, scholars, and enthusiasts from around the globe to explore the cultural, historical, and artistic significance of handweaving and related fiber arts.

Whether you’re a practicing weaver, an art historian, a museum professional, or simply fascinated by the legacy of textile arts, this event offers inspiration, insight, and a chance to engage with and learn from a vibrant creative community.

Take a look at the 2025 agenda!

Seeking proposals for the 2026 Annual Weaving History Conference!

We encourage proposals on all topics related to the history of weaving and related fiber arts. Presentations that include diverse speakers as well as topics that address historically marginalized communities will be given special consideration. For a look at past topics, please take a look at last year’s presentations below. Questions? Contact Marina at marina@tiartscenter.org.

DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS: August 9, 2026

Selected presenters will receive a $50 honorarium. We deeply appreciate the time, expertise, and creativity our speakers invest in our conference. We believe in recognizing and valuing the contributions of our community, and we’re excited to take this meaningful step forward in supporting those who help make the Weaving History Conference a vibrant and enriching experience!

2026 PROPOSAL SUBMISSION FORM

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2025 Presentations & Agenda

Monday, October 20

8:30-9:00am

Welcome & Introduction

9:00-10:00am

"Weaving Tradition in Krolovets, Ukraine: Weaving as Cultural Code" -- Halyna Shepko, Liudmyla Myntus, & The Krolovets Weaving Museum

DESCRIPTION

This presentation focuses on the specific Krolevets weaving of Krolevets, Ukraine, particularly known for its “rushnyky” or ritual cloths. Woven traditionally in red and white, they are not simply textiles. They are also part of the cultural code of the region and are used during wedding ceremonies and other rituals. This talk is presented in collaboration with the Krolovets Weaving Museum, and Liudmyla Myntos, World Master Folk Artist of 2024.

BIOS

Halyna Shepko was born in East Village, in New York City and grew up Ukrainian communities in a family of musicians and artists. As a shepherd, cheesemaker, herbalist, and fiber artist, Halyna embraces folk tradtions and music. Halyna and her husband Rich’s homestead in Gardiner, N.Y. is also home to Mokosh Ukrainian Weaving Center where she teaches and keeps her Ukrainian weaving collection.

Liudmyla Myntus was nominated for World Master Folk Artist 2024, is one of the foremost theoretical and practical weavers of the Krolovets weaving tradition.

The Krolovets Weaving Museum is located 70 km from the border of Russia, it has over 700 exhibits and 400 of them are of the “rushnyky” or ritual cloths. The oldest cloth is from 1839.

10:00-11:00am

"Exploring the Warp-Weighted Loom in Viking Age Textiles" -- Rebekah Marshall

DESCRIPTION

The warp weighted loom, a weaving technology with origins tracing back to the later Neolithic period, stands as a testament to the resilience and adaptability of ancient textile traditions. This presentation investigates its use within Iron Age Scandinavia and the Viking Age, analyzing its structural characteristics and the archaeological evidence that underscores its importance in textile production. Particular attention is given to the processes of warping and weaving, the tools integral to these activities, and the patterns they enabled. Illuminating the role of the warp weighted loom within Viking material culture, this talk aims to invoke a deeper appreciation for its historical, artistic, and cultural significance.

BIO

With a background as a trained archaeologist specializing in archaeological textiles, Rebekah Marshall brings nearly 30 years of independent research and practice-based exploration to the study of historic textiles and costumes. As an active member of a Viking Living History group, she uses reproduction tools to demonstrate the entire textile creation process, from sheep to cloth, offering insights into the skills and practices of Viking women. These efforts aim to bridge the past and present, providing audiences with a tangible understanding of Viking Age textile traditions.

11:00-12:00-pm

"A la Memoire de J.M. Jacquard" -- Brielle Pizzala

DESCRIPTION

In 1804, Joseph Marie Jacquard patented a dobby that stores the memory of a textile’s structure within a binary code on punch cards. Although other inventors, such as Basile Bouchon, Jean Baptiste Falcon, and Jacques de Vaucanson created earlier iterations, Jacquard is remembered as the lone inventor. In this presentation, I will explain how Jacquard’s loom worked, how it changed the silk weaving industry, and how Jacquard’s image fortified a French narrative of technological innovation and industrial growth. I will focus on woven images of Jacquard to describe how he was immortalized by the painter, Claude Bonneford, and weaver, Michel-Marie Carquillat.

