Calendar of events in SoCal

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Sangre de Nopal/Blood of the Nopal: Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Contemporary Art
Oct
6
to Apr 27

Sangre de Nopal/Blood of the Nopal: Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Contemporary Art

  • Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara is pleased to present Sangre de Nopal/Blood of the Nopal:Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Contemporary Art featuring Tanya Aguiñiga, Wendy Cabrera Rubio and Mauricio Guillén with Clemente Castor and Antonio Ponce, Tania Candiani, Dario Canul (Tlacolulokos), Porfirio Gutiérrez, Edgar Jahir Trujillo, Candice Lin, Andy Medina, Jou Morales, Rufina Nava Flores, Sandy Rodriguez, Sarah Rosalena, and Dyani White Hawk.

The conversations and the artworks presented here center the aesthetics, history, and global impact of the Zapotec peoples’ cultivation of cochineal—a scale insect that lives exclusively on the nopal cactus (Opuntia cacti) and is the source of a red dye derived from its body. The beauty of cochineal hue has captivated people for centuries, not only in Mexico, but around the world.

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Diane von Furstenberg: Woman Before Fashion
Oct
17
to Aug 31

Diane von Furstenberg: Woman Before Fashion

Explore the remarkable life and work of fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg. This North American debut exhibition—coinciding with the 50th anniversary of Diane von Furstenberg’s iconic wrap dress—includes a selection of over sixty pieces drawn from the DVF archives along with ephemera, fabric swatches, media pieces, and information on her philanthropic work. 

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 Ahree Lee: Home Maker Space
Feb
1
to May 4

Ahree Lee: Home Maker Space

Home Maker Space is an immersive exploration of the most recent work by Korean American artist Ahree Lee. TEXTILE 1.0 combines weaving, video, and electronic textiles to imagine the kind of technology we might have in our homes if technology had evolved differently in the 20th century.

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Ramekon O’Arwisters: HOUSE OF
Feb
1
to May 4

Ramekon O’Arwisters: HOUSE OF

Rooted in the exploration of traditional textile and craft practices, the work of multimedia artist Ramekon O’Arwisters reflects his lived experiences as a Black and Queer man in the United States.
O’Arwisters anchors his complex sculpture and socially engaged work in material and object politics, drawing from cultural, familial, and personal histories. Through combinations of found objects and craft techniques—many associated with domestic spaces, O’Arwisters investigates topics of intimacy, gender, race, and queer identity.

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Amanda Maciel Antunes: I’ve Got To Tell You Something Now
Feb
1
to May 4

Amanda Maciel Antunes: I’ve Got To Tell You Something Now

Amanda Maciel AntunesI’ve Got To Tell You Something Now, which consists of a film, an object, and an artist book, functions as a portrait of an action of resistance, and an appeal to the intention of memory and stillness.
The artist spent 365 days walking up and down a mountain with a piece of cloth, an audio recorder, a cell phone, a GoPro, sewing thread, and a needle. The journey began on the first day of the Covid-19 mandated lockdown in Los Angeles.
Resembling the daily journey, the 90-foot scroll of fabric will be displayed in the window lobby area of the museum and fabric will be suspended in several parts of the lobby forming waves resembling the hills of the mountains culminating in an area where a monitor will display the filmed journey.

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SDA Online Workshops
Feb
8
to May 24

SDA Online Workshops

SDA (the Surface Design Association) is offering a series of online textile-related workshops.
Learn new skills and techniques, get inspired, and find ways to apply what you learn to your current studio practice, all while connecting and creating within SDA’s community.

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Soft Surrealism
Mar
3
to Apr 18

Soft Surrealism

Soft Surrealism, an installation by Mandy Palasik and situated in the Adams Square Mini Park Gas Station, is an abstract sculpture composed of biomorphic inflatables that magnetically connect to form amoeba-like creations.

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Step & Repeat
Mar
6
to May 18

Step & Repeat

  • Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

The City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs’ (DCA) Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery (LAMAG) proudly presents Step & Repeat, a group exhibition curated by Nancy Meyer and John Weston

Inspired by the historical Pattern and Decoration movement of the mid-1970s and its impact across our region, Step & Repeat highlights 46 Southern California artists who engage with themes of pattern and decoration.

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Beginning Embroidery
Mar
10
to Apr 28

Beginning Embroidery

  • Washington Park Community House (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

Remainders Creative Reuse has partnered with Pasadena Parks and Recreation to offer an 8 week embroidery class at Washington Park Community House on Mondays in March and April taught by Denise Millard.
Learn six essential stitches in this beginner workshop.

