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.
Galleries
1122 Gallery
From 2018-2020, 1122 was in a backyard garage in the Montavilla neighborhood of Southeast Portland. As of May 2021, 1122 is an outdoor space in the Tabor neighborhood. 1122 is a community art gallery located in Portland, Oregon. It offers workshops, hosts events, and is open to collaborations of all kinds. It is inclusive, immersive, and aims to support people in the creative process. 1122 is a platform for all voices and stories and is committed to helping people generate art. We believe in responding to the world through creative acts, and support the community of makers, thinkers, dreamers, and imaginationists that make this happen. Jen Denrow and Lauren Wallig, creative humans and cousins, have been dreaming about creating a space like this for years.
Studios
Alison Heryer
Alison Heryer is an interdisciplinary artist whose work combines costume, installation, performance, and community engagement. As a costume designer, she is a member of United Scenic Artists, Local 829. Her design credits include productions at Steppenwolf Theatre Company, 59E59 Theaters, La MaMa, The New Victory Theater, Portland Center Stage, Portland Opera, Kansas City Repertory Theatre, Indiana Repertory Theatre, Artists Repertory Theatre, ZACH Theatre, The Hypocrites, and Redmoon. Her work has been featured in exhibitions at the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art, World Stage Design, and The Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space. Awards include a RACC Build Grant, Drammy Award and Austin Critics Table Award for Costume Design, and the ArtsKC Inspiration Grant. Heryer is a graduate of Washington University in St. Louis and the University of Texas at Austin. She is a faculty member at Portland State University where she was recently granted the Sue Horn-Caskey & Charles F. Caskey Professorship of Textile Arts & Costume Design. Alison Heryer’s 2021/2022 projects have been generously supported by a RACC Build Grant.
Businesses
Appetite Shop
We are a sister team, Erin + Megan (and pup, Beetle!), raised in New Mexico but now happily based in Portland, OR for the last 14 years. Our shop is a cozy blend of our Southwestern roots melded with our love of the Pacific Northwest. There's always a great array of cacti and houseplants mixed in with our handmade and vintage finds. Our shop also houses a working studio where we refurbish vintage finds, plant in vintage pottery and hand-print and make our own collection of housewares and accessories. Our mom makes all of the macrame plant hangers and wall hangings we sell in the shop.
Studios
Aradhita Parasrampuria
Aradhita Parasrampuria is a materials designer originally from India, based in New York. Parasrampuria combines synthetic biology with fashion to create sustainable, scalable textiles to replace toxic petroleum-based materials. She works primarily with raw materials such as Microalgae, Escherichia coli, and Cellulose. Parasrampuria received recognition on Indian Forbes 30 under 30 2023 list in the climate change category. She has also been awarded the Swarovski Foundation's "Creatives For Our Future" grant and the Aronson Fellowship from Tishman Environment and Design Center. Her work has been showcased in prominent events and publications such as United Nations, COP27, Vogue, L'officiel Brazil, CFDA, Dezeen, No-Kill Magazine, New York Design Week, and Portland Textile Month.
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
Businesses
BlackSheepMade
Alyssarhaye Graciano is a trilingual, POC fiber artist. Once in the tech industry as a linguistic specialist, she left her day job to pursue a creative career. While she mainly knits, crochet, macramé and weaving are also part of her everyday life.
She started BlackSheepMade as a way to fund an internship abroad while in college, but since 2014 it has evolved into large public installations, long-term pop-ups and traveling workshops. You can find her latest mural in her hometown of San Jose, California at The Berryessa Flea. She wove a 15 x 8–foot (4.5x 2.5–m) mural with her dad, Francisco, as an homage to her late abuelita and hometown culture.
In 2018, she ran a two-month long pop-up in downtown Portland via a city-funded program. She was able to test out her idea of a “deli for knits”: choose a style of beanie or scarf, pick your colors and she’ll knit it up in a week. In 2019, Travel Portland and My People’s Market brought Alyssarhaye to Japan to discuss life as an entrepreneur and teach a macrame workshop. In January of 2020, Alyssarhaye published her first DIY knitting book, Chunky Knits: Cozy Hats, Scarves and More Made Simple with Extra-Large Yarn.
Today, she continues her art career as a designer for various fiber brands and local businesses and she teaches fiber workshops in both English and Spanish. Alyssarhaye now lives in San Jose, California where when she’s not knitting, can be found sewing, cycling, or on a hike.
Galleries
Blackfish Gallery
Combining a mentor-based approach with an exceptional visiting artists program, students work one-on-one with nationally and internationally recognized designers, makers, and scholars in a self-directed curriculum that challenges them to bring to life the full strength of their ideas and skills.
Businesses
Creative Capital Design
As founders of Creative Capital Design, we are, at our core, friends who know we are better together. Our success is largely a product of those who mentored, encouraged, and inspired us along the way. We continue to be buoyed up by the enthusiasm and energy, imagination and intelligence, of those around us. Now it’s our turn to share our knowledge and resources with the industry that has treated us so well. We developed Inside Fashion Design, a behind the scenes look into the world of apparel design. A site dedicated to first-year students, emerging designers and industry leaders alike. It’s a place to teach and to learn. A place to bring everyone into the conversation and celebrate what we all love to do.
