FiberArts Guild of Pittsburgh

Rescheduled for October New Member Coffee!
2023-09-23 12:00 (America/New_York) | Pennsylvania
RESCHEDULED FOR OCTOBER- many thanks to those who registered who let us know they couldn’t make it. We will see you next month!

New Member Meet Up! A welcome to all new members and members who want to reconnect at Uptown Coffee on Saturday in Mount Lebanon. Karen and Katie can’t promise party tricks but we make for witty conversation! RSVP to Karen Krieger karenkmetals@gmail.comat

Fiberart Feedback: Formerly called Show & Share
2023-09-19 15:00 - 17:00 | Contemporary Craft, 5645 Butler Street, Pittsburgh, PA, 15201, United States
Fiberart Feedbacks: We used to call them Show and Shares or Critiques. Bring finished work or work in progress. A moderated peer group will offer solutions if you are stuck or give you the thumbs up. You tell us what kind of help you need: technical, aesthetic, presentation, installation? Anyone is welcome to attend, even just to observe what others are doing.

The Fiberarts Guild Juried Member Exhibition in 2024 is at the Erie Museum of Art in April, 2024. Applications are due between Nov 1 and Dec 22, 2023. We are offering special programs to give you a boost and make it easier for you to enter your work digitally. Bring finished work or work in progress. A moderated peer group will offer solutions if you are stuck or give you the thumbs up. You tell us what kind of help you need: technical, aesthetic, presentation, installation? Anyone is welcome to attend, even just to observe what others are doing.

Get ready for Erie (Fiberarts Guild juried membership exhibition). Fiber Feedback hybrid moderated by Carolyn Carson and David Anderson, featuring CC Artist in Resident Christina Kingerski. Join us afterwards for dinner at Hop Farm Brewery next door.

This FiberFeedback will also have a Zoom option. Please contact Michelle Browne to participate on Zoom Mlbatoast7@gmail.com.

Zoom Lecture with Clarissa Callesen
2023-09-13 13:00 - 14:30 | Online
Please Register here – Registration closes one day before the event. Members free, $5 for Guests

Wednesday, September 13,1 pm Zoom Lecture with Clarissa Callesen, Sculptor, installation artist, Instructor, and Creative coach.

Clarissa Callesen executes personal and community-based installations and sculptures, constructed of knotted, recycled discarded domestic textiles. “I work primarily with postconsumer recycled materials. Everything has been discarded from its original owner or is a by-product of organic or industrial production. I am fascinated by the history and energy of objects, particularly found objects. I am less concerned with an object’s original purpose and more interested in the evidence of life a thing wears upon the surface. We all interact with hundreds of objects and materials every day whether they are adored treasures or complete throwaways. Our lives are interconnected with this commonplace matter.”

Fiber Social - Pot Luck Picnic Outdoors
2023-07-16 12:00 - 15:00 | Diane Myers Morrisey’s backyard
12:00 -3:00 pm, SUNDAY Pot Luck Picnic Outdoors Fiber Social July 16, Rain date July 23

Registration is suggested, but walk -ins are welcome! Please Register here

Join us in the shade in Diane Myers Morrisey’s spacious backyard in McCandless for a Meet-Greet-Eat event! Please bring a covered dish to share and a lawn chair if convenient for you. There is parking, shelter and refreshments.

As we are coming out of the pandemic, we are trying to restore some Guild social traditions where members come together, share food, and connect with members who have the same passion for fiber as fine craft, fine art and joy.

Field Trip to Foggy Blossom Farm
2023-06-11 11:00 - 15:00
Register here
Sunday June 11, at 11 am. Field Trip to Foggy Blossom Farm in Leechburg PA, a 35 minute drive from central Pittsburgh on 28 North. Bring a lunch, an outdoor chair, and a optional walking stick to tour Dan and Betsy Brockett’s 12 acre perennial farm. Dan was recently an artist in residence at Contemporary Craft. A basket weaver, he crafts his baskets from willow branches grown on the premises. His baskets will be available for purchase. Betsey, a former potter, is currently beekeeper, herbalist, PR and Marketing coordinator for the farm which includes maintaining their website, https://www.foggyblossomfarm.com/ and publishing a newsletter.

The farm is closed to the public, so we are fortunate to schedule a private tour, basketry demonstration and time for a leisurely lunch. Please join us for this special opportunity for Fiberarts Guild members. You are welcome to bring family and friends, please RSVP on the guild web site, https://fiberartspgh.org/programs/online-programs/programs-registration-form/
If you have questions, let me know, mlbatoast7@gmail.com.

