Experience a "trekking and textiles" adventure to the remote Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, where traditional textile arts are integral to daily life. View images of this beautiful country, the people, and their textiles. Learn the significance of textiles in Bhutanese culture and examine a selection of fabrics collected along the journey.

This lecture stands alone or can be paired with a related workshop where participants weave, knit or crochet original designs inspired by images of Bhutan.

Anni Albers has been called "an artist who changed weaving and a weaver who changed art." She was an artist, a designer, a weaver, a writer and a gifted teacher who continues to inspire the generations who follow in her footsteps. This lecture begins with an overview of her life and work and explores her ongoing legacy, including the 2019 Craft in America exhibit "Material Meaning" a tribute which features work by ten contemporary American artists and designers working with textiles who are strongly influenced by Albers, paired with their statements that make that influence explicit and personal.

This lecture stands alone or can be paired with the workshop Materiality: The Tactile Experience.

This series of workshops is designed to explore the art and craft of handweaving with an emphasis on materials and processes unique to this richly tactile medium. These workshops are taught at ARTSgarage in Los Angeles but each can be taken "on the road."

Topics include Learn to Weave, Elements of Weaving: Color, Elements of Weaving: Texture, Elements of Weaving: Fiber, and Elements of Weaving: Pattern. Link through to the ARTSgarage website for a complete description of Art of the Loom.

Weave structures mix color in very different ways. How do we determine what weaves are "right" for what we have in mind .View images from the inspirational textile collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Textile Museum in Washington, D.C., and the Cooper-Hewitt in New York, supplemented by lots of woven samples from Cameron’s own collection. Explore a wide range of weaving across different cultures and time periods and examine how weave choices can dramatically affect our perception of color in cloth.

This lecture stands alone or can be paired with a related workshop. A part day format features textile examples and discussion; a longer format includes the design and weaving of fabrics that mix color for specific visual effects.

In this workshop, beautiful color palettes are yours for the borrowing - just look to the masters for color ideas! Discover how your favorite paintings suggest interesting ways to combine yarn textures and colors. Dive into big piles of gorgeous yarns and develop color palettes for projects. Discover that glorious color combinations are within your reach - they are "yours for the borrowing" when you know where to look!

A part-day format features yarn combinations and yarn wrappings inspired by beautiful paintings. A longer format includes weaving, knitting or crocheting original designs that evolve from the yarn wrappings.

In this workshop, explore how any community artist/weaver/spinner/knitter/crafter can introduce the fiber arts in a classroom, after-school or summer camp setting. Learn easy classroom-tested strategies developed as part of a five-year California State Charter School accessARTS model program.

In a participatory session, we will "deconstruct" a typical introductory fiber project and see how simple it is to adapt what we already know to inspire learning across the curriculum and address the needs of students and teachers. This is a fun and effective way to introduce the fiber arts to the next generation! A part-day program focuses on one sample lesson. In a longer format, participants create a series of lessons, along with a "make and take" session.

Experience Cameron's journeys to Bhutan, the Peruvian Highlands, Gujarat, India and the Galapagos Islands in Ecuador. In this lecture, view images of landscapes, people and their traditional textiles, examine examples of textiles from each country and view and discuss artwork inspired by these journeys: Red Offerings (Bhutan), Colors of Gujarat (India), Majestic Stone (Peru) and LAVAflows (Ecuador).

This lecture stands alone or can be paired with a related workshop where participants create a mixed media photo collage on cloth with translucent layering, stitching and yarns.

Color, texture, pattern, balance, proportion - the vocabulary for a well-designed garden is the same as for a composition in fiber. Get excited by photographs of glorious gardens and the design ideas they inspire. Begin by looking at one garden in particular - the Robert Irwin garden at the Getty Center in Los Angeles – "a stunning variety of colors and textures...a sculpture in the form of a garden aspiring to be art."

This lecture stands alone or can be paired with a related workshop that “plants the seeds” for original design. A part day format features yarn wrappings and needle weaving, a longer format includes creating woven, knitted or crocheted designs inspired by garden photos.

In this workshop, dive up to your elbows into big piles of luscious yarns and discover the exciting world of color in this hands-on exploration. In a half-day format, explore the glorious color components of hue, value, and intensity – while noting the added effects of fiber and yarn texture.

In a one-day format, create harmonious color compositions while learning the language of monochromatic, analogous and complementary color relationships. In a two-day format, explore how colors mix in plain, twill and satin structures. In a three-day format, create fabrics with your new color, fiber and weave vocabulary. By the end of the workshop you'll have a confident "eye for color" and a notebook overflowing with beautiful color combinations.

Traces of ancient flax - colored, twisted, spun and cut - show that textiles were already an integral part of human life 35,000 years ago. Discover why humans first twisted fibers into thread, and how this invention revolutionized early cultures.

Track the history of flax, wool, silk and cotton in the ancient world, view textiles through Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, and explore how string and textiles are woven into language and identity.

This lecture presentation could be followed by a hands-on workshop where participants ply their own string and make their own cloth – and in the process discover why using the fiber arts as a vehicle for self-discovery and innovation is so much fun!

Artist and weaver Anni Albers wrote in her iconic essay Tactile Sensibility that "our tactile experiences are elemental" and that playful exploration of materials is essential to "regain a faculty that was once so naturally ours." In a part-day workshop, we will play with a wide variety of materials - paper, cardboard, foil, sticks, buttons, pebbles, seeds, wire, fibers and more - we will, in Albers words, "group them, cut them, curl them, mix them, finally perhaps paste them, to fix in a certain order." The resulting exploratory collage will revitalize our sense of touch and lead to a deeper appreciation for the elemental importance of materials.

