Welcome to the TextileX resource guide—a growing effort created to map out and connect the vibrant textile community and resources in the Portland metro area and beyond. The foundation of this guide was built from the diversity of organizations that participate in the Portland TextileX Month festival every October.
Development of and funding for this guide have been provided by Textile Hive with additional funding from a RACC catalyst grant in 2019.
We encourage you to contribute additional resources through this form and consider becoming a member of TextileX to help further develop this resource guide as well as Portland TextileX Month.
Studios
Amy Reader
Amy Reader is a fiber and installation artist based in Portland, OR. Her primary interest is in using fibers and textiles to create sculptural forms. In 2015, Amy facilitated a large-scale, collaborative crochet installation that received international acclaim. In 2016, Amy traveled to Peru for an artist residency in the Amazon Rainforest where she built a permanent sculpture in the jungle. From 2016-2018, Amy was a Display Artist at Anthropologie where she created large scale installations and window displays. Currently, Amy splits her time between sewing her own artwork, teaching workshops, and writing educational blogs. Amy is a member of the Society for Embroidered Work - an international honor society promoting the best stitched art worldwide. She has been featured on local news segments like Wilson’s World on WCCB and on the art blog Brown Paper Bag.
Studios
Ariane Mariane
Ariane Mariane is a German fiber artist living and working in Paris. Trained in architecture and graphical textile design she felt in love with textile arts in 2004. Since 2008 she runs her own textile art studio, creating wall-hangings, sculptures, home decor, wearable art and accessories. In her work she combines graphical design and several textile techniques to make outstanding pieces in a fancy and playful style. She paints with powerful colored fibers and creates little stories in a poetic and humorous way. Each item is unique: created by hand, in a time-consuming and artistic process. In each piece Ariane Mariane explores new techniques, association of colors and materials. She describes her process as involuntary, deconstructed and messy. "My workshop is filled up with fabrics, wool fibers, pigments, papers and findings of all kind. It’s my kingdom from where I travel to imaginary countries, enjoy great adventures and often come back with marvelous treasuries. My best creations "just happen or as Picasso pointed out:"Inspiration exists but it must find you working."” In Ariane Mariane’s world, clothes and accessories stand side by side to wall hangings and sculptures. "I do not see any difference in making a garment or a picture," she explains. "My approach is always graphical and somehow storytelling: a combination of colors, shapes and materials. In the beginning“ making art for art seemed pretentious to me and I needed a function to authorize myself to create. Nowadays I play around with both. I may even feel freer when doing wall hangings and sculptures. On the other hand it’s so exciting to see a creation transformed by another human. I love the sparkling eyes when a woman tries out an art vest, a hat or accessory. Something’s happening –the art work and the woman are transformed.” The artist’s goal? Spread good vibes and color life.
Organizations
BASIC NEEDS food shelter clothing
foodshelterclothing.squarespace.com
BASIC NEEDS is about making things whose beauty is intertwined with their utility and sustainability. Sometimes it takes the form of a small collection of unique pieces, like hand felted sheepskins or botanically-dyed textiles, other times it may be a garden, designed and cared for over many years.
Studios
Carolyn Hazel Drake
Carolyn Hazel Drake is a third-generation Oregonian who works with textiles, ceramics, and domestic materials. She references devotional objects and archetypal imagery to create objects and installations that are familiar yet cryptic. Drake studied literature & architecture at PSU’s Honors College and has an M.Ed. in art education. She has been awarded residencies at GLEAN, Leland Ironworks, Suttle Lodge, and Sitka. Her work is represented by Carnation Contemporary and Hanson Howard Gallery. Drake is an assistant professor of art education at Arizona State University. She divides her time between Phoenix and Portland. www.carolynhazeldrake.com / @carolynhazeldrake
Studios
Emily Pacheco
www.instagram.com/emilypoprocks
Emily Pacheco is a multi-disciplinary artist creating wearable art, soft sculpture, illustrations and papier-mache work. Her practice is a middle school love letter asking DIY, arts and crafts and outsider art if they'll go to prom.
Studios
Heather Watkins
Heather Watkins’ work explores the nature and possibilities of the drawn line – materially and symbolically. Working with ink, cord, thread, cloth, and paper, she submits these materials to many cycles of saturation, compression, intertwining, and transference. Through these physical processes, she investigates phenomena such as flow, stasis, circulation, and gravity. Her work takes many forms: sculpture, drawing, text-based work, printmaking, and artist’s books.
Her work has been shown in numerous exhibitions, at venues including: PDX CONTEMPORARY ART, Portland, OR; Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR; Planthouse Gallery, New York, NY; the lumber room, Portland, OR; Front of House, Portland, OR; The Art Gym, Marylhurst, OR; and Nine Gallery, Portland, OR. Her work is held in private and public collections including the Portland Art Museum, the Miller Meigs Collection, the Regional Arts and Culture Council’s Portable Works Collection, the Collection of Jordan D. Schnitzer, Portland State University, Reed College, and Rhode Island School of Design Artist’s Book Collection. She has been the recipient of grants from Oregon Arts Commission, The Ford Family Foundation, and Regional Arts & Culture Council, and has been awarded residencies at Caldera; Sitka Center for Art & Ecology; Oregon College of Art and Craft; and at Em Space Book Arts Center. Watkins holds an MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design, and is represented by PDX CONTEMPORARY ART.