Foggy Blossom Farms is located at 746 Crain Road, about 35 – 40 minutes northeast of Pittsburgh near Freeport/Natrona Heights.

Foggy Blossom Farm Feature

Erika Diamond lecture and Annual voting meeting on Zoom
2023-05-31 19:00 - 20:00 | Online
Register here
May 31, 7 pm on Zoom Erika Diamond will give a 30 minute presentation, after which we will introduce and confirm the new board members. This will give us the opportunity to express our appreciation to our retiring board members.
Erika Diamond Fiberart International 2019 Artist will talk about her new exhibition currently at Contemporary Craft called SELF; a two person show featuring Erika and Matt Lambert. The exhibition continues until August 19.
Diamond is a textile-focused artist curator and educator based in Asheville, NC. She received a BFA from Rhode Island School of Design and an MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University. She has exhibited nationally and abroad, and her costumes have been commissioned by the Charlotte Ballet. Erika has had many artist residencies and has taught at Virginia Commonwealth University, Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design, Appalachian Center for Craft and Penland School of Crafts. She is Assistant Director of Galleries at Chautauqua Institution in western New York.
Erika’s skill and use of textiles–as fashion, as ornament, as protection, and as cultural identifier—is most impressive.
https://www.erikadiamond.com/

Show and Share- Online or in Person
2023-04-22 14:00 - 17:00 | Radiant Hall, McKees Rocks, 734 Thompson Avenue, McKees Rocks, PA, 15136, United States
Registration opens about a month before the event. Please register on the Registration Form

Show & Shares as well as Critiques will become hybrid. They will be both in Person at Radiant Hall, 734 Thompson Avenue, McKees Rocks, PA 15136 and also on Zoom. We will reevaluate monthly to see if we continue with this modality. Please register so we can update you on any changes to the format.
You have a choice to be there:
–IN PERSON if you are vaccinated, boosted and masked, or 10 days after you have recovered from Covid or
–On Zoom.
What is the difference between a Show & Share and a Critique? You can attend both! You can attend even if you have no work to share.
Show & Share: for members who don’t want suggestions, they just want to show off, share what they are working on, and meet other Guild members.
Critique: for members who want constructive suggestions about their work to solve technical, aesthetic or presentation problems.

This is a fun way to stay connected and get inspired!!

Lecture by Fuzzy Mall
2023-04-11 11:00 - 12:30 | Online
Tuesday, April 11, 2023 / 11:00 am ESTRegistration is free for members, $5 for guests.Registration opens about a month before the lecture. Please register on the Registration Form

I was born in Pittsburgh, PA and attended Kent State University in Kent, OH. I began painting immediately upon graduation and consider myself to be self-taught. While in Ohio, I met my future wife. We moved to a small college town in rural Missouri to pursue a teaching opportunity. I continued painting, developing a new body of work every year, while working full time as a postman. I considered my studio practice to be a passionate hobby. As our lives changed, so has my work. Painting has given way to textiles, our home has moved from the United States to Canada, and my hobby is becoming a profession.

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.

My latest series (Forest Bath) is an expansion on this idea. 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 new 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; and 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.

My work is created from raw-edged appliqué of mostly reclaimed fabrics. This newest project breaks the square/rectangle format of traditional portraiture by eliminating the frame. Figures are larger than life-sized, include the entire body, and exist independent of any background, floating on the wall or in space. Each portrait becomes more sculptural, casts its own shadow, and lives in a space in a new and unexpected way. Our experience becomes more intimate; the figure invites the viewer to enter this personal moment, and allows us to be in the same space during that captured moment. Hopefully we slow down.

www.quiltedportrait.net

Ann Coddington- Workshop at Contemporary Craft
2023-03-24 09:00 - 2023-03-27 17:00 | Contemporary Craft, 5645 Butler Street, Pittsburgh, PA, 15201, United States
Workshop with Ann Coddington at Contemporary Craft on March 24 and 25, 2023.
25% discount available for FGP members.
Register Here

Lecture by Elaine Longtemps
2023-03-15 13:00 - 14:30 | Online
Wednesday, March 15, 2023 / 1:00 pm ESTRegistration is free for members, $5 for guests.Registration opens about a month before the lecture. Please register on the Registration Form