Jacquard’s technological innovation championed French narratives of scientific and industrial innovations within the nineteenth century and within the early stages of the Industrial Revolution. But not all were satisfied with industrialization. Les Canuts, Lyonnaise weavers, revolted in 1831 and 1834, but were quickly and violently suppressed by the French military. They demanded minimum prices on woven silks to guarantee basic economic survival. In 1831, the same year as the first revolt, the city of Lyon commissioned Claude Bonneford to paint the elderly J. M. Jacquard. Another image by Bonneford and Carquillat shows the politicians and generals that suppressed the revolts. They pose in an atelier and receive a woven portrait of Jacquard. I argue that Bonneford’s and Carquillat’s images created a narrative to promote the state’s industrial changes at the expense of Les Canuts’ economic conditions during the reign of Louis-Philippe and beyond.

BIO

Brielle Pizzala is the Collections Manager/Registrar at the Maryhill Museum of Art in Goldendale, WA. She holds Master degrees from the Bard Graduate Center (MA ‘25) in New York City and the University of St. Thomas (MA ‘23) in St. Paul, MN. During the pandemic, she taught herself to weave and expanded her research interests to include the silk industry.

12:00-12:45pm

LUNCH

12:45-1:45pm

"Moving-Spindle Spinning Wheels in Review" -- Florence Feldman-Wood

DESCRIPTION

Moving-spindle wheels have fascinated Florence Feldman-Wood for many years and she has been researching, writing, and lecturing about them. In this lecture you will learn how to identify pendulum wheels, lever-action wheels, and track wheels. These are just a few variations of the moving-spindle wheels American and Canadian inventors devised during the mid-19th century. Their aim was to make handspinning more efficient and easier for the handspinner. Diagrams will illustrate how these complex wheels functioned. For some of the U. S. patented wheels, patent models still exist.

BIO

Florence Feldman-Wood has been publishing the quarterly newsletter, The Spinning Wheel Sleuth, A Newsletter about Spinning Wheels and Related Tools, since 1993 and the annual Hand Looms Supplement since 1998. Her favorite area of research is patented moving-spindle wheels. She had the unique opportunity to photograph and study the patent models of spinning wheels at the Smithsonian in Washington, DC.

1:45-2:20pm

"Alice Kagawa Parrott through Historic Exhibitions" -- Deborah Randolph

DESCRIPTION

This presentation will explore the life and work of weaver Alice Kagawa Parrott through the progression of historical exhibitions. The prominence of these exhibitions illustrates the vital role of mid 20th century female artists in changing/challenging the history of women in the arts. The exhibitions Visual Communication in the Crafts (1960, Travel US),Fabrics International (1961, Travel US), Objects: USA, (1969, Travel US and Europe), Wall Hangings (1962, V & A, UK) and Legends in Fiber (1986, Octagon, US) and others will be discussed in terms of curatorial philosophy, exhibited weavings and the exhibitions’ influence on individuals, fiber arts, and the history of art. Moving from an emphasis on materials and techniques of weaving to celebrating the individual artists, these exhibitions illustrate a change in curatorial viewpoint about women fiber artists. Alice Kagawa Parrott simultaneously wove utilitarian objects in her production studio for sale in her shop in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA, and created wall hangings for exhibitions and museum collections throughout the world. She was known for her work made from hand spun yarn, which was hand dyed with natural dyes made from plants in her garden. Through this presentation, Alice Kagawa Parrott will be introduced as a woman who created fiber art at a pivotal time in the history of women in the arts.

BIO

Deborah Randolph, PhD, Principal Researcher and Co-Founder, International Scholars Group, is an independent researcher and museum educator. Her publications include An Introductory Guide to Qualitative Research in Art Museums (2024) with Ann Rowson Love and five chapters in edited volumes. She is also working on a feminist inquiry into female weavers in the 20th century, specifically the work of Alice Kagawa Parrott, and a book project, Reimagining Feminist Curation.

