Elise Marks Vazelakis is a Los Angeles-based artist whose practice transforms repurposed and unconventional materials into textile forms. By integrating discarded plastics, found objects, and metal wire into fiber processes, she blurs the boundary between textile and sculpture.
Her current series, Driving With My Eyes Closed, investigates the intersection of traditional textile practices and contemporary consumer culture. Using the ancient technique of twining, Marks Vazelakis works with plastic yarn made from discarded Amazon packaging, materials that reflect a collective dependence on convenience and its environmental consequences.
The work examines patterns of consumption, questioning what is preserved and what is discarded. By weaving synthetic waste through time-honored processes, she emphasizes the contrast between slow, deliberate making and the accelerated pace of modern life. In this context, single-use plastics are reimagined, challenging conventional ideas of value, sustainability, and permanence.
Elise Marks Vazelakis earned a BS from San Diego State University and an MFA in Fiber from California State University, Long Beach. She has had solo exhibitions in Dubai, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, and has participated in group exhibitions in New York, Los Angeles, Austin, Chicago, Toronto, Santa Fe, and Phoenix, among other cities. Her work is held in both private and public collections internationally.
We welcome Elise to the studio as our April WIP resident!
You can visit her studio on Sundays from 2pm to 5pm.
Textile Arts Center’s Work in Progress (TAC WIP) is a window into the studio practice of contemporary artists and designers that engages the public in a dialogue with the field of textiles.