A Little About Fiber Club*
September 2024 Meeting at Boyer Campbell Building; photo by Sydney R. Jordan
Last week, Fiber Club* met in the Environment + Microclimates show space for its monthly meeting and drew a crowd of friends plus familiar and new faces. This community, or network, or collaborative - whatever we end up calling this fluid and growing group of people on any given day - keeps me both on my toes and in constant awe.
Two years ago, in October 2022, Katie Shulman started this thing with encouragement from other artists and a great group showed up for the first meeting. She shared about it on social media, and it's grown ever since via grassroots and word-of-mouth. I found out about it on Instagram and asked if I could come to the 2nd meeting - Katie said YES! Because that's how Katie works - "YES!"
"Show & Tell" with Valerie Mann, who had us practice trying on her interactive/performance-based art based on connectedness and grief. I was still pretty new to the group and didn't know people very well but this was a way to be suddenly very connected!
While we've had this amazing big group show up all September, the heart of the thing is monthly meetings, at which fiber artists, enthusiasts, or those curious can and should join in. What happens there is the magic of finding your people - having an opportunity to share, be seen, or bear witness.
"Show & Tell" has been my favorite part - anyone can take 15 minutes to share work, practice a talk, ask questions, get feedback. Whatever they need. It is always beautiful, frequently knocks my socks off, often vulnerable, and sometimes very, very funny.
"Show & Tell" with Abigail Rist at Spread Art. (You can also see the blue painter's tape I take to all the meetings now so people can make name tags.)
I've been wrangling its organizational aspects for over a year, devoting more time to it than to my own practice or work pursuits because this big invitation - the opportunity, the people, their work, the reward - has provided such a fascinating, challenging and fulfilling journey. Excited to see what unfolds for Fiber Club* next.
This was a "Show & Tell" with Robin Wilson earlier in 2024. She volunteered to bring in a piece she was working on and it was about 18 feet long at the time, by about 1-1/2 feet wide. Her talk about the piece - now called "Bloodline" - was captivating, and you could hear a pin drop. Only several months later in September, the finished piece, at 9' x 18', and by far the largest work Robin has ever completed, made its debut at the Environment + Microclimates show.
I loved this moment at the tail end of a recent meeting. We were doing a quick fire chat about concepts for the Environment + Microclimates show, but Irene Perez (left of quilt) had brought her physical work. We had time for her to unfurl it, so Leslie Rogers hopped up to help her display this massive and gorgeous hand-sewn quilt. Can you see how proud Irene is? This piece, along with a large-format piñata - called "Lupe I", ended up being a major centerpiece of the E+M show. Irene also created a completely new and separate companion installation - "Lupe II" - for the show.
