|
|
|
|
|
|
Instructor Biographies
Kim Buchheit
Class: Vessels and Votives: Wet Felting Workshop
Kim is a fiber artist with over 25 years experience in the fields of art and design. Her design business, Buchheit Creative Services, focuses on developing creative solutions for her clients including exhibit and surface design for her clients around the country. As a former fellow at the National Endowment for the Arts and juror for regional and local arts organizations, Kim has a longstanding commitment to the arts in Arizona. She is also a certified instructor in graphic design and has taught courses at the college level. As a working fiber artist, Kim teaches workshops annually for the Grand Canyon Association Field Institute and is represented by West of the Moon gallery in Flagstaff, AZ.
Sue Bunch
Class: Felt a Succulent Garden
Sue was drawn into the fiber world by her sister, Linda, an alpaca breeder.While building her longarm quilting business she worked with her sister to develop, Pacafil, the first quilt batting using alpaca fibers. Back to Back Fibers was born and marketed directly to quilters until the early 2000s when Sue begin experimenting with felting using their alpaca/wool quilt batting. She was addicted!Through the years her business has grown to focus only on the fiber arts. Providing supplies and instructions for fiber artists. The last several years have found a huge growth as schools across America have found her products. Find her products at www.BackToBackAlpaca.comFive years ago she established, with her friend Mary Papaj, the Arizona Felter’s Guild. A group of enthusiastic fiber lovers. From experienced fiber artists to those searching for guidance the group has grown a group of creative, caring, fiber loving friends. Want to learn more about this guild? contact Sue by email....sue@BackToBackAlpaca.com
Penelope Coles
Class: Shibori Workshop
Penelope is a lifelong learner of all things fiber, an experienced indigo dyer, knitter, seamstress, upholsterer, woodworker and glass artist. She is a busy professional by day as well as owner of Oak Street Studios, a small upholstery and woodworking shop in central Phoenix. Penelope found her love for indigo in a textile art class at Phoenix College and has been passionate about it ever since.
Velvet Dishon
Classes: Hands on Chart Design and Knit a Bias Lace Shawl with Beads
Velvet has been a designer for over 10 years. She has taught all levels of knitting at Jo-Ann Fabrics for 6 years and at the Yarn Outlet Store for 4 years. Velvet's patterns are currently available on Revelry, Craftsy, YarnZone and Whimsical Yarn.
Molly Elkind
Class: Collage: Design Tool and Weave a Minime
Molly Elkind’s tapestry work was exhibitedin a solo show in 2018 in Atlanta, just before she relocated to New Mexico. She has focused on weaving for over ten years, but Molly is also fluent in papermaking, mixed media collage, and embroidery. Molly earned an M.A. in StudioArt from the Hite Art Institute at the University of Louisville in 2002, and in that year she was awarded an Artist Enrichment grant by the Kentucky Foundation for Women. Exhibition highlights include a solo show at Mercer University in Atlanta (2009)and numerous juried and invitational shows nationwide. Molly has been published in Tapestry Topics(American Tapestry Alliance publication), Tapestry Weaver(Britain), Arts Across Kentucky, Needlearts, SAQA Journal, and Shuttle, Spindle, Dyepot magazines. Her work isin several private collections. Besides making art, Molly is passionate about teaching it, with a particular focus on designprinciples and processes. For over 20 years she has taught private students and at guilds and conferences nationwide.
Shelley Fletcher/Diane Rogers
Class: Tenneriffe Weaving on a Gourd Shard
We are native Arizonans from a 4th generation farming family. Our father was a cotton farmer and cattle rancher who viewed gourds as weeds but we think he would appreciate them more if he could see what we’ve done with them now! Our mother was a seamstress and fabulous artistic quilter and our grandmother was always doing needle crafts so we think we come by our love of fibers and fabrics naturally.We came up with the name “R 2 Designs”. R2 was our fathers brand and also symbolizes our relationship as two sisters with our maiden name of RogersWehave been working with gourds since 1992.We have been teaching gourdbasics, weaving and design for over 20 years and our styles continue to evolve with each new technique or product we try on our gourds.Like most gourd artists, wehave tried just about everything butreally enjoy weaving and teneriffe weaving the most.Westarted experimenting after we took our first simple teneriffe lesson andthencame up with different stitches and approaches.We eventually wrote a book about our specific style of teneriffe weaving. It remains one of our favorite things to do. We are always testing various weaving fibers and basketry techniques to see what we can add to our gourds.
