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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Businesses
Herbivore Clothing
Josh and Michelle started Herbivore in 2002 in the spare bedroom of our apartment in SE PDX. Why? Well, we wanted good looking clothes, ethically made, that would show the world we believed animals deserved respect, love, and to be free from harm. We wanted to spread the word about living cruelty-free.
We spent a few years in spare bedrooms in Portland, shipping our clothing all over the world before we took the leap to open our first little store. And by little, I mean one lap around without missing anything took about 40 seconds. We stocked our ever-expanding clothing line alongside an ever-expanding line of vegan cookbooks. We filled the rest of the store with cruelty-free belts, bags, and wallets.
Then, in 2007, we got together with Lisa, the founder of Sweetpea Baking Company, Chad and Emiko of Food Fight! Vegan Grocery, and Brian and John of Scapegoat Tattoo, and we moved down to SE 12th and Stark Streets. The Vegan Mini-Mall was born. It started as a joke, but the name stuck.
A lot has changed over the years, but the core belief and drive behind the vegan mini-mall hasn't. Basically, ethical veganism is awesome, you can be one, too! All while eating a donut with one hand, sipping a soy latte with the other, wearing ethically made, fashionable clothing as you wait for your tattoo appointment to begin in a shop that uses vegan ink and supplies.
As for Herbivore, we have spent all these years designing rad clothing, as well as manufacturing belts and wallets. We have hosted countless events, co-founded an animal rights conference, and spoken at vegfests. We've published some books. We've travelled the country tabling at events. We've donated our time at sanctuaries, and donated our skills to lots of organizations in the form of pro-bono design work. We have raised lots and lots of money for animal rights organizations and sanctuaries, as well as other social justice movements.
We believe these movements are linked and the oppression of one is the oppression of us all. We believe in animal liberation and human liberation are the same cause, so we fight for both.
Our approach has always been to show veganism as a positive choice that gives you back so much more than you give up. Compassion Is Invincible!
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.
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.
Businesses
MADRE
MADRE is Shay Carrillo and Jeanie Kirk, two women deeply stirred by mothering, both beauty + breakdown, homemaking, and food. We all eat, and we all rest, therefore MADRE strives to offer linens that support food, rest, and our community. Linen napkins are the foundation of MADRE, and we are proud also offer tabletop and kitchen goods, bedding, and other select home essentials. Shay and Jeanie dreamt up the idea for MADRE from a simple premise: to create linen home essentials that are as close to 100% domestic as possible. We are honored to be a part of welcoming flax back to Oregon! MADRE is a feminist brand committed to embodying our aspirations for a feminine economy. We believe we are mutually indebted to each other and to our one true madre: MAMA EARTH. Therefore, we commit to you, to ourselves, and to the plants, lands, and waters, to embrace the obligation of our core values: integrity, honesty, transparency, collaboration, and radical inclusivity.
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.
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.
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.