Textiles + Fiber
Textiles + Fiber at the University of Kansas
The field of Textiles + Fiber in contemporary art is amorphous and evolving with the social, political, and economic landscapes of our global community. This is mirrored in the Textiles + Fiber area within Visual Art at the University of Kansas.
KU studios and classrooms benefit from a diverse and multifaceted collective of perspectives from across the world, composed of a committed and passionate team of three tenured and tenure-track faculty, a robust graduate cohort included within the Visual Art MFA program, and an undergraduate community that fosters an inclusive, equitable, and intersectional education, rooted in the languages of labor, ecology and sustainability, feminist, queer, black, indigenous, and global perspectives.
Having evolved over time from a storied history of surface design and weaving studies, the area includes a growing physical inventory of resources for students to delve deep into surface design, and material construction methods including quilting, sculptural form, garment construction, and weaving on analog floor looms and a 9-module TC-2 digital loom.
Textiles+ Fiber also houses an unparalleled teaching archive of historic and cultural textiles from around the world, a historic library of textile and fiber-specific books and media, and a collection of material and technical samples that highlight our legacy within the field of textile design and contemporary art.
Area Facilities & Equipment
Our weaving studio includes:
- 3-wide Tronrud TC-2 (Thread Controller-2) digital loom, currently outfitted with 9 modules
- Floor looms ranging from 4 – 24 harnesses
- Table Looms (4 and 8 harness)
- Two AVL Compu-dobby looms (each 16 harnesses)
- Wide array of weaving tools and accessories, including historic and rare resources used in traditional American and European weaving traditions
- Exhaustive inventory of yarns and other materials continually stocked and for the exclusive use of Textiles + Fiber faculty and students.
- Felt-making equipment including several sizes of bamboo mats, screens, drum carders, and hand carders
- Four large Warping Mills & creel
- Electric and manual bobbin and ball winders
- Multiple 1 and 2-treadle spinning wheels
- Dedicated natural dye garden located at KU’s Medicinal Native Plant Research Garden Field Station. Textiles + Fiber Dye Garden features a wide range of natural dye plants (indigo, weld, madder, coreopsis, marigold, etc.) as well as a host of native plants
- Multiple induction burners
- Industrial gas cook stove
- Well-stocked inventory of chemical dyes and natural dye materials
- Two washers and dryers dedicated to the T+F area
- Various steaming apparatuses for dye and surface work including a vertical bullet steamer and a larger custom built steam cabinet on castors
- Ventilation hood for dyes and chemicals
- Large washout sinks
- 8’-16’ print tables
- Silkscreen frames in various sizes
- Screen-printing equipment and supplies (squeegees, large exposure unit, light tables, fabric steamers
- Consumable supplies such as emulsions, dyes, dye thickeners, dye chemicals emulsions
- Darkroom in the T+F area for exposing screens
- Dedicated sewing studio that houses 17+ well-maintained Bernina sewing machines, sergers, one cover-stitch machine, and an Industrial sewing machine.
- Long-arm quilting machine with 12-foot frame
- Many stitching and sewing machine accessories
- Large cutting tables
- Access to various fabrics and notions for projects
- Electric tufting guns and frames
The physical fiber, textiles, and material in the area has been slowly growing since the inception of the Textiles + Fiber Area and includes hundreds of samples, artwork, and things from around the world.
Many of the objects are donations of former and current area professors as well as community donations and gifts from alumni and their family.
Faculty and students are encouraged to spend time to, touch, look at, and learn from the textiles that we care for together.
- Historic library and archive of Textile- and Fiber-focused print-media spanning 200 years and covering virtually every corner of the world from Japanese Kumihimo to Shaker basketry to West Ghanian strip weaving to Indonesian Batik. Additionally, the T+F Library contains hundreds of artifacts and ephemera from a global tradition of fiber-focused art and craft exhibitions, conferences, and other scholarly and artistic events and happenings within the field.
- Graduate students are provided with sky-lit, private studios which are divided by large moveable walls in a grad-only space within the Textiles + Fiber area studios.
- Basic studio furniture and equipment is provided. Some specialized equipment may need to be provided by the student.
Graduate student Jenny Welden teaches her class how to dye fabric.
A student works on a large screen printed textile.
Textiles + Fiber MFA
Situated within the 3-year MFA program in the Department of Visual Art, the Textiles + Fiber program supports four to five, full-time graduate students by covering full tuition or offering a Graduate Teaching Assistantship that includes a tuition waiver plus a stipend. Additionally, there are several opportunities for funded domestic and international travel for research, and tuition to residencies and workshops.
Each year, the area of textiles and fiber accept a first-year graduate cohort of one or two MFA candidates, adding to a supportive community of instructors and students. In >total, the Visual Art Graduate cohort includes MFA candidates in Textiles + Fiber, Ceramics, Sculpture, Printmaking, Expanded Media, Painting & Drawing, and Metalsmithing/Jewelry. The total number of graduate students in the Department of Visual Art ranges from 20-25 students.