Julia Garina
Classes: Wet Felted Mittens and Nuno Felted Vest
Julia is a textile artist, felt maker and art teacher in Charter school. She enjoys assisting others discover and develop their own unique creative voice while continuing to express her own. Julia works in contemporary and unexpected ways to express her energy into the world by practicing many different felting techniques i.e. needle, wet, nuno, and using organic materials. By using these methods of fiber craft that historically were considered women's work in new and non-traditional ways, she makes then artworks. She works to inspire her students to express their artistic creativity and loves to share her skills with her students. Julia was born in Central Asia and has lived in Arizona for 4 years. She is a member of the Arizona Felters Guild. Julia has offered workshops for the guild and this summer presented a demo of wearable felt art and two gave workshops at Flagstaff Fiber and Wool Festival.
Louise Hall
Classes: Fair Isle Knitting, Nuno Felted Scarf
I learned to knit in school in Scotland when Iwas 5 years old.My family moved to Germany where we also learned knitting and crochetin school.I was a closet knitter for many years as it was just not “cool" through my teens and 20’s !I studied art in England doing a 2 year Foundation Art course before doing my BA in fine art printmaking.I moved to Tubac, Arizona where I continued developing my career as an artist .I worked for Origins Press as a lithographer printing on editions for RC Gorman,Amado Peña, CliffordBeck(to name a few)beforeopening my own studio/gallery in 1984which I had for 11 years prior to my move to Northern Arizona.I always loved the fiber arts and started pushing myself to perfect my knitting skills which happened after finding an Alice Starmore book. First came Aran knitting and then Fair Isle. I love texture and love color. I am also a feltmaker.I want to encourage people to be creative with knittingandto play with color. For me knitting is about rhythmand although Fair Isle designs look intimidating it is surprisingly easy once you master holding each of the 2 colors in different hands then you get in the rhythm. I want my students to pick up the rhythm and be intuitive and to have fun!
Jill Holbrook
Classes: Spinning Cotton on a Wheel
Jill loves lace knitting, cotton spinning and designing knits and yarns.Passionate about spinning, knitting and other fiber arts, Jill enthusiastically shares her skills and knowledge with her students. Cotton spinning is one of her favorites –on a spinning wheel or spindle. Jill has taught spinning and knitting classes across the USA and Canada. She completed the six year Master Spinner Program through Olds College at Olds, Alberta, Canada in June, 2017 and is still learning.
Lucy Jennings
Classes: Coiled Basket
Lucy Jennings studied weaving at Northern Arizona University where she received an MA in Art Education. Her work has appeared in Handwovenmagazine, and she has sold her hand-woven clothing and beaded jewelry at local and national craft shows. Lucy is an elementary school teacher and has been teaching kids to weave for over thirty years. She’s also taught at Mohave Community College and inworkshops at her local yarn shop. You can find her weaving tutorials on her website, www.TheCreativityPatch.com.She lives in Kingman, Arizona,where she has two dogs and too much yarn.
Debbie Kahn
Classes: Wet Felting Fundamentals and Shibori in Felt
Debbie Kahn is the founder and owner of Fiber Geek Studio, a place for fiber arts with a science and engineering perspective. She has a Ph.D. from MIT in Polymer Science and Engineering, specializing in high performance fibers. She is a member of the Arizona Felters' Guild and Telerana.
Sandi Kramer
Classes: Dye and Knit a Silk Hankie
Sandi is a fiber artist based in Tucson Arizona. Sandi has been working with fiber since the age of 9, when she learned how to sew. Her art training was formalized at Maryland Institute of Art, graduating in 2000. From there she worked as lead designer at The Department of Graphic Design for the state of Maryland, Business Development. In 2013 Sandi moved to Tucson and began exploring the opportunities in fiber art here in the Southwest. Her large needle felted pieces have been shown in Austin,TX as well as Tucson, AZ, at Grandma's Spinning Wheel, where she is the Artist in Residence. Besides teaching wet felting, needle felting, circular weaving and an occasional knitting class, Sandi is an indie dyer, creating yarn for local yarn shops. Her yarn was recently featured in Nomadic Knits, issue three, New Mexico and Arizona. Currently Sandi is working on expanding her on-line fiber shop, SR Pepper Fiber Studio. She enjoys pushing the boundaries when working with color and is exploring dyeing with plants.
Tasha Miller Griffith
Classes: 3D Felt
Tasha believes that making things by hand, and sharing the skills to do so, empowers people and helps them live more joyfully and thoughtfully. Her mama gave her a needle and thread when she was very small, and she dove into fiber arts right away. Tasha has been teaching workshops in all kinds of textile skills since 2008. In 2019 Tasha will be teaching at the John C. Campbell Folk School, the Intermountain Weaver's Conference, and events around her native Arizona. She has also written about textiles for Taproot and Seamwork magazines. Tasha shares a lot of free tutorials and her current teaching schedule can be seen at https://tashamillergriffith.com.
