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
Ali Cat Leeds
Ali Cat. is an artist and print maker living on unceded Cowlitz, Multnomah and Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde land at the confluence of two rivers, also know as Portland, Oregon. She produces her work under the name Entangled Roots Press. Her prints mingle the literal and metaphorical to illuminate and comment upon the world around us. Relief, screen, and letterpress prints span from the carnage of clear-cuts to the beauty of peoples movements. Ali’s prints pull from ancestral herstories and push towards liberatory futures; entangling lessons from gardens, symbols in coffee cups, woven threads from Armenia and Euskal Herria, to the printed page. Ali received her BFA at Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland. She completed an artist-residency at Proyecto’ace in Buenos Aires in 2014, and was a member of Flight 64, a member-run, nonprofit print studio, from 2015- 2018. Ali worked as the Print Studio Technician at PNCA from 2017 – 2021. They now teach and volunteer at the Independent Publishing Resource Center.
Organizations
Babaran Segaragunung Culture House
Babaran Segaragunung Culture House (BSG) is a non-profit arts organization located in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. The mission of BSG is to explore cultural traditions of Indonesia and the world in order to gain a greater understanding of the application of the rich cultural heritage of indigenous cultures in this era. BSG facilitates educational programs teaching the ancient creative process of Nusantara, collaboration and cultural exchange, publications, exhibitions, cultural tours, workshops, as well as documentation of creative process. Serving artists, artisans, cultural lovers, both locally and abroad, BSG intends to increase the creativity and interconnections of all aspects of Indonesian art.
community textile design textile history textile printing textile traditions
Schools
Damascus Fiber Arts School
Audrey Moore has been teaching Navajo-style weaving for 50 years and is the owner of Damascus Fiber Arts School, formerly known as Damascus Pioneer Craft School. Terry Olson, once Audrey's student, has taught Tapestry-style weaving at Damascus for 20 years. Tammy Rosecrans is a current student, going on her second year with DFAS, who focuses primarily on Navajo-style weaving.
Schools
Eiseman Center for Color Information and Training
Businesses
Laundry Studio
Founded in 2000, Laundry is a multi-faceted design studio in Portland, Oregon specializing in print and pattern design, illustration, graphic design and creative workshops focusing on all of the above.
Studios
LeBrie Rich
LeBrie Rich has been exploring the visual possibilities and emotional resonance of felted wool since 2004. She is best known for updating the traditional crafts of felting and embroidery by creating highly detailed soft-sculptural replicas of familiar packaged food items, such as Jif peanut butter and Spam. Venues that have shown her work include the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Project Space in New York, NY; Portland Art Museum and Blackfish Gallery in Portland, OR; and Albus Gallery in Fukuoka, Japan. She has been awarded artist residencies at the Rauschenberg Residency (2013, 2015), Ucross Foundation (2018), and Kayamori House (2012) in the mountains outside of Nara, Japan.
Rich loves to teach people to access their creativity through felting. In 2021 she taught the art of felting to a total of 800 students from across the world, both through online and in-person classes. Her felt sculptures, collages, wearable fiber creations, and workshops for youth have been written about in the New York Times, Hand/Eye Magazine, Make, the Oregonian, and Portland Monthly.
Businesses
Made on 23rd
Made On 23rd is a modern design workshop specializing in hand-crafted textiles. Our products are block printed by traditional processes by skilled artists.
Studios
Opulent Fibers
Opulent Fibers is a studio operated by felt artist Kristi Kún. Kristy Kún is a studio artist working in hand made wool felt with an innovative approach to construction methods, material combinations, and craftsmanship. Kristy believes strongly in collaboration and community building through Craft and has hosted local and international instructors, each experts their practicing form of textile art, and has presented at free community events, demonstrating techniques and sharing her passion for wool.
Businesses
PenFelt Studio
PenFelt Studio provides delightful, original projects and high-quality materials for felters who appreciate consciously-sourced materials, good design and a sense of fun.
Founded in 2004 by artist and felting instructor LeBrie Rich. Known to some as Duchess of Felt, LeBrie is best known for her highly realistic sculptures of food packaging rendered in felt.
LeBrie has taught workshops at colleges, art studios, and fiber festivals all over the world—from a small village in the mountains of Japan to New York City. In addition to custom work for private clients, LeBrie has worked with Bent Image Lab, Nike, and a sustainable diaper manufacturer who needed a presentation box made out of felt for Kate Middleton (the Duchess of Cambridge). She lives and works in Portland, Oregon.
Organizations
Portland Textile Club
www.instagram.com/portlandtextileclub
Portland Textile Club is a social club that meets on occasion to talk all things textile, fabric, design, and printing practices. Established in 2014, Portland, OR.
Organizations
Portland TextileX Month
The Portland TextileX Month Festival was founded and organized to foster cross-pollination among textile enthusiasts, artists, businesses, schools, and cultural organizations. We create programming and provide an open platform to share histories, knowledge, commerce, experiences, and practices, across cultures and generations. We seek to partner with facilitators and organizations, rooted in community building, sharing, accessibility, inclusivity, diversity, and collaboration. By creating and fostering textile programming that champions grassroots collaboration and dialogue, we create meaningful opportunities for change.
Studios
R.A.W. Textiles
R A W Textiles is a production dye studio in Portland, Oregon, that specializes in natural dyed, shibori, and rusted textiles.
Organizations
Rewild Portland
Rewild Portland is an environmental education focused non-profit organization serving Portland, Oregon and the surrounding wild and rural communities. Our mission is to create cultural and environmental resilience through the education of earth-based arts, traditions, and technologies. This mission comes to life in the form of educational workshops and programs, community-building events, and ecological restoration.
Farms
Vibrant Valley Farm
We are a group of dedicated farmers and passionate educators committed to exploring innovative solutions to enliven the current food system, both locally and globally. We work to honor ancient traditions in growing food and connecting to the land as well as to helping to create healthier communities. We are partnering with local schools and youth projects to create mentorship programs as well as green job training possibilities to accompany the hard work and dedication of growing food and learning from one another in a field setting.
Schools
WildCraft Studio School
Expanding textile traditions. Sharpening creativity. Seeing culture through craft. Learning from nature. Since 2013, WildCraft’s mission has been to offer exceptional creative programming to diverse, adult learners (18 yrs & up), with a special focus on Craft, Textiles, Studio Art, Native Art and Nature-based workshops. From our SE Portland studio—as well as from the farms, forests and beaches that make up our off-site classrooms—WildCraft strives to awaken creativity and deepen an understanding of place, through hands-on experiences in making and learning.
Studios
Wildland Roots
Mythic Mummery & Place-based Art.
Moni J. Sears (they/she) has lived in Portland, Oregon / on Multnomah Chinook land since 1999, but was born in Aotearoa New Zealand, within the traditional lands of the Ngāi Tahu Māori.
Following a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree and several years involvement with film and theatre arts, Moni started a mask-making company (Goblin Art, 1995-2015) which sold original work at markets and galleries in Oregon, Washington and Louisiana, and created custom pieces for film, television and other media in the US and Canada. Moni became interested in earth-based arts and nature education in 2011, and in 2020 decided to combine both mask-making and nature skills into Wildland Roots.