Potomac Fiber Arts Guild

Programs, Workshops, and Mini-Workshops

Meetings and Programs

The Guild library opens at 9:30. A short business meeting begins at 10 a.m. followed by a program. Programs are conducted by a Guild member or visiting artist. From noon to 1 p.m. there is a social hour during which time the library is again open.

Mini-Workshops

Mini-Workshops focusing on fiber techniques are held from 1 p.m. until 3 p.m. or 4 p.m. following the meeting and social hour. Advance registration including payment of registration is required. There may also be a materials fee. A supply list, if appropriate, will be sent upon receipt of registration.

Workshops

The Guild sponsors occasional Workshops lasting from 1 to 3 days. The number of participants is often limited, and the venue changes. Advance registration including payment is required. A supply list will be sent upon receipt of registration.

For more information, contact the Program Chairman: programs@potomacfiberartsguild.org

2011 - 2012

PROGRAMS, WORKSHOPS, AND MINI-WORKSHOPS

Click Here for the 2011-12 Workshop and Mini-workshop Registration Form

Guests are welcome! Pre-registration is required for all workshops and mini-workshops. Registrations are not complete until a check for the full amount payable to "Potomac Craftsmen" is received. Click here for a downloadable Registration Form. (Acrobat Reader required)

September 10, 2011

Location: St. James Episcopal Church

Program: How Artists Self-Critique with Terry Jarrard-Dimond

Terry Jarrard-Dimond is a native of South Carolina and resides in Clemson, South Carolina. She earned a BA from Winthrop University in Rock Hill and an MFA from Clemson University. After completion of her MFA she worked for more than 15 years as a sculptor and taught at several colleges and universities. Her sculpture is represented in collections including Coca-Cola International, Atlanta, Georgia, The Federal Reserve Bank, Charlotte, North Carolina, and The State Museum of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina. This program presents how artists critique and evaluate their own work. Art and ideas will be taken from a group of artists who work in several different mediums.

Mini-Workshop (3 hours): Discovering Shape with Terry Jarrard-Dimond

Textile media and techniques have a strong tradition in the use of geometric shapes to SHAPE focuses on techniques to assist the artist to expand their shape vocabulary and to create shapes for use in their work. We will use both piecing and raw-edge appliqué to construct small compositions. Some work will be explored with paper. Participants will leave this workshop with stitched samples.

Mini: $30 for members, $37 for nonmembers

September 11-12, 2011

Location: TBD

WORKSHOP (2 Days): All About Shape with Terry Jarrard-Dimond

This 2-day workshop is ALL ABOUT SHAPE! You will be immersed in the discovery, development, and use of shape to create powerful and exciting compositions. Exercises will focus on sharpening your awareness of shape and start your journey toward building a personal 'shape vocabulary'. Working with fabric and machine, we will explore the creation and use of natural, geometric and abstract shapes as time allows. Studies will be developed using piecing and raw edge appliqué. Some design work will be done with paper.

Mini: $135 for members, $160 for nonmembers

October 8, 2011

Location: St. James Episcopal Church

PROGRAM: My Quilted Life with Cathy Kleeman

A trunk show of art quilts with descriptions of the processes, both the ideas behind the work and the physical creation. Methods include multiple types of surface design – screen-printing, mono-printing, paint flinging, stamping, and stitching.

MINI-WORKSHOP (3 hours): Hand stitching ON my Quilts with Cathy Kleeman

Location: TBD

Why does a person whose favorite tool is a sewing machine decide that a piece needs stitching by hand? Try out various stitches and threads to see what effects they produce on your work. We will work with heavy weight threads and some metallics. Note that this is not a hand quilting workshop; think of this as embellishment

Mini: $30 for members, $37 for nonmembers

November 12, 2011

Location: St. James Episcopal Church

PROGRAM: Weaving on Simple Looms in South America with Laverne Waddington

Laverne Waddington, born in India, raised in Australia, has been living in South America for the past seventeen years. She spent the first five years in the southernmost city on the South American continent-a wild and windy place called Punta Arenas. Her winters were spent backpacking around Peru and Bolivia studying spinning, weaving, and braiding techniques with indigenous teachers. Laverne kept journals in which she meticulously documented all the techniques she learned over the years with diagrams and step-by-step photos and will share her experiences of weaving on simple looms in South America.