2:20-3:20pm

"From History to Hobby: How Weave Structures get Standardized" -- Jamie Hurlburt

DESCRIPTION

During the North American handweaving revival of the 1940s and 1950s, many prominent authors and teachers turned to library archives in search of historical weaving patterns from the 18th and 19th centuries that could be adapted for a modern audience. While renewed attention to historical patterns lead to innovation, it also resulted in weave structures being simplified and standardized. Structures which were considered too difficult or confusing for hobby weavers to work with were reduced in complexity and circulated with new and restrictive “rules”. Current weaving teachers and pattern designers often take these simplified versions as the authoritative description of the weave structure, resulting in a loss of structural complexity and versatility in contemporary woven design.

In this talk Jamie will trace the histories of two common weave structures–crackle weave and variations of Bronson lace–through the process of discovery, innovation, and standardization through the work of authors including Mary Meigs Atwater, Marguerite Davison, and Harriet Tidball. By providing counter-examples from historical weaving designs that break 20th-century rules, Janie will demonstrate how valuable it is for weavers to draw on a wider variety of historical designs in order to keep the full possibilities of woven structures alive.

BIO

Jamie Hurlburt is a weaving instructor, pattern designer, and writer with Gather Textiles in Edmonton, Alberta. A regular contributor to WEFT magazine, Jamie has a book of weaving advice (The Best Weaving Advice Nobody Listens To) coming out this Fall and a project on Marguerite Porter Davison coming in 2026 from Gather Press.

3:20-4:00pm

"The Agency of Textiles in the Slave Trade and the Industrial and Plantation Economy" -- Maggie D'Aversa

DESCRIPTION

Textiles have long been used for their versatility of use across multiple systems and industries. In this study Maggie D’Aversa examines the fundamental role of textiles in the era of the transatlantic slave trade, the rise of the industrialism in New England and the growth of the plantation economy. This work has its genesis in Rhode Island in the 1700’s and Maggie traces the network of textile use and production from the outfitting of a slave ship to the growth of the industrial textile mills and the support of the labor force of the Southern plantations.

In illustrating the network of textiles, Maggie uses the practices of weaving, embroidering and other visual methods to give viewers a way into this era of early capitalism in America and the methods the colonists used to capture humans, force them to labor and gain power and enormous profits for themselves.

BIO

Maggie D’Aversa has a rich history with observing and thinking about connections, specifically, the hidden ones in systems and their structures. She uses textiles and sometimes prints to illustrate her finds. She studies and makes textiles from two frames of reference; first, the narrative property of a textile – how they tell a story and the second has to do with structural properties of textiles and their applied effect.

Textiles have fascinated her for most of her life and she has been fortunate to spend time in different countries and cultures researching and developing interesting textile constructs for the past 35 years. She trained as a textile engineer and materials scientist and spent over three decades researching and developing textiles for industrial and medical uses with the majority of her time at Johnson & Johnson, Inc.

Over the yars, Maggie has turned to studying social science researching and defending her dissertation on public health and the conditions of premature death for marginalized populations. Currently, she sits at her loom or stands near her dye vats and connects her experiences.

Tuesday, October 21

9:00-10:00am

"Getting to Know Elmer Wallace Hickman and His Collection at TIAC" -- Debbie Cummings & Marjie Thompson

DESCRIPTION

Elmer Wallace Hickman was a mid-20th century weaver who published limited edition portfolios of then-contemporary weaving drafts complete with samples. Through various circuitous means, the museum now has most all of his portfolios as well as many lengths of yardage left-overs.

For the past few years, a group of weavers dubbed “The Archive Raiders,” have spent days in May making order out of the chaos of the Hickman materials and now wish to share more about Elmer Wallace Hickman and his materials with others.

BIOS

Debbie Cummings and Marjie Thompson are both multi-shafts weavers, researchers, and presenters.

