Needle and Story: A Hands-On Family Textile Workshop

Please join artist Amy Meissner for an exploration of mark-making on cloth. Use a special selection of embroidered textiles from the Inheritance Project – a year-long crowdsourcing effort that rescued abandoned, unwanted or unfinished domestic textiles from all over the world. Families will work with vintage cloth, children’s drawings and basic hand stitch to redefine the notion of the heirloom, creating a new object able to span multiple generations and ideals of beauty. No prior sewing experience is necessary. Supplies provided. Recommended for Ages 6+

This workshop is made possible in part by a 2017 Rasmuson Individual Artist Award Project Grant.

Amy Meissner's textile art combines traditional handwork and contemporary imagery to explore memory, fragility and the literal, physical and emotional work of women. Her materials are vintage, discarded or found, and manipulate unknown histories to shape a narrative or myth for each piece. She has shown internationally, most recently in Karachi, Pakistan, with work in the permanent collection at the Anchorage Museum and commissioned public art installed in three Alaskan libraries. She is a recipient of two Rasmuson Foundation Individual Artist Awards and a Sustainable Arts Foundation Award, and has a background in clothing design, children’s book illustration and creative writing. She lives in Anchorage, Alaska with her young family.