Surface Design Association is excited to announce Traditions & Techniques in Knit & Crochet, our Summer 2023 edition of Surface Design Journal.  “Knitting and crochet seem to be everywhere these days. There are myriad artists on social media and no shortage of how-to videos on YouTube. Flip the pages of fashion magazines or take a …

The winners of SDA’s Outstanding Student Awards were recently announced for the students who have demonstrated excellence in fiber arts. The work of these artists embodied inventive and innovative use of technique, materials and concepts not only in fibers and textiles, but in printmaking, sculpture, and more. It is an honor for the Education Committee …

Weaving Modernist Art: The Life and Work of Mariette Rousseau-Vermette by Anne Newlands Mariette Rousseau-Vermette was a Quebec-based weaver-artist, a woman of top flank, complex artistic talents and an internationally recognized figure in the art of the last century. She has finally been given her due by Anne Newlands, long after her better known contemporaries …

My mother, Helen, was born and raised on a hard-scrabble farm outside of Boonville, Missouri. In this Depression-era self-sustaining household, if the household goods were to be more than simply utilitarian, they would be decorated by female family members. Clothing was constructed, altered, and refashioned, and all manner of textiles were created and beautified by …

I’m a pediatric oncology nurse, a nurse educator-researcher, and a hooked rug artisan who has been surrounded by artistic women all my life who never considered themselves artistic. Of the hundreds of traditional rug hookers I have met over the years, only a handful consider themselves artists. Thanks to them, I’m making that distinction now …

Unraveling Women’s Art: Creators, Rebels & Innovators in Textile Arts by P.L. Henderson The big gem of this book is that P. L. Henderson has uncovered so many women that work in textiles, that one could be busy for a very long time researching their work and finding images. Within the broadly titled chapters of …

Artificial Intelligence (AI) image generation programs have recently become available to the general public. Debates about the ethics and aesthetics of these generated images have exploded across mainstream media as well as art forums. There seems to be a general concern about AI generated art images (as well as videos and texts) that appear to …

Patterns in Art: A closer look at the Old Masters by Francesca Leoneschi, Giovanna Ferraris, and Silvia Lazzaris As you wander through an art exhibition, what attracts you to an artwork and makes you linger? Is it color? Subject matter? Technique? While visiting museums together, three friends–Francesca Leoneschi, Giovanna Ferraris and Silvia Lazzaris–discovered they each had …

Surface Design Association is excited to announce our first Journal of the year: SDA 45th Anniversary, Spring 2023 edition of Surface Design Journal. The 45th Anniversary issue revisits the evolution of the Journal, to take a deep dive into the issues that mattered then, and still matter today. The issue begins with former editor Patricia …

I recently received a Small Event Grant from SDA for this collaborative Kansas and Missouri meetup at the Kansas City Art Institute (co-sponsored by Missouri Fiber Artists) this past February. KCAI Fiber students were involved under direction of Fiber Chair Pauline Verbeek. We were exposed to a prominent BFA Fiber program plus a presentation and …