Creating a Connected Textile Community
Since 2013, Mari has been the primary designer for her small business Kakaw Designs, which began as a direct online sale website. With now so many branches of the “cacao tree,” she multi-tasks from facilitating and guiding textile travel itineraries in Guatemala to organizing custom production for other businesses.
For centuries, quilting has been used as a way to bring attention to social issues of great significance, such as women’s suffrage. “Los Desconocidos: The Migrant Quilt Project” exhibition, currently on display at the Arizona History Museum, features a collection of handmade quilts that memorialize migrants who have died seeking refuge in the United States. Each quilt carries the names of those who have been identified or simply states “desconocido” or “unknown” for those who have not.
Indigo has been used to dye textiles for thousands of years, spanning cultures and continents. The blue produced by indigo is recognized and beloved worldwide, while the plant processing methods and textile designs produced in various cultures are quite diverse. This panel discussion features contemporary textile artists who work within various indigo traditions.
WARP Board Member Cael Chappell’s basket making grows from his love of basketry. Seventeen years before weaving his first basket, Cael founded Baskets of Africa, a fair trade verified company committed to economic empowerment for basket weavers from over 20 countries.
Around the World in 80 Fabrics poses the question, ”Can our clothing choices help repair and restore instead of destroy our dwindling natural and cultural resources?” To answer that question, the ATW80F team invites us to join in exploring common and uncommon fiber possibilities and the makers behind them.
WARP Board Member Elena Laswick grew up in Tucson, Arizona on a steady diet of mariachi, beans, folklórico, and Navajo rugs, which developed her sense of belonging somewhere between Latin America and the US and is why she is passionate about textiles, indigenous rights, and cultural preservation.
Over a decade ago, weaver and natural dyer Rebecca Burgess founded Fibershed, a system of regional and regenerative fiber systems that build soil & protect the health of our biosphere. Fibershed has grown into an international movement, and influences every aspect of sustainable textile production, from growing fiber, natural dyeing, local processing and production, and more.
Adrienne Sloane is a mixed media artist with a focus in fiber techniques. Using iconic imagery, her work is frequently a visceral response to the moral and political landscape of the day.