Using wall-based peg looms, participants will learn the fundamentals of weaving, color theory, and the creative reuse of common materials, such as turning old T-shirts into yarn. Participants will lay out and weave their own rugs to take home with them at the end of class.
With the skills and understanding learned during this weaving workshop at The Morton Arboretum, participants will be able to continue weaving at home, with instructions on low-cost loom construction and simple weaving techniques.
Bring four to six old worn or unwanted T-shirts in colors you like and fabric scissors.
This program meets in person at the Arboretum.
Instructor: Katie Vota, art professor, School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Age: 16 and older
Course number: A290
Katie Vota, art professor, School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Katie Vota is a Chicago-based artist using traditional textile techniques to create sculptural and woven dreamscapes that engage viewers in ideas of touch, pleasure, and the roles we play in shaping the world around us. By collecting cast-off objects and scavenging colors from nature, she transforms materials to create wholes from smaller parts, finding softness in many forms, textures, colors, and patterns based in cloth and in living.
Vota received her BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art (2010, magna cum laude) and a studio MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2015). She was awarded a US Student Fulbright Grant (2011–2012) to study traditions of Andean back-strap weaving and natural dyeing in Cusco, Peru, with the Center for Traditional Textiles of Cusco. Vota has exhibited in numerous solo and juried exhibitions. Her newest work focuses on the sea, juxtaposing the idealization of these images with the lived reality of our polluted water systems.
What to Know
Bring four to six old, worn, or unwanted T-shirts in colors you like and fabric scissors.
Program Schedule
Monday, January 29, 2024, 5:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
Thornhill Education Center