Sherri McCulloch and Kristy Moore
Classes: Crochet is Cooler Than Afghans
We’re Kristy and Sherri, two friends who participate in a variety of crafts, most of which involve playing with string in one form or another, whether it be sewing, knitting, crochet, spinning, or tatting. If there’s string involved, we’re game! Here’s how we got started ...Kristy was hooked on crochet at age eight, being taught the basics by her very creative German grandmother. She built on those skills and taught herself to read patterns and do different varieties of crochet. Sherri learned some basic stitches from a family friendwhen she was about eight as well. Nobody in her family was a lefty, and everyone was afraid to teach her. She didn’t really practice and forgot most of what she learned. After Kristy and Sherri became friends about 20 yearsago, Kristy helped Sherri regain her basic crochet skills, and even taught hersome new things like reading a pattern and crochet for things that were waaay cooler than granny squares and Afghans. Both have continued to expand their repertoire of skills in crochet, and other crafts as well, adding both knitting and spinning to their further stringy adventures.
Amanda Neal
Classes: Double Weave Basics, Play with Inlay Weaving and Exploring Clasped Warp and Weft on Rigid Heddle LoomAmanda has loved weaving since she first sat down at a loom, or that’s how the story goes. That was about 12 years ago and she is still amazed at all the different fabrics and projects you can make with just a loom. She often says “so many weaving structures so little time!” She loves weaving patterns, creating new classes and trying new things on her loom. When she’s not weaving, she’s driving around her 3 teenagers, teaching classes or managing at Tempe Yarn and Fiber. Amanda loves teaching and believes in the hands on approach to learning. She loves helping her students create and experience the Magic of Weaving!
Terry Neal
Classes: Knitting Methodology, Designing with Brioche, Surface Design and Freeform Knit/Crochet
Since childhood, fiberhas been apart of Terry’s identity. She has alwaysbeen curious about fiber and the role it plays in our everyday lives. From fiber to thread or yarn, to fabric or art pieces, there are manytechniques to learn. She hasdabbled in some and mastered others. Her experiencesincludespinning, knitting, crocheting, dyeing, weaving, needle felting, embroidery, needlepoint and sewing.Past teaching experiencesof fiber-related activitieshave includedfiberYMCA,festivalsandlocal craft stores.. All of these various steps in her journey led her to thecreation of Tempe Yarn & Fiber, where she hasbeen ableto teach, design and share all of herfiber passions for the past 13plusyears.Most of her days now are spent dyeing, designingknittingpatterns (sold on Ravelry),working on her own art and teaching. As her mindexplodes with ideas and “What Ifs”, her main goal still remains to inspire and support others in their fiber journeys.
Celeste Nossiter
Classes: Knit the Landscape
All my life the joy and mystery of color has been my motivating principle, first in painting and now in knitwear design. I have a BA from Brandeis University and an MFA from Pratt Institute but after being a starving artist and unable to get a full time college teaching job, I gave up that dream. Twenty years later I discovered Fair Isle knitting. In 2003 a knitting tour of Shetland, Scotland rekindled my creative juices and I began making my own knitted designs. That sparked an intensive learning period when I experienced that color in knitting doesn’t work the same way as color on canvas. Since I love travel I started analyzing traditional textile motifs from different cultures and the trade routes by which they are shared across cultures. Several trips to Turkey inspired me to translate traditional tribal Anatolian and classical Ottoman motifs into knitted designs. My greatest joy is sharing my passion with students: helping them translate their personal inspirations into knitted designs. That includes an experiential, hands-on approach to learning more about color so they can get their desired results. I teach beginning and intermediate classes in stranded knitting and a playful approach to color theory. My heart’s desire is to bring out the inner artist that exists in everyone through stranded knitting and color study. I teach at yarn stores including The Yarn Store at Nob Hill and Village Wools in Albuquerque, and Looking Glass Yarns in Santa Fe; Purl in the Pines in Flagstaff, AZ; Vortex Yarns, Taos NM; private studios and festivals including the Taos Wool Festival, Estes Park Wool Festival, Sneffles Fiber Festival in CO, On Higher Ground lll Retreat in Taos and Fiber Art Fiesta in Albuquerque. I am the Fun Events Coordinator for The Yarn Store.
Lara Plecas
Classes: Dye Materials of the Southwest
Lara...
Deb Salazar
Class: 3D Needle Felted Monkey
Debra is the needle felting instructor for Studio Three Yarn and Fiber Shop at 1440 West Gurley Street in Prescott. Her art background includes painting, original art dolls, clay and wood sculpture.
Janet SciglianiGarcia
Class: Wet Felted Hat
Janet’s love of color, fiber and texture really took off when she moved to New Hampshire in the late ‘70s. There she was introduced to spinning, weaving and dyeing. Later she traveled cross country to learn about felting, eco/botanical printing and more!Being taught by both many “big name” and local fiber artists she gleaned valuable information that she has incorporated into her classes. Janet enjoys teaching her love of fiber arts to other fiber enthusiasts.For any information/questions regarding thisclass she can be reached at awaytofelt@gmail.com.
Updated 9/25/2018
