The Dairy Barn Arts Center’s O’Bleness Gallery 8000 Dairy Lane Athens, OH 45701

Held in partnership with The Dairy Barn Arts Center, this special presentation includes both the SDA Members Exhibition and Students Exhibition. Selected works build on the theme of Interplay.

EVENTS

Opening Reception
The Dairy Barn Arts Center, Friday, June 28, 6-8pm

Textile Talk
Online panel discussion with artists and juror, July 31 at 2pm.
Registration link coming soon!

JUROR STATEMENT

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

Due to her inimitable curiosity, Annet Couwenberg has pursued the ongoing conversations between traditional textile production and digital technologies throughout her art and teaching career. Couwenberg’s art, informed by her early work in the fashion industry, is diverse and includes sculptural forms and jacquard weavings as well as work with fish fossils and skeletons inspired by her study with a fish scientist as a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellow at the National Museum of Natural History. Couwenberg’s interdisciplinary work has demonstrated her capacity to create new realms. As a researcher of both traditional textiles and emerging techniques, she embraces a multi-directional knowledge exchange between new and established, creating art that visualizes methodologies to protect and preserve traditional practices while also expanding upon them. Born in The Netherlands, Couwenberg moved to the United States to receive MFA degrees at Syracuse University and Cranbrook Academy of Art. She has worked internationally, including in Korea, Turkey, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Poland, and The Netherlands.