Location Details
1231 NW Hoyt StreetSuite 304
Portland, Oregon 97209
Galleries
Elizabeth Leach Gallery
Established in 1981, the Elizabeth Leach Gallery presents prominent Northwest and internationally established artists working in a wide variety of contemporary media. The gallery's mission is to create a dynamic dialogue between the local community and the global art world.
Studios
Francesca Capone
Francesca Capone is a materials designer, visual artist, writer, and educator. Her work is primarily concerned with the creation of materials and a poetic consideration of their meaning. She is interested in how tactile forms simultaneously serve as functional surfaces for daily life and as a mode of communication or symbol within the cultural paradigm. Her books Woven Places (Some Other Books, 2018), Text means Tissue (2017), and Weaving Language (information as material 2018, Self Published 2015) focus on textile poetics. They are available for purchase via Printed Matter, and are available for viewing at the MoMA Library and the Watson Library at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She has exhibited at Whitechapel Gallery in London, LUMA/Westbau in Switzerland, Textile Arts Center in NYC, and 99¢ Plus Gallery in Brooklyn. She has been an artist in residence at the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation and Andrea Zittel's A-Z West. Her academic work includes lectures and workshops at Brown University, Rhode Island School of Design, Reed College, University of Washington, and Alberta College of Art and Design, among others.
Galleries
Fuller Rosen Gallery
Fuller Rosen Gallery was founded in 2018 by artists EM Fuller (she/her) and BriAnna Rosen (she/her) as a collaborative curatorial project. The gallery exhibits regional, national, and international emerging artists who address urgent, contemporary issues.
Galleries
HOLDING Contemporary
HOLDING Contemporary presents exhibitions and programs by emerging and established visual artists across disciplines. Through a deliberate curatorial vision and a strategic business model, we position ourselves towards challenging the economical and social privilege of the art world.
Galleries
Helen's Costume
Helen's Costume is a contemporary art gallery in a modified domestic setting, in the Montavilla neighborhood of Portland OR.
Studios
Julz Clementine
Julz Clementine is a surface designer, illustrator, and teacher living out her dreams in Portland, Oregon. She has a BFA with a concentration in Communication Design from Texas State University. During the expanse of her career as an artist, she has worked as a designer in print & apparel, an art director in advertising, and is currently working as a surface pattern designer & illustrator. Her deep love for nature and female empowerment led her to begin Hummingbird Art Camp in the summer of 2018. A few of her favorite things since childhood have been creating, crafting, rainbows & finding simple beauty in the everyday. Once she became a mama, she began to teach her daughter about sharing kindness with the world, appreciating art and looking for the good. She realized that many of these teaching opportunities were her favorite parts in the day, and now dedicates her life to creating and connecting with others through art and sharing ways to play and seek out the magic in everyday life.
Businesses
Kat + Maouche
Katen Bush is the co-owner of Kat + Maouche, a gallery specializing in vintage Moroccan rugs. She and her husband, Latif, focus on research and provenance.
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.
Galleries
Lumber Room
The lumber room is a space for contemporary art in Portland, Oregon. Founded in 2010, it is dedicated to an ever evolving approach to the exhibition and discussion of emerging as well as established artists and their work.
Galleries
MK Gallery
The Art Building at Portland State University is home to the MK Galleries.
MK Gallery brings world-class exhibitions and events together with pioneering learning and community programmes to Milton Keynes.
An independent café and shop, cinema from Curzon, and spectacular views over the park feature in this new building, which launched in 2019. Three major exhibitions are presented each year across five elegant and spacious galleries, from thematic group exhibitions to in-depth solo presentations. Alongside our exhibitions, we offer music, dance, talks and conferences, mixing emerging and locally based talent with established names. We also deliver a weekly film programme featuring the best of independent cinema in partnership with Curzon. We offer schools and family activities throughout the year and our artist-designed play area is open 365 days a year.Galleries
Nationale
Nationale is an art space established in 2008 by Owner/Director, May Barruel. Nationale is dedicated to the promotion of culture through exhibitions, performances, and a selection of carefully chosen goods.
Businesses
Nest Showroom
Founded by international interior designer Michael Reper in 2009, the Nest Showroom reflects what he, as a designer with thirty-five year’s experience in all aspects of the business, and an in-depth knowledge of design, wanted his ideal showroom to be; a complete and exceptional resource for Northwest designers with staff who understand his obsession for quality.