Elaine Longtemps is an American artist who unflinchingly uses painted rope and fabric in an unusual way to convey strong cultural and political statements. A BFA graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design and a recipient of their European Honors program in Rome, Italy from 1962-63, she also did graduate work at Pratt Institute and in the Max Beckman Scholarship Program at The Brooklyn Museum Art School. Her award-winning work has been exhibited internationally and has been featured in publications in the USA, the Netherlands, England, South Korea and Italy. She was born on December 7, 1941, a date that will live in infamy and no doubt influenced her character. She currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

Exhibition venues include The Brooklyn Museum; The Holter Museum; The Erie Art Museum; The Butler Institute of American Art; The San Diego Art Institute; Schweinfurth Memorial Art Center; The Textile Museum in Washington DC; The World Financial Center in New York City; ACA Gallery in Toronto, Canada; Chojun Textile Museum in Seoul, South Korea; SETEC in Seoul, South Korea; Suwan I Park Museum of Art in Suwan, South Korea; and Fiberart International 2019 in Pittsburgh, PA.

Publications and interviews include: Be Inspired/The Annual by Creative, Vol 5, UK, 2016; Be Creative With Workbox, Issue 155, Devon, England, 2016; Artistry in Fiber, Vol 2 – Sculpture, Schiffer Publishing, USA, 2017; When Boundaries Begin to Fade, The Miroddi Group, USA, 2018; Fiber Art Now Vol. 7, Issue 2, 2017; Vol. 8, Issue 3, 2019; Vol. 11, Issue 2, 2022; The Language of Making: Visual Voices from the Textile Study Group of New York, 2019; Textiel Plus, Netherlands, 2020; and Arte Morbida, Textile Art Magazine, Numero 7. Rome, Italy, April 2022.

www.elainelongtemps.com

Grow in Fiber Grant Deadline
2023-03-13 | Online
Wanting to encourage our members to explore new opportunities and expand their experience, the Fiberarts Guild of Pittsburgh is excited to offer “Grow in Fiber” Grants. Whether members consider themselves a novice or professional, current members are invited to apply for this developmental grant. This is a fiber focused grant opportunity for artists from various backgrounds and genres; you don’t need to be a fiber artist, but the grant proposal must be fiber focused. This can include artists exploring fiber for the first time.
This grant is open to Fiberarts Guild of Pittsburgh members both in and out of the area. You don’t need to be a FGP member to apply; but if you are a recipient of the grant, joining FGP is a requirement.

Grow in Fiber Grant page

FGP Members' Spotlight Exhibition- Opening
2023-03-11 19:00 - 21:00 | North Hills Art Center, 3432 Babcock Blvd, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 15237, United States
Membership Exhibition
Where: North Hills Art Center – 3432 Babcock Blvd, Pittsburgh, PA 15237
When: March 11th – April 7th, 2023
Opening Reception: Saturday, March 11, 2023, 7 – 9 pm
Chairperson: Katie Bulova: bulovakatie@gmail.com and Debbie Penley: penley75@verizon.net
The Member Spotlight show will focus on your artist’s voice. What captures the spirit of your art practice? This is a chance to share YOUR passion, your unique point of view. What has influenced your work over the years? How has it changed? Was there a turning point that brought you to the way you work today? A technique with which you are obsessed? What is your relationship to your art? This exhibit is a chance to let all of our members’ individuality take center stage.
This is a non-juried exhibition, however, one artwork per artist may be selected depending on space.
There will be a limited print run of the catalog for the Member Spotlight show at $30 each. If you would like a catalog, please pre-order it at https://fiberartspgh.org/exhibitions/catalog-order-form/. We need at least 40 in order to keep the cost at $30.

Opening Reception 3/11 7-9
The Artist talk 4/2 from 3-5

Fiberarts Guild Members’ Spotlight Exhibition
2023-03-11 17:00 - 2023-04-07 17:00 | North Hills Art Center, 3432 Babcock Blvd, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 15237, United States
Membership Exhibition

Where: North Hills Art Center – 3432 Babcock Blvd, Pittsburgh, PA 15237 When: March 11th – April 7th, 2023

FGP-spotlight-catalog-23

The Member Spotlight show focused on members artist’s voice. What captures the spirit of your art practice? It was a chance to share their passion, and unique point of view. What had influenced their work over the years? How has it changed? Was there a turning point that brought them to the way they work today? A technique with which they are obsessed? What is their relationship to their art? This exhibit was a chance to let all of our members’ individuality take center stage.

There was an artist talk where members talked about their work in the show.