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Pilar Agüero-Esparza: Darker than the deepest sea… weaker than the palest blue
Mar
15
to Apr 19

Pilar Agüero-Esparza: Darker than the deepest sea… weaker than the palest blue

PATRICIA SWEETOW GALLERY is excited to present Pilar Agüero-Esparza in her first one-person exhibition with the gallery.
Pilar is recognized for her installations, paintings, and objects reflecting the palette and politics of skin tone, specifically Brown and Black skin. Her paintings are a hybrid of formal, hard-edged geometric abstraction, accentuated by her coded color palette, intersecting with her family’s tradition of huarache-making

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Uma Rani Iyli: Connective Threads
Mar
15
to Apr 19

Uma Rani Iyli: Connective Threads

PATRICIA SWEETOW GALLERY is pleased to present Connective Threads, the spun thread ‘paintings’ of Uma Rani Iyli. Having grown up in India’s traditional caste-based society, Iyli identifies as belonging to the female Indian weaver’s community. She references weaving, stitching and pattern making in her art using remnant thread sourced directly from weaver communities collected during her annual trips to Southern India. Through her use of silk threads and plexiglas tubes, she spins vibrant colors inspired by traditional saris.

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Hands Head and Heart
Mar
20
to Jun 8

Hands Head and Heart

The Ojai Valley Museum presents a collective vision from 15 artists, both emerging and established, whose fiber work is inspired by the Ojai Valley.  In their hands, fiber becomes a language of resilience, play, sustainability, and healing.

Baskets, nets and quilts once purely functional, now emerge as intricate narratives of human experience. Each piece is a conversation rooted in the landscape of Ojai...it's ecology, its challenges, its enduring spirit woven into tangible form. From the natural world to the rubbish bin, artists gather and transform material adding to the meaning.

Fiber processes require a slow mediative rhythm to make, creating a visual battery of time as each stitch or knot accumulates. These skills are centuries old, practiced by cultures around the world. These same rhythms bind us to our ancestors, to each other and to the earth. Hands that create, heads that imagine, hearts that feel...this is the essence of our unique community.

Exhibition curated by Carol Shaw-Sutton.

Artists:
Annette Heully
Carol Shaw-Sutton
Carrie Burckle
Charlotte Schmid-Maybach
Eliot Spaulding
Jmy James Kidd
Michael Rohde
Minga Opazo
Molly Haynes
Julie Easton
Pat Edwards
Rosemary Hall
Ruth Katzenstein Souza
Sally England
Wendy Osher

Opening Reception:
Friday, March 21st from 5-7 pm (free)

Admission:
Suggested Donation $5 adults, $1 children 6-18

Hours:
Thursday - Sunday, 10am - 4pm
Third Fridays, 10am - 7pm

More information0 am - 7 pm

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Fashioning an Icon
Apr
5
to Sep 7

Fashioning an Icon

Inspired by her long history of depiction on textiles, these works explore the Virgin of Guadalupe’s endurance as an iconic cultural symbol fashioned through creative expression.

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Hangama Amiri: Befarmā / After You
Apr
5
to May 10

Hangama Amiri: Befarmā / After You

Nazarian / Curcio is pleased to present Befarmā / After You, a solo exhibition featuring new fiber-based works by Hangama Amiri. This marks the artist’s West Coast debut.

Amiri is an Afghan Canadian artist whose practice combines painting, drawing, and printmaking techniques with textiles, weaving together stories rooted in memories of her homeland and her diasporic experience. Her works explore notions of home, community, gender, and cultural memory, examining quotidian objects and scenes imbued with geopolitical significance.

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Handmade Artist Book Workshop with Amanda Maciel Antunes
Apr
19

Handmade Artist Book Workshop with Amanda Maciel Antunes

Tap into your memory, personal insight, and intuition to design and create a handmade book that symbolically balances form and content. Blending traditional and contemporary practice, Amanda Maciel Antunes introduces you to the genre of artists’ books that are as diverse in style and direction as they are in technique.

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Wet Felt a Clutch Purse
Apr
27

Wet Felt a Clutch Purse

Felting is an ancient form of working with fiber to create fabrics, vessels, and decorative objects.
Learn to use wool, soap, hot water and a little friction to create your own felt object with Andi Baehne-Meyer. In this class you will learn to use resist techniques to shape the wool into a clutch purse full of color and texture.

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Mending as Metaphor - The Mending Basket
May
10

Mending as Metaphor - The Mending Basket

This workshop with Ruth Katzenstein Souza will provide the opportunity for attendees to bring a textile or piece of clothing to repair, mend, embroider, patch, or transform.
There will be time to share what you brought and explore techniques and materials that have been used historically and share some ideas about creative, visible mending.

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Elements of Weaving: Color
May
24
to May 26

Elements of Weaving: Color

Explore color - hue, value and intensity – and how color interacts with yarns and woven structures. In this THREE DAY session, dive into color theory (using yarns, not paint! ) create several color palettes and weave your favorite palette in a scarf, table runner or wall hanging.
Taught by TALA member Cameron Taylor-Brown.