10:00-11:00am

"Woven Wisdom: Timeless South American Patterns in Modern Form" -- Florencia Campos

DESCRIPTION

This talk is a journey that goes deeper than just technique, it’s about cultural revival, creative transformation, and breathing new life into South American textile ancient traditions.

As an industrial designer from Chile, working on pin loom weaving for more than 15 years, Florencia will show the process behind adapting these ancient designs into pin loom weaving, a smaller-scale, modern, and often more accessible method, how this reinvention preserves cultural identity while making it relevant and wearable for contemporary audiences, which she has demonstrated in her own pattern designs and projects.

The main purpose of this talk is showing the idea that heritage can evolve and be made timeless, not locked in the past, but reimagined into new generations of design.

ABOUT THE PRESENTER

Florencia Campos is an industrial designer from Chile, she has founded Ullvuna 15 years ago, her brand of weaving kits, patterns, classes and books produced on demand in the US, from where they are sent worldwide. She also teaches through different weaving platforms and she is the author of the popular book 100 Pin Loom Squares, translated to 7 languages.

More info at www.ullvuna.com

11:00-11:45am

"The Ambitious and Somewhat Sad Story of the New Haven Cotton and Woolen Manufactory (1793-1831)" -- Sandra Rux

DESCRIPTION

The 1790’s featured the beginnings of textile mills in the new United States usually with ideas and workmen imported from England with the machinery often made by “ingenious mechanics” in the US. Most of the activity in Connecticut was east of the Connecticut River, nearer to Rhode Island. New Haven, as one of the capitals of Connecticut and a growing city, was viewed as a promising location for the textile industry. William MacIntosh arrived from England in 1791, recruited by Abel Buell who had been sent by John R. Livingston of New York to purchase copper for coins but secretly to learn the details of the latest textile processing machinery and to recruit workers. MacIntosh had the factory built and operating by the spring of 1794 when he was visited by Ezra Stiles, President of Yale College, and Henry Wansey, English clothier who was touring the eastern United States to learn about the industries there. I began research on the Manufactory because Silas Burton of Stratford, subject of earlier research, made 113 reeds for MacIntosh in 1794 and 1795. Primary sources including land records, newspaper advertisements and journal accounts have furnished most of the details about the factory. The Manufactory never quite lived up to expectations but the story of improved machinery, various owners and managers and products sold provides a window into the possibilities and vicissitudes of the New England textile industry in the early years of automation.

BIO

Sandra Rux received a BA in History from the University of Connecticut and an MA in History from Trinity College, Hartford CT and is a graduate of the Museum Studies program of the Munson Institute, Mystic Seaport Museum. Her business career was with AT&T in New York City. She moved to Portsmouth NH in 2005 as the manager for the Portsmouth Historical Society, Warner House and Wentworth-Gardner and Lear Houses and then served as manager and curator for the Portsmouth Historical Society until December 2014. She served as Curator of the Warner House Association (2014-2019) and chair person of the Portsmouth Athenaeum Exhibits Committee (2014-2021). A hand loom weaver herself, she has written about nineteenth-century carpet weaving for the Dublin Seminar and in Corsets, Clocks and Locks, a book about the industrial development of New Haven, CT. More recent exhibits include Three Centuries of Dining at the Warner House and several exhibits at the Portsmouth Athenaeum. Her most recent exhibition in 2023 at the Portsmouth Athenaeum was The Wentworth Takeover: How One Family Dominated Portsmouth and New Hampshire 1715-1775. In 2021 Sandra and her husband Alan Haesche moved back to CT. Current research is focused on makers of weaving reeds in the northeast US (1750-1830).

11:45-12:30pm

LUNCH

12:30-1:30pm

"Mary E. Snyder: The Threads of Her Life" -- Sandra Swarbrick

DESCRIPTION

From weaving rag rugs for an interior designer in Pasadena, California as a teenager in 1926 to starting a year-round weaving program at the Banff School of Fine Arts in 1976 at the age of 68, Mary E. Snyder had a remarkable and diverse career as a weaver, textile designer, author and educator. She spent years as a production weaver weaving table linens and skirts and stoles for large department stores. She became involved with art groups, weaving guilds and teaching. She began teaching weaving in adult education, then in her studio and finally at guilds all across the US and Canada. She entered college at the age of 60 and earned her BFA and MFA in Fine Arts from the University of Kansas in three years. Learn more about Mary and the many threads that made up her personal and professional life in this presentation.