FGP Members' Spotlight Exhibition- Opening
2023-03-11 17:00 - 20:00 | North Hills Art Center, 3432 Babcock Blvd, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 15237, United States
FGP-MEMBER-SHOW-PROSPECTUS-23

FGP Members' Spotlight Exhibition
2023-03-11 - 2023-04-07 | Pennsylvania

FGP Members' Spotlight Exhibition
2023-03-11 - 2023-04-07 | North Hills Art Center, 3432 Babcock Blvd, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 15237, United States

Ann Coddington- Workshop at Contemporary Craft
2023-03-09 09:00 - 2023-03-12 17:00 | Contemporary Craft, 5645 Butler Street, Pittsburgh, PA, 15201, United States
Workshop with Ann Coddington at Contemporary Craft.
25% discount available for FGP members.
More information coming soon.

Critique- Online or in Person
2023-03-03 18:00 - 21:00, 2023-01-17 18:00 - 21:00 | Contemporary Craft, 5645 Butler Street, Pittsburgh, PA, 15201, United States
Registration opens about a month before the event. Please register on the Registration Form

Show & Shares as well as Critiques will become hybrid. They will be both in Person at Contemporary Craft in Lawrenceville, 5645 Butler Street 15201 and also on Zoom. We will reevaluate monthly to see if we continue with this modality. Please register so we can update you on any changes to the format.
You have a choice to be there:
–IN PERSON if you are vaccinated, boosted and masked, or 10 days after you have recovered from Covid or
–On Zoom.
What is the difference between a Show & Share and a Critique? You can attend both! You can attend even if you have no work to share.
Show & Share: for members who don’t want suggestions, they just want to show off, share what they are working on, and meet other Guild members.
Critique: for members who want constructive suggestions about their work to solve technical, aesthetic or presentation problems.

This is a fun way to stay connected and get inspired!!

Grow in Fiber Grant information session
2023-02-23 19:00 - 20:00 | Online
Wanting to encourage our members to explore new opportunities and expand their experience, the Fiberarts Guild of Pittsburgh is excited to offer “Grow in Fiber” Grants. Whether members consider themselves a novice or professional, current members are invited to apply for this developmental grant. This is a fiber focused grant opportunity for artists from various backgrounds and genres; you don’t need to be a fiber artist, but the grant proposal must be fiber focused. This can include artists exploring fiber for the first time.
This grant is open to Fiberarts Guild of Pittsburgh members both in and out of the area. You don’t need to be a FGP member to apply; but if you are a recipient of the grant, joining FGP is a requirement.

Grow in Fiber Grant page
There will be an information session on February 23, 2023 @ 7PM ET via Zoom.

Join us https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87902104021?pwd=[REDACTED]

Lecture by Janice Lessman-Moss
2023-02-15 11:00 - 12:30 | Online
Wednesday, February 15, 2023 / 11:00 am ESTRegistration is free for members, $5 for guests.Registration opens about a month before the lecture. Please register on the Registration Form

Janice Lessman-Moss is a weaver who uses the unique vocabulary of digital design in relation to the binary functioning of threads on the loom to create her art. She has been awarded numerous Individual Artist Fellowships from the Ohio Arts Council beginning in 1984, and received an Arts Midwest/National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Crafts. Lessman-Moss won the prestigious Governor’s Award for the Arts in Ohio in 2016, the Cleveland Arts Prize Lifetime Achievement Award in 2019, and a coveted United States Artists Fellowship also in 2019. Her work been presented throughout the United States and internationally, including solo exhibitions at the Kent State University Museum, Galleria Willa in Lodz, Poland, the Museum of Fine Art and Culture in Las Cruces, New Mexico, and Praxis Gallery in Cleveland. Other exhibition highlights include: “Neo Geo,” at the Akron Art Museum; “Fiberarts International 2013 and 2016,” Society for Contemporary Craft and Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, Pittsburgh, PA; “New Material World,” Sheldon Museum, University of Nebraska, Lincoln; “Rijswijk Textile Biennial 2011,” Museum Rijswijk, Netherlands; the second and seventh ”Cheongju Juried Craft Exhibition,” Korea; and the first, second, third and fourth “International TECHstyle Art Biennial,” San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles, California. A native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Lessman-Moss resides in Kent, Ohio where she is Emeritus Professor at Kent State University.

janicelessman-moss.com

Show and Share- Online or in Person
2023-02-07 12:00 - 14:00 | Contemporary Craft, 5645 Butler Street, Pittsburgh, PA, 15201, United States

Writing your artist statement
2023-01-22 15:00 - 17:00 | Online
Writing your artist statement: 2, 1 ¾ hour sessions, Saturdays, January 22 and 29 Zoom, 10 am to 11:45 am with Sam Milford, free to Guild Members, limit to 8 people.
Registration opens about a month before the event. Please register on the Registration Form
Do you struggle with writing an artist statement that captures your personality and perspective while at the same time addressing the theme of a show? In this two-part workshop we will spend the first workshop reviewing some key points in writing an artist statement and get started with one of our own. In the second meeting we will share the struggles and joys of writing the statement and share what we have written with the anticipation of constructive criticism.Sam Milford is a fiber artist who has been a guild member for over 20 years. She has recently retired from teaching Communication Studies at California University of Pennsylvania and has had success having her work juried into many shows.