In a multi-day workshop, we will also explore materiality as it specifically applies to weaving, interlacing a broad range of diverse materials in a playful and experimental way – and then create an original woven composition from these playful experiments. This workshop stands alone or could be paired with the lecture Anni Albers: Life and Legacy.

This lecture is an overview of more than 40 years of explorations in the fiber realm that shares Taylor-Brown’s professional and personal journey as an artist, educator, and joyful multi-tasker. Taylor-Brown’s textile adventures began at the University of California, Berkeley at a class taught by Ed Rossbach with the unlikely title "The Antecedents of Industrial Textiles". The class changed the course of her life and she has never looked back. Her extensive travels and studies of the fiber arts have shaped her work and artistic vision in a way that makes her passion for textiles compelling and educational. Get ready for an enjoyable and inspiring presentation full of evocative images and stories that portray Cameron’s journey.

The lecture could be followed by samples of work and discussion.

In this workshop, discover that a multicolored feather, a rock from a stream, patterns on a shell, veins on a leaf – can inspire the yarns you select for your next project. Bring some natural inspirations with you, and dive into big piles of fabulous fibers while developing design ideas for future projects. Compile a notebook overflowing with yarns and samples that reflect the textures, colors and patterns of natural objects.

You will discover that ideas are everywhere – that humble objects can inspire glorious designs. A part day format features yarn wrappings and needle weaving, a 1-2 day format includes making woven, knitted or crocheted designs.

In this workshop, explore how weft colors can mix and blend to create a rich and exciting color palette – while using only 1 shuttle! After some hands-on color theory, apply this knowledge to select a range of weft colors that will create bold or subtle color transitions in your woven cloth. Using a shuttle with two bobbins, change out one weft color at a time as each bobbin runs out of yarn.

Combine your color changes with occasional hits of weave variation and you have a fun and fluid process that is a great way to use up stash. The cloth you make could be used for pillows, tablemats, runners or clothing – it's up to you! The workshop is 1-2 days in length.

In this workshop, learn to determine sett simply and accurately. For many years, the textile industry used the Ashenhurst Formula, which provides easy mathematical calculations that account for fiber, yarn type, weave and end use. In a hands-on, practical exploration, the secrets of the Ashenhurst Formula are revealed.

Move between yarn samples and paper and pencil computations, focusing only on simple calculations that are of immediate use to handweavers. Part day format covers calculations only, 1 day format integrates Ashenhurst calculations with the aesthetics of cloth design.

Stripes are an integral part of textile design throughout human history. View slides and woven samples from my own collection as well as images from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Textile Museum in Washington D.C., the Cooper-Hewitt in New York, Nuno, Lena Rahoult and others. Examine the design elements of color, texture, weave and proportion in stripes, and how quick studies using collage materials can jumpstart design ideas.

This lecture stands alone or can be paired with a related workshop. A half day format features quick studies with yarns, pastels and colored paper; a longer format includes weaving fabrics inspired by the studies.

Spice transforms basic food and basic fabric into the truly exceptional. In this workshop, begin with simple yarn twisting and wrapping, then experiment with adding small amounts of accent yarns and see what a difference they make.

Part day format covers yarn blending and wrapping, a longer format includes adding accent yarns to a warp, using a "tie-in" board and weaving original designs.

This lecture shares Cameron's many travel adventures from around the globe with textiles and their makers in Cambodia, Bhutan, Peru, India, Turkey, China, Argentina and more!

The lecture is followed by a “show and tell” of textiles collected from Cameron’s travels, and the many stories they embody.

Weaving is a conversation between warp and weft - both parties have something to say and we want the conversation to remain friendly! This lecture looks at ways to successfully mix warp and weft colors, and explains elements of color, how to select harmonious warp and weft, and how weave structure can influence the conversation.

This lecture stands alone or can be paired with a part day related workshop that includes a hands-on exploration with color wraps and needle weaving.

In this workshop, creatively inspire new ideas by playing with words and images. Toss a deck of descriptive words such as BRIGHT LIVELY DRY SMOOTH WET SLOW BUMPY onto the table. Select word combinations that inspire a visual image you find compelling. Rummage through huge piles of luscious fibers to transform this image into your personal WordPlay composition.

A part-day format features quick studies with yarns, pastels and colored paper; a longer format includes weaving, knitting or crocheting original designs.

In this workshop, discover how a poem can inspire our color choices, leading to creative project ideas in weaving, knitting and crochet – and how a beautiful pile of yarns can bring out the poet in each of us. Enjoy poems from two delightful books, The Very Stuff: Poems on Color, Thread, and the Habits of Women by Stephen Beal, and Hailstones and Halibut Bones by Mary O'Neil.

Use the language of poetry to inspire your choice of colors and materials. Short format features quick mixed media Words about Color collages; longer format includes weaving, knitting or crocheting original designs.

Learn the fundamentals of weaving as you set up a floor loom, experiment with yarns and basic weaves, and make a scarf, table runner, or wall hanging.

Explore tactile possibilities with a variety of fibers, yarns and simple weave structures. Create several textures and weave your favorites in a scarf, table runner, or wall hanging.

Explore color - hue, value and intensity – and how color interacts with yarns and woven structures. In this special THREE DAY session, dive into color theory (using yarns, not paint!) create several color palettes and weave your favorite palette in a scarf, table runner or wall hanging.

Explore the rich diversity of fibers and their properties as you weave with cotton, linen, wool, mohair, alpaca, silk and more! Plus we'll mix wools and cotton in one textile to create our own version of Nuno BORO cloth "from riches to rags and back again."

Create a blended warp where color and texture are supporting players to pattern. Learn weave notation, explore a variety of woven structures, and weave your favorites in a scarf, table runner or wall hanging.