Fostering a Range of Fiber Art Educational Opportunities
Saturday, April 13, 2024
In person at CC Young Retirement Community, The Point, and on Zoom
- 10:00 a.m.: Silent Auction benefiting Dallas Area Fiber Artists. Members are asked to bring one or more small pieces of their work that will be auctioned the same day in a silent-auction format.
- For each work, please bring a written tag that specifies the artwork title, artist, and any info about technique/materials that would be of interest to purchasers.
- 10:40 a.m.: Creative Journey with Nosheen Iqbal.
- Member Show & Tell
- Don't forget to wear your name tags!
Silent Auction of Member Work benefiting DAFA
In lieu of the April mini-workshop, we will be holding a Silent Auction of member artwork.
- Members are asked to bring one or more small pieces of their work that will be auctioned the same day in a silent-auction format.
- For each work, please bring a written tag that specifies the artwork title, artist, and any info about technique/materials that would be of interest to purchasers.
I love to combine materials that are not necessarily paired together. The juxtaposition between opposites and creating a harmony between two materials has always inspired me. Taking the traditional craft of embroidery and putting a unique spin on it by embroidering through wood is the key theme through my work."
Nosheen Iqbal
On her hand-embroidered wood technique
Creative Journey with artist Nosheen Iqbal
In the April program we are delighted to welcome embroiderer Nosheen Iqbal, who will guide us on a journey through the evolution of her art as an expression of her heritage and identity. Known for her adventurous combinations of materials and techniques, she often explores how fiber art functions as a pillar of art, culture, religion, and status.
Artist Statement: My Pakistani heritage and my journey in the creative industry plays a dominant role in how I play with color, pattern and texture. Pakistan has a rich history of pigment dyeing and embroidery techniques which varies in each province and dates back further than the Mughal Empire. The intricate and interlaced patterns found Islamic Art have always intrigued me. Taking these elements from classical motifs and morphing them into a new form of decorative art is the key thread in my work. Through the vibrancy of color, stitch and motif, textile work has long been a pillar of art, culture, religion, and status. In this collection, the notion of duality plays an important role. The way I converge Islamic geometrical forms and shapes with colored embroidery lines explores the way I purposefully build compositions. The juxtaposition of soft colored fibers stitched through solid wood signifies the fusion of global traditions and techniques. The overlapping colored fibers vibrates as you move around the pieces which creates a light and color play, a subtle nod to light rays on architecture.
Nosheen Saima Iqbal
Born in Surrey, England, she moved to Texas in mid-teens. She received a BA with outstanding portfolio award in Communication Design from the University of North Texas. After graduation, she worked for Fossil for over a decade in design, art direction and finally as a lead watch designer. She has also worked for brands such as DKNY, Armani Exchange and a collaborative collection with Opening Ceremony whilst still at Fossil. She is currently a multidisciplinary artist working in the fields of product design and development, illustration and graphic design.
Nosheen Iqbal's Pakistani heritage plays a dominant role in her choice of color, pattern and texture. Pakistan has a rich history of pigment dyeing and embroidery techniques which varies in each province and dates back further than the Mughal Empire. She is also heavily influenced by the intricate and interlaced patterns found Islamic Art. Taking key elements from the classical tradition, she elaborates upon them in order to invent a new form of decoration and design.
Don't forget to wear your name tags!
As we resume in-person meetings, please remember to wear a name tag to DAFA events to help our new members put names to faces!
Saturday, May 11, 2024
In person at CC Young Retirement Community, The Point, and on Zoom
- 10:00 a.m.: Weaving on a Cardboard Loom mini-workshop with Ruth Callahan
- $5 kit fee
- Bring your To-Go Kit and a pair of scissors
- 10:40 a.m.: Thread Painting Landscapes with Rebecca Shewmaker
- Member Show & Tell
- Don't forget to wear your name tags!