Writing your artist statement
2023-01-22 15:00 - 17:00 | Online
Writing your artist statement: 2, 1 ¾ hour sessions, Saturdays, January 22 and 29 Zoom, 3 pm to 4:45 am with Sam Milford, free to Guild Members, limit to 8 people.
Registration opens about a month before the event. Please register on the Registration Form
This workshop is full but you can register for a waiting list in case we have an opening.
Do you struggle with writing an artist statement that captures your personality and perspective while at the same time addressing the theme of a show? In this two-part workshop we will spend the first workshop reviewing some key points in writing an artist statement and get started with one of our own. In the second meeting we will share the struggles and joys of writing the statement and share what we have written with the anticipation of constructive criticism.Sam Milford is a fiber artist who has been a guild member for over 20 years. She has recently retired from teaching Communication Studies at California University of Pennsylvania and has had success having her work juried into many shows.

Lecture by Michael James
2023-01-11 13:00 - 14:30 | Online
Wednesday, January 11, 2023 / 1:00 pm EST
Registration is free for members, $5 for guests.
Registration opens about a month before the lecture. Please register on the Registration Form
A Massachusetts native, Michael James lives and maintains a studio in Lincoln, NE. From 2005 to 2020 he chaired the Department of Textiles, Merchandising & Fashion Design at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, whose faculty he first joined in 2000 after thirty years as an independent maker. At UNL he held the Ardis James Professorship and taught graduate and undergraduate courses in foundation design, textile design and quilt studies. His textile art is included in the collections of the Museum of Arts & Design in NYC, the Baltimore Art Museum, the Racine Art Museum, the Newark Museum, the Fuller Craft Museum, the Mint Museum, the Indianapolis Museum of Art, the Shelburne Museum, and the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum (DC), among others. In 2015 the Renwick Alliance honored him as a Master of the Medium in textiles, for lifetime achievement, and he is the recipient of the Luminaries Award from the Fuller Craft Museum (2011), the Outstanding Research and Creative Activity Award of the University of Nebraska system (2009), the Nebraska Arts Council’s Governor’s Arts Award (2008), the Lincoln Arts Council’s Mayor’s Arts Award for Artistic Achievement (2003), and an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth (1992), his undergraduate alma mater. His work is represented by Modern Arts Midtown in Omaha, Nebraska.
https://www.michaeljamesstudioquilts.com/

Lecture by Michael James
2023-01-11 13:00 - 14:30 | Online
Wednesday, January 11, 2023 / 1:00 pm EST
Registration is free for members, $5 for guests.
Registration opens about a month before the lecture. Please register on the Registration Form
This program will not be recorded.
A Massachusetts native, Michael James lives and maintains a studio in Lincoln, NE. From 2005 to 2020 he chaired the Department of Textiles, Merchandising & Fashion Design at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, whose faculty he first joined in 2000 after thirty years as an independent maker. At UNL he held the Ardis James Professorship and taught graduate and undergraduate courses in foundation design, textile design and quilt studies. His textile art is included in the collections of the Museum of Arts & Design in NYC, the Baltimore Art Museum, the Racine Art Museum, the Newark Museum, the Fuller Craft Museum, the Mint Museum, the Indianapolis Museum of Art, the Shelburne Museum, and the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum (DC), among others. In 2015 the Renwick Alliance honored him as a Master of the Medium in textiles, for lifetime achievement, and he is the recipient of the Luminaries Award from the Fuller Craft Museum (2011), the Outstanding Research and Creative Activity Award of the University of Nebraska system (2009), the Nebraska Arts Council’s Governor’s Arts Award (2008), the Lincoln Arts Council’s Mayor’s Arts Award for Artistic Achievement (2003), and an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth (1992), his undergraduate alma mater. His work is represented by Modern Arts Midtown in Omaha, Nebraska.
https://www.michaeljamesstudioquilts.com/