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Pine Needle Basketry Workshop
May
24

Pine Needle Basketry Workshop

Learn the historic craft of pine needle basketry from multidisciplinary artist Eliot Spaulding.
Create your own small basket using a sewing needle, waxed thread, and local Ojai pine needles. We will be learning the spiral stitch, and the universal weaving technique of "coiling", which can later be applied to many other materials!

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Improvisational Tapestry Weaving
Apr
5

Improvisational Tapestry Weaving

Tapestry Weaving on a Frame Loom with Casey Baden will cover the basics of weft-faced tapestry techniques, cartoon drawing, and setting up a frame loom.

The frame loom is a simple, portable tool which can be used to make wall hangings or small textile squares to be pieced together into a larger project. This is the perfect class for the very beginner weaver and seasoned weavers looking to have a bit of fun.

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Weaving with Unusual and Found Materials
Mar
29

Weaving with Unusual and Found Materials

Kate Kilmurray presents guest teacher Suzanne Hokanson for an inspirational online workshop on the truly limitless possibilities of what materials you can use to weave with on a potholder loom.

In this two hour class, participants will be able to make their own unique weaving using materials they have at hand. Think of fabric strips, ribbon, raffia, novelty yarns, wire, metal etc. All these materials can be used to make a weaving that can be used as a trivet, a unique patch or pocket on a garment or even a wallhanging.

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Textiles of the World Sale
Mar
27
to Mar 30

Textiles of the World Sale

Nangokudou Antiques is showcasing and selling textiles at MorYork Gallery.
There will be a few hundred pieces from all over the world, with prices ranging from a few dollars to a few thousand dollars. They range in date from antique to modern and stand alone panels/embroideries to bolts/yardage of material.

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Spring 2025 Textile Slam!
Mar
23

Spring 2025 Textile Slam!

Join Textile Arts LA for our Spring 2025 Textile Slam! Artists, designers, authors, curators, and students will share quick insights into their work, process, and intentions.
Slam! is an informal, community-oriented opportunity to be impressed or intrigued, to see something new or to celebrate the work of familiar friends. The Spring SLAM’s broad theme is FASHION.

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Woven Circuits Workshop
Mar
16

Woven Circuits Workshop

Craft Contemporary exhibiting artist Ahree Lee leads an inventive workshop combining electronic circuits and weaving! Participants will craft a woven circuit using traditional weaving techniques with conductive thread and LEDs to create an e-textile. No prior experience with either weaving or electronics is required. 

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Stitched Patch Workshop with Aubrey Longley-Cook
Mar
15

Stitched Patch Workshop with Aubrey Longley-Cook

Make your mark by designing and stitching a custom patch with Aubrey Longley-Cook! In this workshop, you’ll learn how to use expressive stitching to create a unique accessory that reflects your style. From designing your patch to finishing the edges, this session covers everything you need to bring your ideas to life with thread and needlework.

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Pine Needle Basketry Class
Mar
8

Pine Needle Basketry Class

Learn the techniques of this ancient craft with Andi Baehne-Meyer and weave your own one of a kind basket! Bring your imagination and enjoy the process of turning natural pine needles into a stunning handmade creation.

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Women Work Together
Mar
1
to Mar 28

Women Work Together

Shoebox Projects proudly presents Women Work Together, a  Women’s History Month exhibit by the San Diego-based Feminist Image Group (FIG). This transformative exhibition explores creative collaboration as a catalyst for change, showcasing thought-provoking works that address critical issues impacting women in today’s world.

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Memesis
Mar
1
to Mar 29

Memesis

Charlie James Gallery is pleased to present Memesis, a solo exhibition of woven works by Los Angeles-based artist Kayla Mattes, who brings a modern sensibility and wit to the traditional art of weaving. Her handwoven tapestries investigate digital forms of expression, drawing from internet memes, symbols, and texts to convey the pervasive anxieties of contemporary life

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Duets
Mar
1
to Mar 28

Duets

DUETS invited Los Angeles Art Association artists to collaborate with randomly selected partners, combining their unique talents and perspectives to create innovative, all-media artworks.

In an era marked by division, DUETS celebrates creative collaboration as a catalyst for change, showcasing the transformative power of teamwork. Each pair’s artistic synergy symbolizes the broader social necessity of cooperation and dialogue, fostering empathy and collective progress.

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LA Tactile Lab Open House
Feb
22

LA Tactile Lab Open House

Discover LA Tactile Lab: Your New Home for Fiber Arts and Material Exploration!
LA Tactile Lab will be having an Open House where people can come check out the space, try a few tools at the demo stations, and discuss the upcoming programming with co-founders Emily Silver and Svetlana Shigroff, and workshop faculty.

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