I believe art should express things which cannot be easily or entirely explored with words. For me, memory and unconscious mental processes are such matters. Memory is imperfect and impermanent, yet it greatly influences our day-to-day decisions. My memories of fiber art, altered and nostalgic, set me on my path to weaving and the pursuit of fine art. Silent like snowfall: A Retrospective on Memory and Self, explores the memories and concepts behind Silent like snowfall, a woven installation which creates the theoretical space in our minds which houses remnants of memories.

Although the Biennales Internationales de la Tapisserie are widely recognized as important fiber art exhibitions, no history of them has been written. This study endeavors to trace the history of the first through the tenth Lausanne Biennales.

Solkatt är ett arbete inom textildesign som undersöker hur vävd shibori kan användas i en textil utsmyckning. Arbetet vidareutvecklar en förstudie, i vilken tekniken vävd shibori undersöktes genom handvävning, från materialundersökning till design, genom industriell vävning. De mönstrade strukturerna skapas av extra mönstertrådar som vävs med krympgarn. Textilierna är inspirerade av solkatter; hur det intensiva ljuset dansar, reflekteras och blänker. Strukturernas uttryck förstärks i två steg, först med folietryck och därefter med ljussättning. Resultatet är en textil utsmyckning som leker med ljuset. Den har formen av en halvcirkel där folien är tryckt på insidan av formen. Ljussättningen förstärker den mönstrade strukturen.Engelsk titel: Solkatt / Program: Textile Design

This is a supporting paper for a Master of Arts Graduate Exhibition entitled My Journey Home: A Study in Hand-Felted Wool, held at Slocumb Galleries October 30 through November 3, 2006. The work in the exhibition represents a concentrated study in the graduate program in Fiber Art at East Tennessee State University. My artwork is an expression of my feelings and emotions toward my family, particularly the women in my family. The paper begins with an introduction detailing my artistic research and culminates with a reflection of the work shown in the exhibition. The cultural and historical influences that shaped my family and the influences that developed the fiber construction techniques that I use are then discussed. I explain the methods and procedures I employ to construct my art work and discuss the contemporary artists who have had an influence upon my work and me. In the summary I conclude that the hand-felted wool I construct is an excellent medium to express my ideas and emotions toward my family and my home.

I have made an investigation in how I can encourage curiosity in textiles with a specific interest in its structures. I have found that repetition is one efficient way to make a separate building element disappear into its own mass and instead be viewed as a surface. I researched how different surfaces are created by experiment with materials and techniques and looked into the big role tactility plays when curiosity in textiles are created but as well realized that a haptic experience can be reached not only with skin but through the eyes. The experiments and elaborations I made took my ideas beyond my starting point and further than I first could imagine. I explored and questioned hierarchies and values of materials by the way I used and combined them. By doing so I realized and discussed the dilemma of being positive to the idea of letting people experience my work through touching and the issue with sustainability, duration and demolishing the patterns while doing so.  Through this paper I aimed to find a definition for what fiber art can be today. I didn´t find one or totally uniform answer but it seems to me that it´s a movement that stretches over diverse material fields and has an underlying power to push boundaries and traditions and break free from classifications.

In the past, my work was focused on transferring the flat visual element into the space. I turn away from this concept, because as my Master's thesis I chose a Labyrinth. A labyrinth is not primary flat visual element. My final work is free artistic interpretation of this theme. My work based on classical craftsmanship techniques, which I am using in the new way in my work. I understood this theme labyrinth as an something very personal and individual. Because of this, I decide to create sculpture which will fit in to the gallery space and also the space of everyday life. My expression of the Labyrinth has cube shape. The entire sculpture is stitched inside, this stitch create the inside space. In one way this inner space is open and we are free to look inside, in the other hand center of the sculpture is hidden. I want to express a feeling of secrecy, and create tension between outside and inside space of the sculpture.

One of the most prominent traditions associated with the Southern Appalachians is the art of weaving. Extensive research has focused on the history of Appalachian weaving, but there is little on the current weaving community. Today, the region still serves as an axis for weaving, and many practicing weavers, weaving instructors, and learning institutions can be found in Southern Appalachia. The core of this study is the interviews with ten weavers that reside and practice their work in Appalachia. Using concept coding, the transcripts of the interviews led to the development of four major themes that highlight the weavers’ discovery of their weaving passion, what continues to be a source of motivation for weaving, how today’s weavers use weaving as a source of income, and how weaving continues to be deeply connected to Southern Appalachia’s art and craft making traditions.

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This thesis is in support of the exhibition entitled ES-SEN-TIAL on display in Tipton Gallery located in Downtown Johnson City from February 27, 2017 to March 10, 2017. The exhibition is a presentation in fiber medium of the human impact on the landscape, specifically using the extractive industry of coal mining as example. This is accomplished through the use of digital imagery printed on textiles, hand and machine embroidery, and surface design techniques of dyeing and layering. This body of work reflects the artist’s interest in art activism and the utilization of photography, fiber arts, ideas and techniques, as creative process to formally explore the landscape.