ABOUT THE PRESENTER

Sandra L. Swarbrick met Mary E. Snyder in 1989 when she was first learning to weave. They became friends when she offered to assist Mary in using her Macintosh computer to revise her book Crackle Weave. They remained friends until Mary’s death in 2002. Past President of the Handweavers’ Guild of America, Inc., she has been active in guilds in California and British Columbia, Canada as well as in Washington where she currently resides.

1:30-2:15pm

"Unlocking the Mysteries of 19th Century Drafts" -- Gay McGeary

DESCRIPTION

For Gay McGeary’s presentation, she will explain how to unlock the mysteries of the 19th century weavers’ drafts. She will decipher handwritten drafts from Pennsylvania German manuscripts along with handwritten drafts from the south and the north. Many are written in profile form, and the tie-up reveals the weave structure, and the weaver is expected to figure out the treadling. For the Appalachia drafts, written on strips of paper, the weaver only gets the threading draft with no tie-up or treadling. Some of the English drafts are also handwritten, but others were published. Find out what they have in common and how they are different.

BIO

Gay McGeary has been researching and weaving coverlets for over thirty years. She is fascinated with nineteenth century coverlet patterns and weave structures and uses her research as her inspiration for her artistic interpretation of early coverlets. While her weaving is inspired by her research, her research is enhanced by her weaving explorations of the early craftsmen.

2:15-3:15pm

"Dorothy Liebes, Marie Cuttoli, and the Tapestries at the Treasure Island Worlds Fair of 1939" -- Liz Schott

DESCRIPTION

In 1938, Dorothy Wright Liebes, then an emerging star in the handweaving world, was asked to direct the Decorative Arts Pavilion at the Golden Gate International Exposition (GGIE). This was one of two Worlds Fairs held in 1939 in the U. S., the other being in New York.

Liebes amassed an exceptional array of furniture, glass, jewelry, handbound books, ceramics, and more. But her crowning achievement was winning over Marie Cuttoli, the savior of the post-World War II tapestry industry in France, whom Liebes met in Paris while in Europe in the summer of 1938 on her collecting tour.

According to Marie Cuttoli: The Modern Threat from Miro to Man Ray, “Beginning in the 1930s, Cuttoli commissioned a wide range of leading artists – including Georges Braque, André Derain, Raoul Dufy, Le Corbusier, Fernand Léger, Jean Lurçat, Man Ray, Joan Miró, Pablo Picasso, and Georges Rouault – to create designs for tapestries. She had the textiles woven in Aubusson or Beauvais, historic centers of French tapestry, and arranged for them to be exhibited internationally.” One of those exhibitions was the GGIE.

Liz’ presentation tells the story of how Dorothy Liebes met Cuttoli, how their friendship developed, how Cuttoli’s tapestries dominated the Decorative Arts Pavilion, and how getting everything back to Cuttoli after the Fair took years due to World War II.

Accompanied by color slides of the gorgeous tapestries, as well as historic documents and photographs from the Liebes archive at the Archives of American Art, this presentation will please history and tapestry lovers alike.

BIO

Liz Schott is writing the biography of Dorothy Wright Liebes. She and Peggy Osterkamp presented at The Weaving History Conference in 2024 on Liebes’s involvement in the Arts and Skills Program of the Red Cross during World War II and the critical role the Structo loom played in that story. In June, Schott was awarded the 2025 Hazel Rowley Prize by the Biographers International Organization for her proposal for Useful and Beautiful: The Life of Dorothy Wright Liebes.