MINI-WORKSHOP (3 hrs): Tubular Woven Bands of the Andes with Laverne Waddington

Location: St. James Episcopal Church

'Braid' is altogether the wrong word to use to describe the beautiful edging found in Peru and Bolivia. It is actually a woven band which is simultaneously woven and sewn to the edge of the piece using the weft as the sewing thread. The two edges of the band are pulled together to grip the edge of the piece and the band, therefore, takes the form of a tube. Students will weave a tubular band suitable for a decorative trim or for use as a bag strap or braid.

Mini: $30 for members, $37 for nonmembers

November 13-14, 2011

Location: TBD

WORKSHOP November (2 Days): Backstrap Basics with Laverne Waddington

'Backstrap weaving' is just that: weaving on a backstrap loom, and it doesn't matter what size, shape or form the finished piece of fabric takes. Learning to 'backstrap weave' is all about learning to warp, set up and operate a loom which uses the weaver's body as the tensioning device rather than being defined by or confined to any one technique. It is fun and intriguing for both new and experienced weavers. Weaving in an armchair…how nice is that?!

Workshop: $135 for members, $160 for nonmembers

December 10, 2011

Taste of Fiber Arts/Holiday Party

Location: St. James Episcopal Church

Join your friends and guild colleagues for an exciting and entertaining morning and a delicious pot luck luncheon. This is your opportunity to try many different types of fiber art, such as spinning, weaving, felting, knitting, crocheting, and quilting! Bring your favorite holiday treat and get your taste of fiber art!

January 14, 2012

Location: St. James Episcopal Church

PROGRAM: Kitchen Frolics with Julie Booth

Julie B. Booth, the 2010 winner of the Margaret Conant Grant, will present a program about her discoveries after a year of "playing in the kitchen" using common household materials as fabric resists. In addition to a Power Point presentation about what she learned, Julie will bring a number of larger sampler fabrics, which combine resist techniques, for display and discussion. A notebook of resist recipes and samples will also be presented to the Guild library.

January 14-15, 2012

Location: Saturday, January 14 – 1:00 am – 4:00 pm - St. James Episcopal Church
Sunday, January 15 – 10:00 am – 3:00 pm – Potomac Community Center

WORKSHOP: Playing in the Kitchen with Julie Booth

Discover the amazing surface design effects that can be achieved by applying simple household materials to fabric. Flour, cereal, starch, salt, and glue are among the resists students will explore in this workshop. Armed with wire whisk, hot plate and blender, the instructor will provide "recipes" that will yield exciting results. We will cover "crackle", drawing, printing, stenciling, and rubbing techniques with the resists. Emphasis will be on creation of a number of multi-layered fabrics, combining application techniques and using pigment based fabric paints.

Workshop: $70 for members, $80 for non-members

January 28-29, 2012

WORKSHOP: Playing in the Kitchen

Location: Saturday, January 28 – 1:00 pm – 4:00 pm - Potomac Community Center
Sunday, January 29 – 10:00 am – 3:00 pm – Potomac Community Center

Mini: $70 for members, $80 for nonmembers

February 11, 2012

Location: St. James Episcopal Church

PROGRAM: The True History of the Scottish Tartan with Melissa Weaver Dunning

Everything you know about tartans is wrong! Tartan, known as plaid in the U.S., is the national symbol of Scotland, but the system of named family tartans is not as old as you might think. Come and enjoy some good yarns about the development and bedevilment of tartan design. Melissa Weaver Dunning began her study of weaving in 1980 with Norman Kennedy, national treasure and native of Aberdeen, Scotland. This entertaining and informative program will be accompanied by lots of hand woven tartan samples.

MINI-WORKSHOP (3 hours): Tartan Design for Weavers with Melissa Weaver Dunning

Learn a simple spreadsheet approach to designing a tartan warp from the sett numbers to the warp of your choice. Also included will be tips on recoloring tartans, sources for traditional sets and discussion of warping techniques.

Mini-Workshop: $30 for members, $37 for non-members

March 12, 2012

Location: St. James Episcopal Church

PROGRAM: Behind the Eye: From Idea to Art Work with Saaraliisa Ylitalo

Saaraliisa has been working in the field of fiber for over 30 years. During much of that time she has lived and taught abroad in Costa Rica, Japan, Peru and South Africa. While in Kyoto for five years, she fell in love with washi (handmade paper) and studied with a master papermaker. Her own work uses her handmade paper and whatever other fiber techniques she needs at the time.

