Textile Arts Council

09/06/2026

This famous photograph was taken at the Bauhaus School in Dessau, Germany, around 1927. It shows students from the weaving workshop working behind a large loom, while their faces appear intertwined with the threads, creating a striking visual composition. ✨

But behind this image lies a much bigger story…

The weaving workshop was sometimes known as the “Women’s Workshop,” as many female students were directed toward it in the early years of the Bauhaus, even when they had hoped to study other fields.

Yet the workshop became one of the school’s most successful, innovative, and influential departments, producing artists and designers who left a lasting mark on the history of art and design—including Gunta Stölzl, Anni Albers, and Otti Berger. 🖤

📸 Photograph by T. Lux Feininger, around 1927.

09/05/2026

09/04/2026

“This quilt block is inspired by ‘Ellam Yua’, a Yup´ik phrase often translated as “Person of the Universe” or “Spirit of the Universe.”

To me, Ellam Yua represents everything in our world—our past, present, and future. It reminds us that we are all connected to the land, sky, water, and to one another.

The past represents our ancestors and all of the knowledge, teachings, stories, and ways of life that were carried before us. It reminds us of where we come from and honors those who made sacrifices so that our cultures and traditions could continue.

The present is where we stand today. It is how we choose to live, teach, create, and carry our values forward. It is the relationships we build, the communities we nurture, and the responsibility we have to care for the land and waters that sustain us.

The future represents the generations still to come. It reminds us that our choices today matter. In Yup´ik teachings, we are often taught to think ahead, to consider how our actions today may affect future generations and the world they will inherit.

The circle-within-a-circle design is known as ‘Ellam iinga’, or the “Eye of Awareness”. It symbolizes seeing and understanding the world around us. To me, it serves as a reminder to stay aware, stay connected, and recognize that we all have a responsibility to care for one another and the world around us.

Ellam Yua reminds me that we are all part of something much greater than ourselves.”—Nicolette (Nikki) “Quluqaaq” Corbett

The founder of Sew Yup'ik, a cultural arts initiative revitalizing traditional Yup´ik sewing practices, Corbett comes from a line of skilled seamstresses. She studies the work of her grandmothers, from the intention to the construction of each garment they made for their families. For Corbett, creative expression is a protective and healing force that strengthens identity, supports resilience, and helps sustain future generations.

Block 4 of our Quilt Along featuring Corbett’s design is now available for download. https://s.si.edu/4zOGStP
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Nicolette “Quluqaaq” Corbett (Yup´ik), Quilt Block on the theme of Our Shared Future (2026 and beyond). National Museum of the American Indian, Quilt Along, 2026.

09/04/2026

While teaching at the Children’s Art Carnival () in Harlem in the mid-1970s, New York City textile artist (and 2024 American Craft Council Fellow) Michael A. Cummings (._cummings) saw how his young students approached art instinctively and without constraint, layering fabric scraps, buttons, and feathers into colorful collages. “It allowed me to think, ‘Michael, you have to let go of this book learning and just be a free spirit like the students,’” recalls Cummings, who had just started working with fabric at the time. “Through the Carnival I got comfortable and familiar with the possibilities of not only fabric, but embellishments and surface treatments,” he says.

He shifted his own practice to collage-inspired quilts adorned with embroidery, found objects, and other embellishments—work that established him as a leading innovator in textile art.

Cummings’s quilts are among the artworks featured in Children’s Art Carnival in Harlem: The Making of Contemporary Artists at Columbia University’s Wallach Art Gallery () in Manhattan through September 13. Link in bio to read the full article.

📷 : Michael A. Cummings quilts
Installation image by Olympia Shannon, Courtesy of Wallach Art Gallery, Columbia University.

09/04/2026

09/03/2026

Poor Harold Godwinson, the man defeated by William the Norman, stuck with an arrow in his eye for nearly a thousand years. Or was he? Was the arrow added later? One of the mysteries the Bayeux Tapestry hides in its folds along with many others. It is a rare survivor but the experts think there were once many story embroideries just like it that would have travelled from village to village and unfurled to tell the news to people who had no other way of hearing it. Listen to the new episode of Haptic and Hue’s Tales of Textiles out tomorrow to hear more.

09/03/2026