Weaving on a Cardboard Loom mini-workshop with Ruth Callahan
Join us at 10 a.m. for an exciting mini-workshop, led by Ruth Callahan, in which we will weave small pieces on cardboard looms. Please bring $5 for supplies, as well as your To-Go Kit and a pair of scissors.
Please bring your To-go Kit for mini-workshops!
We suggest you put together a to-go kit to bring to the mini-workshops.
The kit should include the following items:
- Scissors for fabric or paper crafts
- 6-12 straight pins and several hand needles
- Small spools of both black and white thread
- Ruler or other measuring device
- Notepad with pen or pencil
- Name badge
- Bag or carrier to put this all in
Thread Painting Landscapes with artist Rebecca Shewmaker
This May we are thrilled to welcome back fiber artist Rebecca Shewmaker, who will present her new thread-painted landscapes, inspired by her recent visits to America's National Parks.
In this new program, Thread Painting Landscapes, you will see highlights from her latest series and learn the many fiber-art techniques that Shewmaker has used to infuse her landscapes with a painterly aesthetic. Based on the autumn foliage in Buffalo National River and Devil’s Den State Park, her new works are created using free-motion machine-embroidery, which enables her to achieve organic textures and stunning color gradations.
Rebecca Shewmaker
Rebecca Shewmaker uses sewing and embroidery techniques to create landscape paintings from fabric and thread. She holds a BA in Art History and Visual Arts from Rice University (2006) and MFA from Texas Woman’s University (2018).
She has been awarded artist residencies for the Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild in New York, Zion National Park in Utah, and Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona, and she will be Artist-in-Residence at Glacier National Park in Montana June 2024.
Shewmaker has taught art classes and workshops for a variety of age groups at institutions across the Dallas-Fort Worth area, including Texas Woman’s University and the Amon Carter Museum of American Art. Currently, she is represented by Craighead Green Gallery in Dallas.
To see the archive of her previous program, click here.
Saturday, June 8, 2024
In person at CC Young Retirement Community, The Point, and on Zoom
- 10:00 a.m.: To Be Announced (TBA)
- 10:40 a.m.: To Be Announced (TBA)
- Member Show & Tell
- Don't forget to wear your name tags!
Saturday, July 13, 2024
In person at CC Young Retirement Community, The Point, and on Zoom
- 10:00 a.m.: Let's Make a Face mini-workshop with Jami Roux
- $5 supply fee
- Bring your To-Go Kit, colored pencils, an eraser, and a soft-lead pencil.
- 10:40 a.m.: A Doll Maker's Journey with Jami Roux
- Member Show & Tell
- Don't forget to wear your name tags!
Let's Make a Face mini-workshop with Jami Roux
Join us at 10 a.m. for the Let's Make a Face mini-workshop, led by doll maker extraordinaire Jami Roux, before she presents our July program. In this session, Jami will explain how to create a simple human face that can be used on three-dimensional dolls as well as on other figurative fiber projects. To participate, please bring:
- $5 for supplies (includes handout)
- Your To-Go Kit
- Soft-lead pencil
- Small set of colored pencils
- Eraser
A Doll Maker's Journey with artist Jami Roux
Our guest presenter this month is Jami Roux, a Dallas-based artist who has garnered a national reputation for her evocative, whimsical, and impeccably crafted dolls. Jami will lead us through the many meandering paths that led to her discovery of her calling and helped her find mentors to guide her career. She will also detail how she has been able to turn unforeseen challenges into rare opportunities, using periods of downtime and COVID isolation to learn from her fellow artists, to expand her range of skills and influences, and to produce new work in abundance.
Jami Roux
Jami Roux is an award-winning doll maker based in Dallas, Texas, whose work is known for its exuberant celebration of human diversity and emotion, as well as for its witty, whimsical, and impeccably crafted details.
