Veronica Pham
Founders Heather Kohlmeier, left, and Elizabeth Tucker, in the gallery space.
The Textile Arts Center of Madison is off to a good start. Co-founder Elizabeth Tucker has been gratified by how the community has welcomed the new fiber arts makerspace: “The response has been so positive, we are really grateful. It’s been overwhelming in the best possible way.”
Tucker says about 500 people showed up to the center’s opening celebration on Oct. 29, with another couple hundred a few days later at Gallery Night. The inaugural fall workshops, including one in sashiko (Japanese mending) and indigo dyeing, were full.
People can “rehome” their leftover materials there, too, from yarn and fabric and thread to books and sewing machines, and Tucker wasn’t sure what to expect the first time the center was open to accept donations. She reports there was even “a line of cars” outside the center’s warehouse building on Pennsylvania Avenue that day. The center accepts most items relating to fiber arts and needlecraft, including tools, patterns and equipment, but fabric must be larger than “fat quarters” (a quarter-yard cut used in quilting). Even unfinished projects are accepted.
“This was one of the gems,” Tucker says, showing a half-finished stitchery project of colorful garden vegetables, corn, tomatoes, onions, on a tan background. “This came in this morning during the donation hours, a crewel embroidery project the lady said she started in the 1970s. ‘I don’t think I’m ever going to finish it,’ she told me, and it is such a charming project.”
“We looked to the Textile Center in Minneapolis as a model,” she adds, “and they take unfinished projects and sell them at their sales — they call them UFOs, for unfinished objects — and they do a whole campaign on them on social media, asking people to share how they have given them new life.”
When Tucker and co-founder Heather Kohlmeier got the idea for a textile arts center, they were not trying to replicate anything existing in the community. Madison already has many classes and an active knitting guild, for instance, but there “wasn’t a single place to bring [all the fiber] fields together. The biggest thing missing was a hub,” says Tucker.
Tucker’s background is in arts administration and development and she’s working on a master of business administration degree; she’s also a quilter. Kohlmeier is finishing a master of fine arts degree in textile design at UW-Madison, where she specializes in papermaking, dyeing and weaving.
The center aims to do three types of programming: workshops, exhibits, and “creative reuse” of the donated textile materials, through sales and also re-donating to groups (the La Follette High School knitting club has already gotten a bunch of donated crochet hooks). “We are starting to form partnerships with groups and nonprofits who might be looking for the particular things we have,” Tucker says.
The 4,000-foot warehouse is “one big open space, but it’s really flexible,” Tucker notes.
Tables can be moved around for sales or workshops. It’s perfect for large cumbersome equipment, like looms for weaving — and messier projects like dyeing and papermaking.
Though open, the space is inviting, with a pebbly blue floor and gallery-white walls intended for rotating fiber art exhibits. The opening show featured nine local artists’ works, including quilts, felting, garments and handmade paper, with work from “people who are just starting out” to UW-Madison professors Mary Hark and Marianne Fairbanks. “We like that it’s been people who are plugged in in different ways,” says Tucker.
That was also true of the early sashiko workshop, whose participants included a professional costume designer and newcomers to any kind of fiber art.
Many people picked up crafts during the pandemic, Tucker observes, often with only virtual instruction. Now, they’re wanting to refine their skills and get in with a community — “that’s part of the [fiber arts] tradition.” Tucker also finds that people are looking for an activity “that is tactile, a different experience than just poking at our devices.”
In the future, the center will offer shared studio space options, where those with studio memberships can come in and use looms or industrial sewing machines. Several sewing machines were donated by UW-Madison, where the textile arts programs get new ones every few years.
Workshops in the next few months are varied: quilting a coat, maintaining a daily art practice, crocheting the wildflowers of Wisconsin, felting a vessel, felting a tunic, natural dyeing, bookbinding, and more. Most are on Saturdays.
The center's first-ever secondhand supply sale will be Jan. 20, at the center, 2436 Pennsylvania Ave., featuring fabric, yarn, needlecraft supplies, sewing machines, tools, notions, basket making supplies, vintage quilts and linens, and more. Members only can shop 9-10 a.m.; the public is welcome from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Future donation dropoff hours are Jan. 4 and 8, 9 a.m.-noon; and Jan. 5 and 12, noon-3 p.m.
Linda Falkenstein
No room for a loom? The Textile Arts Center can help.
