Work in Progress

Matt Johnson is a self-taught textile artist who began a practice in midlife. His installation Blood Music is currently on view at Materials for the Arts in Long Island City, New York. Recent group exhibitions include Parables of the Unknown at the Jamaica Center for Art and Learning, Jamaica, New York, and the 2024 juried show at Prince Street Gallery, New York, New York. Matt’s work and writing is featured in the Winter 2024 issue of Surface Design Journal. In 2025, he will join the summer cohort of the Apprentice Training Program at the Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Matt lives and works in Rockaway Beach, New York.

Craftwork is a multidisciplinary design and art studio that engages with the nature of textiles and technology through installations, storytelling, and material-based research. Founded by Victoria Manganiello and Nicole Yi Messier, their works operate at the intersection of materiality, technology, and experience, drawing inspiration from the history and future of soft materials. With over 20 years of combined experience, Victoria and Nicole founded Craftwork in 2022. Their background encompasses art, design, engineering, research, and technology. By combining their fascination with history with future-oriented materiality and their skills in traditional textile arts with new technologies, they create large-scale, dynamic projects with a variety of partners.

Elly is a lifelong, n-th generation textile maker, having learned to knit, crochet and sew from her mother and her Babci. As a child, she was steeped in math studies, puzzles, and pattern-making, and pursued a technical career across several industries and countries. Her art practice has developed in recent years to include study of classical drawing, painting, and art theory at the Art Students League and at the Goshen Art Academy in NYC, and she brings this art historical sensibility to bear in her bead weaving practice. She resides in Brooklyn, and her studio is in Long Island City.

Alejandra Ortíz de Zevallos: Sculptor and teacher at PUCP, she recently earned an MFA degree from the University of New Mexico. Through her textile work she explores the symbolic language of unity, interaction, and reproduction. Her work addresses themes such as the creation of life, the dependencies of organisms, and the relationship between humans and the environment. She also leads workshops on natural fiber braiding, based on traditional techniques learned during her 2020 Mater residency in Moray, Cusco. Her work has been exhibited at the Museo de Arte de Lima, PaRC PINTA 2022 and 2024, Galería del Paseo, La Mancha, Wu Galería, CCPUCP, Museo AMANO, and Museo Pedro de Osma, and internationally at Youmein (Tanger), Lagos (CDMX), JCAF (Johannesburg), and Palazzo Madama (Turin). In 2022 she received an Honorable Mention from the Central Reserve Bank of Peru, in 2023 she was a beneficiary of the Economic Incentives for Culture and in 2024 she obtained the Surge Fund from the Mcknight Foundation. Her research is part of Future Materials Bank and she is also a member of the Ensayos and entre-ríos collectives.

Amy Tidmarsh is a multidisciplinary textile designer, maker, and educator driven by an inventive approach to hand-based textile skills. By combining intuitive ways of working with an in-depth focus on practice-based research, she explores ideas centred around craft, process, and performative textiles.

In 2021 she was awarded The Textile Society Critical Writing Open Award for her research paper ‘To Instruct’. She has presented her research at the Performing Scores / Scoring Performance conference held in Manchester in 2023, and at the International Foundation Educators Symposium in 2021. She graduated from Manchester Metropolitan University with a BA (Hons) in Embroidery in 2012, and an MA in Textile Design from the Royal College of Art in 2021. In 2016 she completed a Post Graduate Diploma in Education, specialising in Further Education at Huddersfield University.

Amy is a lecturer, teaching Art and Design, specifically Fashion and Textile Design, across Further and Higher Education for the past 13 years. Institutions where Amy has taught include Leeds Arts University, Manchester Metropolitan University, Nottingham Trent University, and the Open College of the Arts. Delivering lectures, workshops and projects is at the core of Amy’s teaching practice, and she is passionate about designing engaging and inquisitive educational experiences, often centring around textile understanding, materiality, and playful approaches to colour. She is currently based between Utrecht, The Netherlands, and Manchester, UK.

Teri Gandy-Richardson identifies as an abstract painter, and uses denim as her medium to create work in 2- and 3-dimensions. Her artwork has been shown nationally and internationally. Most recent group exhibitions include Ancestors in Progress II, 2025 at the Textile Arts Center, Brooklyn, New York; The Brooklyn Artists Exhibition 2024-2025 at the Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, New York and Afro Latinx Mix Tape 2024 at the Jamaica Arts Center, Queens, New York. Internationally, she participated in the group exhibition, DENIM— Stylish, Practical, Timeless Blue Fabric with A History, 2020-2021 at the Spielzeug Welten Museum in Basel Switzerland. Originally an Architecture major at The Cooper Union, Teri changed majors and instead graduated earning her BFA in Painting. Teri currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

Hilla Shapira is a wearable and textile artist. Originally from Tel-Aviv, Israel, and is currently based in Brooklyn, NY. Her work deals with the relationships between common design and body regimen. By making functional mundane objects she questions design norms and the political aspects of things. She has presented her work in Israel, Europe, and the USA including: Art Basel (Miami, FL), Philadelphia Museum of Jewish Art (Philadelphia, PA), NY Textile Month (NYC, NY), Jerusalem Design Week (Jerusalem,Israel), NY Jewelry week (NYC, NY), Little Berlin Gallery, (Philadelphia, PA), Depo2015 (Pilsen, Czech Republic), Neve Schechter Gallery (Tel-Aviv, Israel), Hansen House (Jerusalem, Israel), Textile Arts Center (Brooklyn, NY) and Wasserman Projects (Detroit, MI). She was AIR in Carrizozo residency (Carrizozo, NM), Popps Packing (Hamtramck, MI), Makerspace (Brooklyn, NY) and Neve Schechter center (Tel-Aviv, Israel). She received her BFA in Fashion from Bezalel Academy, Jerusalem, Israel and her MFA in Fiber from Cranbrook Academy, Bloomfield-Hills MI, USA. Shapira's work had been featured in different publications including: Hyperallergic Magazine, NY Jewish Week, Metalsmith Magazine, Portfolio Magazine, Haaretz, and the Jerusalem Post.