Wednesday, October 22

9:00-9:45am

"The Handicraft Movement in Rural New York State, 1930 - 1947" -- Danielle Burke

DESCRIPTION

Danielle Burke offers a brief overview of her dissertation, followed by a listening session to welcome community knowledge on weaving and other craft activities in rural New York during the 1930s and 1940s. Her dissertation focus is on a crowd-sourced directory entitled “A Partial List of Craftsmen and Handicraft Groups in the United States” which was published in 1947 by the Department of Agriculture through the Extension Service and supported by home economists. The copy Danielle is working from is archived at the Thousand Island Arts Center and Handweaving Museum and was annotated by Marjorie Ruth Ross. Her presentation will provide a general overview of the directory, detail a few of the nearly 150-total entries for New York, and then open the floor to any information folks might share about individuals, guilds, and workshops included in the 1947 publication.

ABOUT THE PRESENTER

Danielle Burke is a PhD candidate in Human Ecology with a focus on design history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She holds an MA in Folklore from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and was a 2015 Windgate-Lamar Fellow which supported archival and ethnographic research on coverlet weaving in and around Asheville, North Carolina. Her weavings have been shown internationally.

9:45-10:45am

"चख़ा$, ہﺧﺮﭼ, “charkha" -- Fazia Rizvi

DESCRIPTION

Explorations of one’s weaving and spinning heritage can be fraught with misconceptions when gleaned via the language and perspectives of a third-party culture. Such is the case with charkha, a term which western audiences often think refers only to one specific kind of charkha. And that Gandhi invented it.

Charkha means so much more to South Asians and not just as the term for spinning wheel. Reclaiming a subcontinent’s independence from colonial rule also meant reclaiming its textile industry, one with a deep history and global reach, as well as securing its future, and weaving a country together spiritually via spinning. To talk about charkha is to talk about history.

In this presentation, Fazia will attempt to dispel some common western misconceptions about the spinning wheel in India, deepen our understanding of the role of spinning in India’s independence movement, popular culture, the resurgence of khadi cloth, and reveal why you know the box wheel to be “the charkha”.

ABOUT THE PRESENTER

Fazia Rizvi is an actor and web developer with more than thirty years experience in information technology in higher education. Her multicultural family background (Finland, India, Pakistan) and B.A. in anthropology is what inspires her weaving, spinning and natural dyeing craft as well as an obsession with old or vanishing tools and techniques. She currently serves as the Vice President and Program Chair for the Weavers & Spinners Society of Austin. You can find her online at www.faziarizvi.net.

10:45-11:45am

"The Back Harness, Its History and Influence on Design" -- Pat Hilts

DESCRIPTION

John Duncan first published a description of the back harness in 1808, but this specialized loom harness was mentioned earlier in 1764 as part of the inventory of a Scottish carpet factory. The intent of the device was to help overcome some of the limitations of the multi-shaft treadle loom, which became impractical with more than fifteen or sixteen shafts with their corresponding treadles. This talk will explore the influence that the back harness had on weaving designs.

BIO

Pat Hilts is a co-founder of the Weaving History Conference and has presented many papers at the meetings. Although her interests in the history of weaving are wide ranging, she is best known for her studies of the seventeenth and eighteenth-century German weaving tradition.

11:45-12:30pm

LUNCH

12:30-1:30pm

"Weaving with Specialized Tools" -- Susan Ballenger

DESCRIPTION

Tool modification directs a weaver’s attention to the mutability of their looms and tools. Yes, we can manipulate our equipment to change the expected outcome of a weave structure. And we can do it easily and economically when we take time to observe and analyze what we do and are trying to achieve with our textile work.

In this presentation, we will identify opportunities for warp and weft manipulation through understanding loom workings to give new meaning to the equipment and tools weaver’s use. Looking at our equipment with a fresh perspective allows creativity and originality to flourish. Contemporary tools such as Rail Reed, Open Reed, Supplementary Beater, and Sectional Rigid Heddles will explored as simple alternatives we can use and create to transform the expected outcome of our cloth.

BIO

Suzi Ballenger, MFA, is a Rhode Island fiber artist and educator known for thinking outside the box. An unending curiosity for material and fiber stimulates her language of hand and craft, believing these characteristics are enhanced through a deep understanding of the architecture of warp and weft. The tools we use can be modified to help facilitate the unique way handweavers communicate their voice.