Jami first rose to local prominence as an active member of the American Sewing Guild’s Plano Chapter, where she became a much sought-after teacher and later held the office of president. She found her true calling in dollmaking just over a decade ago, when, during a visit to the Houston International Quilt Show, she was mesmerized by a doll on exhibit. On her return home, she wholeheartedly embraced this new direction in her work, enlisting mentors from her ASG circle and learning everything she could about the artform. Eventually, she began submitting her dolls to national challenges—a step that proved invaluable to her evolution as an artist. The feedback she received from top doll artists helped her to refine both her technique and artistic vision, and encouraged her to continue producing new work.
Since these early days, Jami’s work has rarely been out of the spotlight. Her dolls have been shown every year at the Houston International Quilt Show, and her work is also a crowd-favorite at the State Fair of Texas, where her piece
Alicia
garnered the 2022 Best in Show award and
Dorothy
won a blue ribbon in 2023. Jami’s work has also been featured in numerous publications, including the Aug/Sept/Oct 2018 issue of
Art Doll Quarterly
and the Winter 2023 issue of
A for Artistic.
Jami remains an active member of the Plano Chapter of ASG, where she continues to present programs, and she is also a member of the Houston-based Material Girls Cloth Doll Club. When not preparing new work for competition, she loves to share her passion for dollmaking with others.
Saturday, March 9, 2024
In person at CC Young Retirement Community, The Point, and on Zoom
- 10:00 a.m.: Show Entry 101 with Carolyn Skei and Kathi Jahnke. In this special mini-workshop, attendees learned tips and best practices for entering their fiber artwork in shows.
- 10:30 a.m.:
Mark Making
with artist Jackie
Nixon-Fulton, an award-winning art quilter who uses painting and printing in her art quilts.
- Member Show & Tell
DAFA Entry Skills Mini-Workshop
Presented by Carolyn Skei and Kathi Jahnke
Whether you are a first-timer or an experienced veteran of entering competitions, this workshop was designed to help you prepare your submissions to any show, including our own annual juried show and members' challenge.
The 2024 edition took place on March 9, 2024, at 10 a.m., and was hosted by seasoned show entrants (and winners!) Carolyn Skei and Kathi Jahnke.
In the Entry Skills Workshop, we learned how to to:
- Photograph and resize images of your artwork for maximum impact
- Label and package your artwork
- Write an effective artist statement/bio
These topics are also covered in our Opportunities section:
Mark Making: From Primitive to High Tech with Jackie Nixon-Fulton
Jackie Nixon-Fulton presented her inspiring and versatile techniques for creating marks that can be directly or digitally printed on fabric and paper.
In this program we learned the magic of mark making through the use of age-old and cutting-edge tools that include homemade brushes, found objects, Gelli plates, rubbings, apps on the iPad, and scanned images. There was a display of tools used to create abstracted marks, as well as fabrics and papers onto which marks have been applied. Examples of finished work which incorporate marks, as part of the design element, were also available to view.
Jackie Nixon-Fulton, MD
Jackie describes herself as a visual learner; therefore, it is not surprising that dermatology was her chosen specialty as a physician. She began a second career breeding and showing warm-blood sport horses when she and her husband retired to their ranch in Paradise, Texas.
Without the time demands of a practice and raising two children, she was also able to reconnect with her creative side, and became interested in quilting about 15 years ago. Her early quilts were always her own designs and were more modern and contemporary, but her quilting life was changed when, in 2019, she did “Sewing the Land” workshop with quilt artist Sue Benner, and discovered a whole new way to make quilts. Since then, she has taken multiple classes with Sue. Pat Pauly’s class on screen-printing with thickened dyes has also been a big influence on her more recent work.
Her quilts have been shown and won awards at the Quilters Guild of Dallas show, The International Quilt Festival, AQS Shows at Grand Rapids, Paducah, Virginia Beach, and Lancaster, PA. They have been featured in Modern Quilts Unlimited magazine. She has also exhibited in SAQA's Discovering Desert Diversity and, most notably, her quilt “No Peace Left” was chosen for 2023 Quilt National.
