In the midst of the pandemic, the Guild is going online to virtual programs!
We are using Zoom to have meetings and lectures. Let us know who your favorite artists are. We may be able to bring them to town through Zoom!
Once you register on the form at the end of this page you will receive an email with an invitation to join the meeting. You can register for several programs at once.
Registration closes an hour before the event!
Hope to see you there!
Show and Share and Critique meetings
Please register on the Registration Form. Registration closes an hour before the event!
For FGP members, you can bring a guest.
April 22, 2023, Saturday 2 PM
Show and Share at Radiant Hall, 734 Thompson Avenue, McKees Rocks, PA 15136
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 do not have to submit work, you can attend to meet other guild members and see what people are working on.
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
–On Zoom.
Those who are “showing” on Zoom must send images ahead of time to Jamie Boyle jamieannboyle@gmail.com. You may take pictures of your work on your cell phone and forward to Jamie, don’t forget to identify yourself in the email.
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!!
Please join us!
ThrED talks
Please register on the Registration Form. Registration closes an hour before the event!
Program for members only.
ThrED talks are not recorded.
ThrED TALKs focus on technique, materials, technology, innovation, design, and education in fiber. In this March ThrED TALK our speakers will each give a 15 -minute presentation and then there will be plenty of time for comments and questions. Please join us as we share information and pick up pointers!
Upcoming program information coming soon.
Send ThrED talks suggestions to Michelle at mlbatoast7@gmail.com.
Professional Artist /Maker Series
Please register on the Registration Form. Registration closes an hour before the event!
For FGP members only.
This Series is not recorded.
Writing your artist statement • with Sam Milford
January 22 & 29, 2023 (Sundays) on Zoom,
Two-part, 1¾ hours each, 3 to 4:45pm.
Free to Guild Members, limit to 8 people.
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 review some key point in writing an artist statement and start 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. 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.
Speaker series
Fuzzy Mall
Tuesday, April 11, 2023 / 11:00 am EST
Registration 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.