1:30-2:15pm

"Hand Spinning E-textile Yarns" -- Lee Jones

DESCRIPTION

In this talk e-textile researcher Lee Jones will introduce attendees to the field of electronic textiles (also known as e-textiles) and discuss insights from her recent research project on hand spinning e-textile yarns. E-textiles and having electronics embedded in fibres and fabrics might sound like science-fiction but is actually a fun and easy way to learn all about electricity and physical computing. Spinning e-textile yarns, rather than purchasing them, enables individuals to leverage local fibres, blend them with conductive materials, and create customised yarns that can blend technology into their textile projects. Lee will discuss insights from her interviews with spinners across Canada, and e-textile spinning workshops with the Kingston Handloom Weavers & Spinners Guild. Attendees will come away from this talk with an understanding of how technology can be combined with spinning and weaving practices.

BIO

Lee Jones is an NSERC postdoctoral fellow with the iStudio at Queen’s University. Before joining the lab, she did her PhD at the Creative Interactions Lab at Carleton University, where her thesis focused on e-textiles, hybrid craft, and textile personal fabrication. In her research she works with craft communities and develops DIY toolkits so individuals can design and create interactive soft technologies to suit their own needs. She also loves running community e-textile workshops at art galleries and makerspaces, and creating interactive participatory artworks. More on her page: LeeJones.ca

2:15-3:00pm

"Artists' Canvases: A Follow-up to Helena Loerman's "Deciphering the Textile Layer"" -- Norma Smayda

DESCRIPTION

Helena Loermans’ 2021 presentation on historic artists’ canvases piqued my interest. Where did artists get their canvas before the Industrial Revolution? Why did some artists use fancy twill weave linen canvases? Why do contemporary painters use plain weave canvases? Norma wove a small length of linen canvas which she shared with a few painter friends. They recorded their comments as they painted on the canvas. This talk presents more questions than answers.

ABOUT THE PRESENTERS

Norma Smayda earned a Certificate in Handweaving in Norway, then returned to RI and established the Saunderstown Weaving School in 1974. The school recently celebrated its 50th anniversary with a month long exhibition at Hera Gallery. Smayda has written two books: Weaving Designs by Bertha Gray Hayes in 2009 and Ondulé Textiles: Weaving Contours with a Fan Reed in 2017.

3:00-3:35pm

"Heritage: What Connects Us" -- Tia Lorenna

DESCRIPTION

Tia will be debuting her upcoming documentary on the history of basket weaving in Ngaye, Sénégal and its connection to the basket weaving practices found in the Gullah Geeche community throughout the Americas. The documentary showcases the beautiful baskets weaved in Sénégal and also allows the women to reflect on the practice of weaving, while also highlighting the injustices they face having their art sold in an international market, while remaining faceless in that market.

This documentary is groundbreaking in its ability to humanize women who are exploited without victimizing them. It allows them to advocate for fair compensation without making accusations. It’s a dynamic composition.

ABOUT THE PRESENTERS

Tia Lorenna is an Afro-Chicagoan Cultural Anthropologist who uses interdisciplinary practices to tell the story of Indigenous people’s globally. Through travel, Tia Lorenna becomes an agent of change by investigating the impact of community structures, heritage, and government systems. Using her Early Childhood Education degrees, Tia makes the information digestible, relatable, and engaging for all audiences.

FAQ

How much is it to attend? There is a $65 suggested donation, although we greatly appreciate any amount.
Is this conference held in person? No, the WHC is entirely virtual and is held over Zoom, so you can attend no matter where you are!
But I can’t make it to all of the presentations… Not to worry! Everything is recorded and available to attendees for two weeks after the conference ends.
Can I just attend a certain talk or one specific day? Can do! Everyone will receive the same Zoom link, which is good for all three days of the conference, and can join and leave at will.

A word about the Weaving History Conference…

In order to celebrate, promote and share academic work on the subject of handweaving, the Historic Manuscripts Conference was founded in 1994. The name was changed to the Weaving History Conference (WHC) later to reflect the expansion of the subject of the conference to contain not just academic weaving presentations, but information on all fiber arts. Today the WHC is entering its impressive 28th consecutive year!