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.
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
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
Organizations
Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival
www.oregonflockandfiberfestival.com
The Oregon Flock & Fiber Festival has grown significantly since its inception in 1997. The Festival includes three days of workshops and a weekend filled with demonstrations, livestock shows, seminars and kids’ activities.
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.
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
The Soul Restoration Center
www.thesoulrestorationcenter.com
The Soul Restoration Center is housed within the location of the former Albina Arts Center, which was established in the 1960s after Black youth advocated for a safe gathering space where they could take free creative arts, dance and music classes, taught by Black professionals. The building became a significant Black community hub until the 1970s. Several organizations occupied the building over the decades. Yet, it had been completely closed for about 16 months before it was temporarily reactivated by a few Black artists in late 2021 through January 30. In February 2022, I Am MORE signed a 2-year lease and transformed the neglected space into a healing-centered, arts-focused Black respite that collaborates with heart-centered individuals, donors, organizations and other partners who value Black lives.