SDA Workshops
From mark-making to sculpture and from natural inks to the latest digital technologies, we are proud to present our inaugural online workshop series! Learn new skills and techniques, get inspired, and find ways to apply what you learn to your current studio practice, all while connecting and creating within SDA’s community.
Each workshop features nationally known instructors who apply fiber and textile techniques in innovative and exciting ways. Spanning Saturday to Saturday, learn, grow, and meet like-minded textile enthusiasts in our workshops featuring 2 hour instruction sessions on the weekends and a midweek meetup to troubleshoot, share progress, and gather in community with other participants. All workshop recordings will be available until the end of 2023. Take one workshop or take them all!
WORKSHOPS
PRICING
FORMAT
CONTACT
WORKSHOPS
Procreate: The Essentials of Repeat Pattern Design with Raquel Busa
Saturday, February 4th + Saturday, February 11th
with a midweek meetup
REGISTER | Supply List
Procreate is a professional-grade iPad application that helps artists create, enhance and share their projects. Textile artists use the application to design repeating patterns, email working files to clients and send finished files to print-on-demand sites. In this course, you will learn Procreate's essential functions and build three pattern repeats and one large-scale presentation print. You will be ready to print your pattern on fabric and share your presentation print in your portfolio.
Raquel Busa (She/Her)
Queer Latinx illustrator Raquel Busa strives to create work representing BIPOC and LGBTQ families. She has illustrated and published three coloring books, including "LGBTQIA + for Kids." In 2020, Raquel completed her master's degree in business management and leadership. That same year, she officially established her business, Maquina 37 LLC, an illustration studio and online shop. Her most popular services are custom portraits of her clients and their families. Her style is playful, nostalgic, and light-hearted. She works in collage, sewing, embroidery, and other traditional and digital mediums.
Explorations in Mixed-Media Mark-Making Session 1 with Lorraine Glessner
Saturday, February 18th + Saturday, February 25th
with a midweek meetup
REGISTER | Supply List
With an intense focus on mixed media, this workshop involves the exploration of the act of mark-making as a vehicle for the discovery of form, materials and ideas. We will explore the mark-making possibilities of pyrography (creating marks and patterns with fire, heated metal tools and objects), soot, rust and botanical printing, and are encouraged to respond to these marks utilizing various techniques and media. Other processes and media covered in this workshop include image transfer, ink, horsehair, soy wax resist, stitch, gesso, glues and creating your own grids, laces and lace like forms using free motion sewing machine embroidery on water soluble stabilizer. Throughout the workshop, we will be prompted by a series of thought-provoking exercises geared toward process, experimentation and providing visual form to that which has no form - thoughts, ideas, emotions, feelings, etc. We will develop a personal vocabulary through the creation of a portfolio of samples which may be worked into a quilt, a book or exist as small-scale art pieces suitable for framing or further embellishment.
Lorraine Glessner (She/Her)
Lorraine Glessner is a former Assistant Professor at Tyler School of Art, a workshop instructor and an award-winning artist. Lorraine Glessner’s love of surface, pattern, mark-making and image has led her to combine disparate materials and processes in her work such as silk, wood, wax, pyrography and rust. She has a diverse art background with skills that include painting, sculpture, photography and digital imaging. Lorraine's work is included in many mixed media and encaustic books including, Encaustic Art in the 21st Century by Ashley Rooney and Nuance, a curated book by artist Michelle Stuart. Her work is exhibited locally and nationally in galleries, museums, craft centers, universities, Fine Art Shows and more. Lorraine brings to her teaching a strong interdisciplinary approach, mixed with a balance of concept, process, experimentation and discovery.
Natural Inks Using Earth Pigments and Natural Dyes with Natalie Stopka
Saturday, March 4th + Saturday, March 11th
with a midweek meetup
REGISTER | Supply List
Explore the brilliant hues of natural writing and drawing inks! In this workshop we’ll concoct both pigment and dye-based inks from colorful earth pigments and botanical dyes. We’ll discuss the particular chemistry and characteristics of these expressive artists’ materials, each with a long history of use. Perfect for works on paper and non-washable fabrics, homemade inks encourage spontaneity and perform remarkable interactions on the page. Participants will receive recipes to make five shades of ink, as well as the practical knowledge to continue developing their own palette in the future.
Natalie Stopka (She/Her)
Natalie Stopka is an artist and educator who works in collaboration with the materials and forces of the natural world. Her drawings and prints incorporate plant dyes and natural pigments, which provide a seasonally evolving vocabulary of texture and color. Natalie’s freelance studio and dye garden are located in Yonkers, New York. She is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, and a current MFA candidate at the University of New Mexico.
Explorations in Mixed-Media Mark-Making Session 2 with Lorraine Glessner
Saturday, March 4th + Saturday, March 11th
with a midweek meetup
REGISTER | Supply List
With an intense focus on mixed media, this workshop involves the exploration of the act of mark-making as a vehicle for the discovery of form, materials and ideas. We will explore the mark-making possibilities of pyrography (creating marks and patterns with fire, heated metal tools and objects), soot, rust and botanical printing, and are encouraged to respond to these marks utilizing various techniques and media. Other processes and media covered in this workshop include image transfer, ink, horsehair, soy wax resist, stitch, gesso, glues and creating your own grids, laces and lace like forms using free motion sewing machine embroidery on water soluble stabilizer. Throughout the workshop, we will be prompted by a series of thought-provoking exercises geared toward process, experimentation and providing visual form to that which has no form - thoughts, ideas, emotions, feelings, etc. We will develop a personal vocabulary through the creation of a portfolio of samples which may be worked into a quilt, a book or exist as small-scale art pieces suitable for framing or further embellishment.