Saturday, February 10, 2024
In person only at CC Young Retirement Community, The Point
- 10:00 a.m. SHARP:
Mixed Media Madness
workshops began! We divided into three groups and then rotated through, in turn, each one of the three different workshops. Each person was requested to bring:
- $10 fee per person -- payable at event
- To-Go Kit
- The following extra items (see descriptions below):
- For ATC workshop: Awl, pencil, and a collection of ATCs
- For Embroidered Heart workshop: Old embroidery scissors/paper scissors, sharp needles, and (if available) 6-8” embroidery hoop
- For Organic Materials workshop: Needle and a few threads
- This year's workshops were:
- Creating a Book for Your Artist Trading Cards,with April Soncrant
- Embroidering a Heart, with Carrie Noess
- Stitching on Organic Materials, with
Sandra Freeman
Creating a Book for Your Artist Trading Cards (ATCs), with April Soncrant
April Soncrant taught a simple binding technique that can be used to bind ATCs into a small book. A kit was provided to learn the technique.
Tools to bring: Awl, pencil
Embroidering a Heart, with Carrie Noess
Embroiderer Carrie Noess taught us you how to create an unfinished heart design using trellis stitch and couched Japanese gold thread.
Supplies to bring:
- Old embroidery scissors or paper scissors
- Sharp needles
- (Optional)
6-8” embroidery hoop; for those who do not have one, Carrie brought some to borrow
Stitching on Organic Materials, with Sandra Freeman
This workshop explored how to embroidery on various types of leaves. The only materials needed were
needle
and
thread
(all types of thread) and willingness to experiment! The instructor furnished a choice of leaves.
Saturday, January 13, 2024
In person at CC Young, The Point, and on Zoom
- 10:00 a.m.: Artist Trading Cards (ATCs) annual exchange, hosted by the DAFA Board.
- 10:30 a.m.: Pressing Beyond the Substrate with Laura R. Post
- Member Show & Tell
2024 Artist Trading Card (ATC) Exchange
We kicked off January's meeting with our annual exchange
of
artist trading cards,
hosted by the DAFA Board. Members brought ten (10) cards to trade, plus additional cards to swap with members. Measuring
2-1/2 by 3-1/2 inches, these cards are a great way to experiment with new techniques or to showcase one's own evolving style, and they serve as an annual record of our collective artistic explorations!
Pressing Beyond the Substrate with Laura R. Post
Laura R. Post
Laura Post earned an MFA from Rhode Island School of Design in Printmaking and a B.A. from Swarthmore College in Studio Art and Asian Studies. She is currently Affiliate Assistant Professor of Printmaking at University of Dallas. She previously taught at University of Texas Arlington and Indiana University, Bloomington. Post’s work redefines portraiture by expanding the boundaries of the print medium. This includes transforming the fibers of the paper from a passive substrate to be printed upon into an active participant in the creation of the work. Through grant projects and workshops, she engages the community to remove and process invasive plants, then creates large-scale pulp paintings and pulp-cast prints. This work started in Utah in 2016, continued in Indiana, and now continues in Texas through collaborations with the Fort Worth Botanic Garden, the Fort Worth Water Department, the Fort Worth Public Library, and the Arlington Public Library through her LRP Studio, LLC, founded in 2020.
Post has exhibited her work nationally and internationally, including at Wally Workman Gallery in Austin, Texas (2022), solo exhibitions at the Arts Fort Worth (2021), Arts Place Indiana (2020), Swarthmore College’s List Gallery (2019), and CR Ettinger Studio (2019). Her work has also been featured in numerous group exhibitions including Shanghai International Paper Art Biennale, Shanghai, China; Umbra: New Prints for a Dark Age selected by Alison Saar at International Print Center New York; twice selected for PaperWest: National Works on Paper Juried Exhibition at the University of Utah to name a few.
Past Programs (2012-2023)
