To celebrate Textile Month 2021, please join the Craft in America Center for a talk with three influential Los Angeles artists. The conversation will delve into their work and views on materiality, technique, personal expression, and the evolution of fiber art in the region and its impact beyond. Currently, the work of all three artists can be viewed in Craft in America’s exhibition at LAX Terminal 1, “LA Made.” 

The talk features Center Director Emily Zaiden in conversation with Carrie Burckle, Ferne Jacobs, and Karyl Sisson.

Carrie Burckle, Spine, Cotton and linen, handwoven: double weave, wire armature, Collection of Carol Shaw Sutton

Carrie Burckle is a visual artist, maker and educator living in Los Angeles.  Her work blurs the lines between traditional fiber processes and the sculptural object into layered, expressive, and contemplative works about the body, the marginalized, and the overlooked in a society that craves the new, the fastest and the cheapest. Carrie received her MFA from California State University Long Beach where she received the Distinguished Creative Achievement Award from the College of the Arts. Carrie has exhibited at Craft and Folk Art Museum, Los Angeles; Visions Art Museum, San Diego; Mingei Museum, San Diego among others. She is a member of Textile Society of America, American Craft Council, Surface Design Association and California Fibers. She is a founding member and co-director of Textile Arts Los Angeles.

Ferne Jacobs, The Round, coiled waxed linen thread, Collection of the artist

Ferne Jacobs, who moved to Los Angeles at an early age, has devoted herself to fiber art since the mid-60s when she took a weaving workshop with the artist Arlene Fisch. She received her M.F.A. from Claremont Graduate University in 1976 and has been featured in solo and group exhibitions throughout the United States and abroad. She was awarded the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships in 1973–74 and 1977–78. Jacobs is the recipient of the Flintridge Foundation Award for Visual Artists, and in 1995 she was named a Fellow of the College of Fellows by the American Craft Council. Jacobs’s work can be found in numerous public collections, including the Smithsonian National Museum of American Art (Washington D.C.), the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York City), the Museum of Arts and Design (New York City), the Museum of Fine Arts (Boston), the de Young Museum (San Francisco), and the Rhode Island School of Design (Providence).

Karyl Sisson, Skin (Grey) & Skin (Blue), Vintage cotton zippers, twill tape, thread, and wood, spring – operated clothespins, Collection of the artist

Karyl Sisson is a fiber artist originally from Brooklyn, NY. Using recycled or repurposed materials (like old cloth tape measures, wood clothespins, vintage paper drinking straws and vintage zippers), she creates wall art and sculptural forms.  Sisson says, “My practice is a means for exploring the physical and psychological properties of holes, cavities, insides and outsides. I’m influenced by the beauty and simplicity of ancient, indigenous, and animal architecture, organic growth, and patterns found in nature and in the nature of man.”She holds a BS from New York University and received her MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles. Her work is in numerous private collections as well as the collections of the Museum of Arts and Design, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the Racine Art Museum, and the Renwick Gallery, National Museum of Art.