SDA 2024: A Year in Review

December 27, 2024

Thank you to everyone who made this year at SDA possible! We are fortunate to have such passionate staff, board, volunteers, committees, and members who continually help us grow, learn, and expand. Here’s a look back at some highlights from SDA for 2024, and we can’t wait to see what comes next in 2025! 

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Parallel Play

SDA CONFERENCE

How does collective creativity impact your practice? How do you draw inspiration from your creative community? SDA’s 2024 online conference, Parallel Play, built a collective space to delve into the intersection of individual artistic vision and group creativity. Makers explored how cross-disciplinary interactions, interpretations and discoveries generate new ways of thinking. Parallel Play included presentations from featured speakers Ruth E. Carter and Nnenna Okore, as well as more than 15 hours of programming spread across an entire week.

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Hunter / Gatherer

SPRING SURFACE DESIGN JOURNAL

“As hunter-gatherers, our paleolithic forebearers foraged natural resources until about 12,000 years ago when archaeological evidence of agricultural practices started to appear. Our nomadic lifestyle waned as humans built permanent settlements and domesticated plants and animals. This issue of Surface Design Journal highlights the relationship between performance art and natural dyes: a relationship that centers on beauty, ritual and tradition. Combining these two practices is a way to honor our natural world.” –Elizabeth Kozlowski, Surface Design Journal Editor

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A Line, a Link, a Web

ONLINE EXHIBITION

“For many artists working with fibers, the stitch is our form of mark-making: a way of announcing our presence in the work. We use stitching to mend, to embroider, to cover up, or put back together. This exhibition explores the many ways artists employ the visible stitch for both form and function, our threads variously becoming a line, a link, or a web. The artworks featured in A Line, a Link, a Web highlight the stitch as an essential structural element, as well as an opportunity for embellishment, intervention, and disruption. In the hands of these artists, threads become a form of repair, a way to bring disparate materials together, and a narrative element: a place for the viewer to enter and follow along.” –Hanna Washburn, Curator

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Interplay

JURIED MEMBER + STUDENT EXHIBITION

“Interplay showcases the vibrant and dynamic nature of the fiber arts field. It is a delight to see these exceptional works displayed here, honoring the multifaceted processes of creation. While these diverse pieces offer fresh dialogue and interpretation, they remain interconnected, celebrating the interplay that bridges the past, present, and future of this medium. Through a wide range of possibilities—between the hand and the maker, the maker and the tool, the maker and the material, our materials and our cultural stories, and between our stories and our histories—we can shift and migrate meaning, deepening our understanding of who we are. Textiles, inherently fluid and malleable, provide new ways of thinking, fresh reflections, and reinterpretations, all while staying rooted in tradition.” –Annet Couwenberg, Guest Juror

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Wrapping & Binding

SUMMER SURFACE DESIGN JOURNAL

“Wrapping and binding practices have been used to imbue objects or individuals with meaning by humans throughout history. Drawing inspiration from the traditions of various cultures—the handfasting or marriage binding customs of ancient Ireland, the Furoshiki or knotting practices of Japan, or the coiling of the tefillin by the Jewish faithful—the contemporary artists in this issue engage wrapping and binding as both process and product. Situated within these related techniques are the lived experiences of displacement, migration and adaptation: timely themes our contributors explore in-depth as we celebrate the myriad approaches to wrapping and binding.” –Elizabeth Kozlowski, Surface Design Journal Editor

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Textile Talks

ONLINE EVENTS 

SDA was grateful to take part in eleven Textile Talks this year in partnership with the International Quilt Museum, Quilt Alliance, and Studio Art Quilt Associates (SAQA). Textile Talks are presented free of charge. If you enjoy these talks, help ensure they continue with a gift today.

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Embrace: Expect the Unexpected: SDA International Exhibition in Print

FALL SURFACE DESIGN JOURNAL

“Embrace can take on many meanings, from embracing your identity and who you are to embracing the mistakes and unplanned elements that go hand-in-hand with making. The theme also lends itself to collaborative work and the unexpected issues that pop up when working with someone else, requiring one or both artists to relinquish some control. The concept of Embrace encourages us to confront the things that make us uncomfortable and learn from them.” –Lauren Sinner, SDA Managing Editor 

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Awards & Grants

HONORING SDA’S DEDICATED MEMBERS

SDA’s Awards & Grants Programs supported the creative growth of over 72 individuals in 2024. Recipients demonstrated excellence in the studio, professional development, organized exhibition opportunities and events, and engaged in practices that positively impact their community.

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Holding Space: Makers Within and Beyond Confinement

ONLINE EVENT

The intersection of art and incarceration offers significant social impact, building a powerful avenue for healing, empowerment, empathy, and community change within and beyond confinement. Moderated by internationally acclaimed artist Najjar Abdul-Musawwir, Holding Space: Makers Within and Beyond Confinement explores incarceration through the experiences of four artists whose work deeply engages with the prison system and pursuit of justice in the United States. Russell Craig and Ray Materson both discovered art as a tool for self empowerment while incarcerated and have built active artistic careers since their releases. Ausettua AmorAmenkum brings her extensive knowledge of African, African American and indigenous New Orleans culture to her work with currently and formerly incarcerated women. An artist who spent twenty-five years working as a criminal defense lawyer, Glynn Cartledge’s work explores ideas of criminality, incarceration, recidivism, and justice in America. All of these artists encourage us to think critically about the ways in which we hold space in the arts and in our communities.

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Material Flux

ONLINE SELECTIONS EXHIBITION

“Material Flux delves into the transformative potential of fiber and textile art by emphasizing the processes of reconstruction. Much like how humans engage with and manipulate the environment around them—shaping landscapes, modifying ecosystems, and adapting to challenges—these artists interact with their materials, reshaping them into entirely new forms. Many of the artists in this exhibition reimagine their materials through the integration of unexpected and recycled elements. In this way, textile and fiber art become metaphors for human ingenuity: just as we repurpose, adapt, and rework what we have in our environment, artists breathe new life into materials that might otherwise be discarded, forging fresh narratives from what was once considered obsolete.” –Laura Augustin Fox, Curator

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Friends with Fiber

WINTER SURFACE DESIGN JOURNAL

“Artists are natural explorers⎯drawn to experimentation in concept, material and technique. Friends with Fiber celebrates those individuals who push the boundaries by combining disparate materials and techniques in exciting new ways. For example, clay and fiber appear to be great friends. Perhaps it’s the tactile qualities, or the malleability of each medium? Dare I say they go together like peanut butter and jelly? This issue also includes artists who have stepped outside their comfort zone to embrace the media and techniques of fiber art. Friends with Fiber is really about recognizing the power of fiber when activated by artists’ hands.” –Elizabeth Kozlowski, Surface Design Journal Editor

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Exciting things coming up in 2025:

• Surface Design Journal 2025 Submissions: Are you interested in submitting an article for Surface Design Journal? We truly value the work, viewpoints, and perspectives of our members and fiber community and would love to hear from you.
• SDA Workshops 2025: 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.
• SDA 2025 Symposium – All Hands: Crafting Connections: The relationship between artist and community is symbiotic. The artist needs an audience to interact with their art, and the community benefits from the experience art offers. Some projects forge new paths through community participation. Others are inextricably bound to specific places, peoples, or things. And for many projects, all of these elements culminate in the work of art. Community Art brings people together and highlights what we share in common.

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Have something that you’re thankful for and want to celebrate and share with SDA’s community? Comment below to let people know! Cheers to 2024, I hope everyone’s holidays are filled with warmth and joy.

–Lauren Sinner, SDA Managing Editor