Studios
Jeanne Medina Le
Jeanne received her BFA in Fiber and Material Studies (2001) and Post-Baccalaureate in Fashion, Body and Garment (2009) from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), and her MFA in Fiber (2013) from Cranbrook Academy of Art where she was awarded the Toby Devan Lewis Award. The award enabled her to pursue research in Antwerp, Belgium at the ModeMuseum (MoMu), and to work with fashion designer, Christian Wijnants. In 2018 she was awarded the Fountainhead Fellowship in Craft & Material Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU). There she worked with the Highland Support Project and fair-trade weaving organization, Pixan, in Xela, Guatemala to develop textile designs with indigenous Mayan weavers. Her collaborations include a 2019 Bessie Award winning project with choreographer, Ni’Ja Whitson. She has been Artist-in-Residence at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, Caldera, Oak Spring Garden Foundation, and Pine Meadow Ranch. Jeanne served as a Visiting Assistant Professor in Fibers at Oregon College of Art and Craft (OCAC) in Portland, OR. Her exhibitions include Interpretive Center for Embodied Textiles solo-exhibition at the Alice Gallery in Seattle; GARB at ArtCenter Pasadena; International Fiber Art Fair in Seoul, Korea; Ancestral Offerings solo-exhibition at Reynolds Gallery in Richmond, VA; and Discursive at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum in Eugene, OR. Her work is in the permanent collection at Cranbrook Art Museum in Bloomfield Hills, MI and the Oak Spring Garden Foundation Rachel “Bunny” Mellon Collection in Upperville, VA.
Studios
Megita Denton
Intermedia artist that deeply intertwines my agricultural/land-based background. My focus is sustainability in ecological systems by utilizing all practices of – film at https://vimeo.com/megdenton, contemporary furniture, paintings, sculptures, sound, textiles, print media, welding, performance art, design, resilient landscapes, woodworking, murals with Art Seed PDX, photography, site specific public works, Nature based forms called ‘bio-anchors’ and often large formats to fit my big moods of passion. A true multidisciplinary artist.
Exploratory endeavors of environment, collaborations, and expressing interconnectedness fuels my work and relation to others, the natural and spiritual arenas- in pursuit of positive change and consciousness. I am building on the elevation of my Indigenous cultural perspective and using detritus to evoke a powerful sense of nostalgia that emits joy, contemplation, connection, and inspiration.
With a bedded foundation in the PNW soil from artistic, agricultural, and culinary roots - I have been circling with vibrations from these and filtering them through my lens. Land is the mesa from which I push and pull my art from. So, sit down at the table with me and let’s move art together…
Studios
Naomi Parrott Halpern
https://www.instagram.com/papernaomi/
From working closely with master artisans across Mexico, leading creative teams with commercial agencies, organizing community events, and one-on-one projects with designers, our work is fundamentally rooted in a collaborative ethos.
Studios
Niky Kuzma
www.instagram.com/dirtysunshinepa
Niky moved to Portland to study Craft and Design at PNCA in August 2019, and finished her MFA in June 2021. She designs workshops to share her passion and belief that hand work positively impacts the maker and everyone should have an access point to the techniques. She identifies as differently abled resulting from a brain injury and experiences life through the lens of a low income individual. These are her motivators for designing free and inclusive workshops to invite a broader audience that may have felt discouraged to learn craft techniques due to cost or ability. Niky believes that we can create a stronger community through the act of making together in the same way our ancestors had. She wants to encourage folks to reconnect with their hands to discover an outlet for exploration, creativity, and a space for connecting with those who share our world.
Studios
Orquidia Violeta
Orquidia Violeta is a Salvadoran-American textile artist. Growing up in a dirt-floored farmhouse in Central America. Orquidia crossed the US border as a six-year-old refugee and went on to earn an Associate of the Arts degree from the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising. Living in Oregon, Orquidia continues to challenge herself as a salvage textile artist, exploring new methods and mediums, such as machine and hand embroidery, knitting, weaving, appliqué, soft-sculpture, fiber-collage, drawing, painting and eco-fabric dyeing to tell colorful stories on the diversity of people.
cooperative embroidery fashion sculpture textile art wearable art
Studios
Stashia Cabral
Stashia Cabral is a visual and performance artist from Portland, Oregon. She works in movement and visual media such as installation, sculpture, and painting, she has a passion for ready made and assemblages. Her performance pieces range from burlesque to belly dance, to butoh and more and feature beautifully handmade costumes and props. Quirks and oddities are her happy place. Stashia has shown work at galleries and cafes locally, and performed at venues ranging from cafes and theaters to big stages, like the Northwest World Reggae Festival. Stashia received her MFA from Pacific Northwest College of Art.