Galleries
Nine Gallery
https://www.blueskygallery.org/nine-gallery
Nine Gallery was founded in 1987 by nine artists interested in working periodically outside the context of the commercial gallery. It is an artist-run cooperative and is administratively and financially independent from Blue Sky, funded solely by its members. Each member of Nine Gallery is in charge of the gallery for one month each year. Usually members show their own work, however, they are also welcome to curate shows of other artists’ work. Periodically the members of Nine Gallery, present work together in group exhibitions, and at other times they collectively invite other artists to show. Beyond the general interest in creating a largely non-commercial exhibition environment with a minimum of bureaucratic and institutional structure, the members of Nine Gallery have no collective ideological program or philosophy.
Businesses
Over & Over Style
Over & Over Style is the project of Barbara & Vivian, veterans of the Seattle apparel industry, with shared passions for textile artistry, history & travel, and the transformative power of clothing. In search of our next act, we came across a treasure trove of vintage kimonos (way too beautiful to be hidden away in moth balls) and decided to give them new life. The result, after hours upon countless hours of designing, deconstructing, washing, steaming, cutting & sewing, is a collection of unique home decor and one-of-a-kind garments in a dazzling array of patterns and colors.
Schools
Pacific Northwest College of Art Applied Craft + Design MFA Program
pnca.willamette.edu/academics/graduate/acd
Connecting design thinking to design doing, the MFA in Applied Craft + Design program is grounded in hands-on making, entrepreneurial strategies, and social and environmental engagement.
With a curriculum focused on the development of a strong artistic voice, the realization of work for a specific community or client, and entrepreneurism that connects making a living with making a difference, the MFA in Applied Craft and Design is the only graduate program of its kind.
Combining a mentor-based approach with an exceptional visiting artists program, students work one-on-one with nationally and internationally recognized designers, makers, and scholars in a self-directed curriculum that challenges them to bring to life the full strength of their ideas and skills.
Encouraging a cross-disciplinary studio environment in which the workshop is a lab to collaboratively explore design and making processes, the mentor-based MFA in Applied Craft and Design welcomes students from a wide range of creative backgrounds to make original work with an applied purpose.
Businesses
Pattern People
Pattern People is an industry leading print studio which offers seasonal trend guides, custom pattern design services, stock prints for immediate use, design tools, and educational ebooks for designers of all levels.
Schools
Portland State University Textile Arts Program
The Textile Arts program provides a critical investigation of clothing and textiles with a focus on craft, sustainability, and community engagement. Students learn techniques in weaving, surface design, and sewn construction towards fashion, costume, and contemporary art.
community fashion sewing sustainability textile art textile design textile history weaving
Studios
Preethi Gopinath
www.instagram.com/preethigopinathnyc
Preethi Gopinath is an educator, textile designer, product development, and marketing professional with extensive international experience in the area of creative design for home and apparel textiles, CAD (including texture mapping), styling, production, sourcing, merchandising, entrepreneurship, and research with over 20 years of international experience in the textiles industry. She graduated from the National Institute of Design in India where she focused on weaving, printing, embroidery, and garment design. She teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in textile development, design, marketing and technology at the Fashion Institute of Technology, as well as fashion design, business, and management at George Brown College in Toronto. Gopinath has written for TheSweet Home.com, and has worked on product and design for Carini Lang, NYC; Springs Global, Canada; and Hua Fang USA. Gopinath’s research explores traditional Gyaser weaving techniques, particularly handloom, silk brocade weaving of Benares, India.
Businesses
Revive Upholstery
Revive Designs and Upholstery was established in Portland, Oregon in 2011. Specializing in heirloom furniture, including vintage re-upholstery, mid-century antique commercial design, bespoke product.
interior design sustainability textile design textile reuse upholstery
Organizations
Stelo Arts and Culture Foundation
Stelo illuminates the power of art to invite conversation and build community. We are dedicated to responsive models of support via partnerships, collaboration, and exchange.
Businesses
Textile Hive
Textile Hive, based in Portland OR, is home to the 40,000 textiles of the Andrea Aranow Textile Design Collection. The collection is the largest fully digitized independent textile collection in the world. Through its membership program the visual database offers access to educational institutions, design professionals and textile enthusiasts. Textile Hive’s mission is to preserve and enable greater access to the rich history, intricate techniques, and stunning visual beauty of the textile collection through immersive physical and digital experiences.
archive textile design textile traditions tours vintage textiles
Organizations
The Surface Design Association
The Surface Design Association is an international organization focused on inspiring creativity, encouraging innovation, and advocating for artistic excellence as the global leader in textile-inspired art and design. Our mission is to promote awareness and appreciation of textile-inspired art and design through publications, exhibitions, and conferences.
Studios
Tricia Langman
Tricia Langman has over eighteen years experience designing for prestigious fashion companies worldwide, including Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein, Halston, Kashiyama, Donna Karan, Nicole Miller, Anthropology, Banana Republic and Target. Projects include work featured at the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of New York City, and a hand-painted designer gown for Celine Dion for her performance at the Grammy Awards ceremony of her Oscar winning song “My Heart Will Go On”. Founder and design director of the successful international Textile Print design studio Spoogi, while concurrently adjunct lecturer at the Art Institute of Portland.