Over the years Saaraliisa's work has had a strong social conscience, dealing with subjects such as abuse and victimization, secrets and body image. She visually communicates the struggle between hope and despair and the tension created from the interplay of those forces. Her newer works have echoes of these themes, but are more focused on life's more ethereal and spiritual questions. "I persist in asking: as humans, why do we struggle, why do we care, what makes us try." This program will deal with how our lives inform our work. We will see the things that impact our journeys that we must then translate into our own visual language.

MINI-WORKSHOP (3 hours): Joomchi, Korean Textured Paper with Saaraliisa Ylitalo

Joomchi is a Korean technique for making textured handmade paper. We will be combining layers of mulberry papers of various shapes and colors to create a new piece of paper. This technique is similar to felting, but uses paper instead of wool. The resulting crinkled papers can be used in surface design, bookmaking, collage, anywhere you would use decorative paper.

Students will be introduced to several ways of making Joomchi and will work on one or two pieces during the class.

Mini-Workshop: $30 for members, $37 for non-members

April 14, 2012

Location: St. James Episcopal Church

PROGRAM: Innovations in Silk Art with Clara Graves

Clara Graves worked for twenty years as a graphic designer, an industry that underwent huge changes as it was transformed from a manual creative process to a digital one. Clara missed the hands-on feel of working directly with the media. Having been introduced to silk painting by Susan Louise Moyer's book of the same name, Clara was captivated by the amazing feel of painting on silk and the brilliance of the colors she could create. Her restless quest to free her internal creative voice has led her to explore many different techniques and modify them as she needed in order to express herself.

In this program, Clara will talk about some of innovations that have changed the world of silk art from the original "gutta serti" technique. She will show examples of the beautiful works of art that she and others have been able to create using silk as their medium.

MINI-WORKSHOP (3 hours): Silk and Simplicity with Clara Graves

In this mini, you will learn some simple ways to step into the exciting world of silk painting. This is a class about exploration, freedom and reading the silk to see where the developing images want you to go. It is about using simple techniques to create a design that can look quite complex. There is a style of silk painting that is very precise. This is not it. In fact, here you will learn that a mistake is truly hard to make. In this workshop we will explore hot wax as the way to direct and contain the flow of silk paint on the silk.

Mini-Workshop: $30 for members, $37 for non-members

May 9-11

WORKSHOP: Vessels with an Attitude

Location: TBD

This unique felted vessel class will explore new approaches to a very ancient tradition. You will be using an assortment of tools and shapes to create a highly sculpted vessel with a well fitted stopper or top. Each student's vessel will be unique. This is a fairly rigorous class and will seem like an upper body workout at times. Experienced feltmakers come prepared for a physical and mentally creative workout.

Workshop: $175 for members, $210 for nonmembers

May 12, 2012

Location: St. James Episcopal Church

PROGRAM: Ah Ha Moments with Pam MacGregor

My life as an artist has taken many turns over the years. Artist as student, artist as teacher and now retired teacher as felt artist. Since my retirement, the discovery of felt making has charged me with a new artistic energy. I find the versatility and engineering possibilities for each project both mentally and physically stimulating. At the end of the day, there is usually a sweet surprise, an ah ha moment of inspiration giving me insight for future felt works, bringing with it new and unique possibilities.

MINI-WORKSHOP (3 hours): Nesting Bowls with Pam MacGregor

Using traditional wet felting techniques, we will make a series of three nesting bowls using merino, hand dyed prefelt. Learn to use some specialized tools and shaping techniques. This is a fast and fun technique that is good for beginners and interesting for an experienced felter.

Mini-Workshop: $30 for members, $37 for non-members

June 9, 2012

Location: St. James Episcopal Church

Study Group Day/Potluck Lunch

Study groups are an excellent way to focus on a particular area in fiber art and to become better acquainted with fellow members. At this meeting, all study groups will have the opportunity to show the work their members have done and to explain their fascination with their specialty. This will be an opportunity for new members and those who don't yet belong to a group to explore these guild activities. The meeting will conclude with a wonderful potluck lunch.

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