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
Altar
Altar is a clothing company and retail store with a brick-and-mortar location in Portland, OR. We initially opened a business in 2010 (under another name in the same retail location) with a focus on supporting independent artists from our immediate region, and by 2015 when we became Altar, we had grown that vision into the beautifully curated and ever-changing space it is today. We celebrate independent manufacturers and artists from across North America, with a focus on the stories that are woven into their work. We use the phrase, “objects with meaning” because we believe in sharing the unique stories behind these pieces.
Our clothing brand, Altar Houseline, is proudly made in America using deadstock materials and serves size gradations from size small to 6XL.
Cassie Ridgway opened her shop in 2010 with less than $3000 in the bank and a night job. Owning and operating this small business has been defined by labor of love and perseverance. Cassie's passion for sustainably produced and ethically manufactured apparel was a driving force, and has kept her laser focused on making this company better by the year. Her aesthetic sensibilities are always sort of changing (ok, sometimes all over the place), but she has always consistently been inspired by desert color-stories, moody floral motifs, art deco filigrees, and modern art.
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.
Organizations
GLEAN
The GLEAN Program invites artists to push the boundaries of material exploration. With a stipend to support their practice and seemingly endless materials to work with, artists are challenged to expand their existing studio practice by making work from the materials gleaned from the Metro Central Transfer Station (aka, “the dump”). One of the goals of this program is to introduce established and emerging artists to the wealth of materials available to them through the GLEAN. With the ultimate goal to reduce waste and raise awareness with this program, no prior experience with discarded materials is required. All artists in the Portland area are encouraged to apply.
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
Keeva Moselle
www.instagram.com/realmandreigndesignstudio
Growing up Keeva Moselle made all of her Halloween costumes from age nine on, repurposing items from around the house. Keeva learned to work with her hands and a myriad of materials and techniques to create wearable art. These skills eventually translated into fashion design and garment construction. Today Keeva is a Portland native artist creating large scale interactive art installations, immersive beauty experiences, costumes, and multimedia art. All of her endeavors primarily use post-consumer waste & salvage materials. Keeva is a graduate of Oregon State University Graduate School, where she studied socio-political ethics. Keeva is an environmentalist and a Black Feminist thinker and author; her art reflects that same powerfully dynamic voice. In 2011, Keeva created an original character “The Queen of Unicorns”, as a public persona to inspire imaginative play and give young girls, especially those of color, representation in the cosplay and festival community.
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.Studios
Mo Geiger
Mo Geiger is an artist. Her work includes sculpture, performance, and experimentation, with a focus on interdisciplinary processes. Trained as a theatrical designer and technician, she values tactile learning in collaborative environments. Living material histories, scavenge, discard, and transformation connect all of her artwork and research. She develops projects using context-specific perspectives, which consider active and potentially overlooked elements wherever she is.
Mo’s artwork, research, and designs have appeared in public spaces, local organizations, galleries, theaters, and museums. In each of her projects, she uses de-centralized collective methods to make space for art in unconventional places. Recently, she received an MFA in Art and Social Practice from Portland State University, where she honed skills in collaboration and site-awareness. She makes work within a personal art practice and as a member of the south-central Pennsylvania performance collective Valley Traction.
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.
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.
Organizations
ReClaim It!
ReClaim It, is a place where the creative citizens of Portland can find unique materials to reuse, repair, and reimagine.
Businesses
Reclaimed Wool
Heidi Leugers created her brand and studio, Reclaimed Wool in 1998 with one guiding principle: to turn her artistic practice into a business only if she could "reclaim" all the waste she (also) had created in the process of making adorable or functional items - whether for exhibition or for sale. Her studio has been zero waste for over two decades. The 8K - 12K hotpads, coasters, holiday ornaments and pincushions she makes, are limited to what she can produce with her own hands and can be found at museum stores, craft galleries, and specialty retailers. In 2007, her zero waste practice received critical, scholarly attention in the college teaching text, "Cycle-Logical Art", by Linda Weintraub. Heidi firmly believes that "zero-waste" is a practice, not a purchase.
Businesses
Renewal Workshop
The Renewal System takes discarded apparel and textiles and turns them into Renewed Apparel, upcycled materials or recycling feedstock. Data is collected on everything that flows through the system and is given back to our brand partners to help them improve the production and design of future products. It is a zero waste system that recovers the full value out of what has already been created as a way of serving customers, partners and planet.
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
SCRAP PDX
portland.scrapcreativereuse.org
SCRAP PDX is a nonprofit creative reuse center specializing in reused materials for the arts, education programs, birthday parties, and more.
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.