Lorraine Glessner (She/Her)
Lorraine Glessner is a former Assistant Professor at Tyler School of Art, a workshop instructor and an award-winning artist. Lorraine Glessner’s love of surface, pattern, mark-making and image has led her to combine disparate materials and processes in her work such as silk, wood, wax, pyrography and rust. She has a diverse art background with skills that include painting, sculpture, photography and digital imaging. Lorraine's work is included in many mixed media and encaustic books including, Encaustic Art in the 21st Century by Ashley Rooney and Nuance, a curated book by artist Michelle Stuart. Her work is exhibited locally and nationally in galleries, museums, craft centers, universities, Fine Art Shows and more. Lorraine brings to her teaching a strong interdisciplinary approach, mixed with a balance of concept, process, experimentation and discovery.
Knotless Netting with Jenine Shereos
Saturday, March 18th + Saturday, March 25th
with a midweek meetup
REGISTER | Supply List
In this workshop we will investigate the potential of knotless netting as a way of both revealing and concealing form. In some instances the netting functions as a second skin, and in others it seems to give form to the air itself. We’ll explore the potential of this technique across various materials such as waxed linen, wire, thread, and cordage. Working with found objects as a starting point, we’ll begin to layer material and meaning. We’ll also consider the history of netting and lace and look at the work of other artists who are using this evocative technique. You’ll come away from this workshop with a number of material studies and inspiration for future projects and explorations!
Jenine Shereos (She/Her)
Jenine Shereos is an American artist who uses textile techniques alongside natural and organic materials to explore the complex and tenuous relationship between humans and the natural world. While her oeuvre includes installation, fibers, photography and sculptural works, she is best known for her intricately crafted leaves stitched entirely with human hair. The work of Jenine Shereos has been exhibited widely both nationally and internationally and has been featured in numerous publications including The Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, and Frame Magazine. Shereos is a recipient of the Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellowship in Crafts, and The Rogers Fellowship for Textile Arts at The Hambidge Center in Rabun Gap, Georgia. She is currently a Visiting Lecturer in the Fibers Department at Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston, Massachusetts.
Tue-Mouche Book Binding with Erin Fletcher
Saturday, April 1st + Saturday, April 8th
with a midweek meetup
REGISTER | Supply List
Translated to “flypaper”, the Tue-Mouche was developed by bookbinder Ben Elbel. The Tue-Mouche is an easy and economical form of bookbinding and perfect for all skill levels. The covers are constructed entirely from heavyweight paper, layered to create rigidity and strength, while the flexible spine allows the binding to open without constraints. In this workshop you will learn how to create the Tue-Mouche binding from start to finish in addition to ways of embellishing the cover through embroidery.
Erin Fletcher (She/Her)
Erin Fletcher is the owner of Herringbone Bindery in Austin, where she crafts one-of-a kind fine bindings and small editions for various clients and institutions. Her work is regularly exhibited throughout the US and abroad and has been collected by The Grolier Club, Boston Athenaeum, UCLA, and the University of Virginia as well as several private collectors. She first discovered a love for bookbinding while studying at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. This experience ultimately brought her to study bookbinding at the North Bennet Street School in Boston where she graduated in 2012. She regularly teaches book arts workshops online and through various institutions around the country.
Personalized Surfaces with Joy Ude
Saturday, April 22nd + Saturday, April 29th
with a midweek meetup
REGISTER | Supply List
In this targeted survey of surface design techniques, we will explore a few methods to transform plain fabric into uniquely personalized surfaces. We will build upon existing surface layers with embroidery and appliqué. Reverse appliqué will take us below the surface, where we will experiment with subtly revealing pattern and image through deliberate multi-layer stitching. This course is a great introduction for textile beginners and will provide advanced students with fresh approaches for surface manipulation.
Joy Ude (She/Her)
Joy O. Ude is a mixed-media artist and designer. An American-born child of Nigerian immigrants, Ude explores the concept of duality in her artwork. Ude earned her BFA in Fashion Design in 2005 from the University of North Texas. After working in the fashion industry, she also earned an MFA in Fiber Arts from the University of North Texas in 2013. Her work has been included in regional and national shows including: CraftTexas, Fantastic Fibers, Fiberart International, and ArtSeen. Her 2021 solo show, 9ja Vision: The Fiber and Mixed-Media Work of Joy O. Ude, was featured at Houston Center for Contemporary Craft. Ude teaches fiber-based workshops nationally, most recently at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts. Ude is currently the Education Coordinator at Tuft The World and a member of FJORD Gallery in Philadelphia.
PRICING
Member price: $225.00 per workshop
Non-member price: $265.00 per workshop
Interested in becoming a SDA member? We’d love to have you! Our digital membership package starts at $75/year and $60/year for students. Use the code WORKSHOPS for 10% off your membership when you join SDA.
Interested in taking more than one workshop? Get 15% off every additional workshop you sign up for. Email us for details.
FORMAT
Each workshop spans eight days and is structured so that the majority of instruction will take place on Saturdays for a total of four hours – two hours each Saturday. A one hour moderated midweek meetup between each Saturday session will allow for workshop participants to further discussions, troubleshoot, and work in community with one another. Workshop instructors are not required to attend meetups but may if their time permits.
All workshop instruction and meetups will take place online over Zoom. For more information and to download the app, please visit zoom.com. We are happy to provide technical support at events@surfacedesign.org.
Recordings will be made available to each participant until the end of 2023.
Supply lists are listed under each workshop description and available to download.
CONTACT
Please contact us with any questions at events@surfacedesign.org