Important Links
Workshops
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Marigold Natural Dye Workshop for Beginners + Intermediate Dyers
$58 - Friday 5-7PM
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Wet Felted Vessel Making
$46 - Friday 5-7PM
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Woven Mandalas: Weaving in the Round
$48 - Friday 5pm-7pm
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Felt Pouch with Needle Felted Embellishment
$42 - Saturday 9:30am-12pm
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Craft one, Write Too
$32 - Saturday 10am-12pm
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Macrame Plant Hanger Workshop
$44 - Saturday 9:30-11:30
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Know Your Wool: A Prep Primer for Beginners
$52 - Saturday 9:30pm-11:30pm
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Needle Felted Amanita Mushrooms
$42 - Saturday 1:30pm-3pm
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Woven Tray
$42 - Saturday 1:30pm-3:30pm
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Ecoprinting on Silk + Wool
$138 - Saturday 1:45pm-3:45pm
FIBER FLURRY 2024!
Event Overview
An annual celebration of learning, resources and community for fiber with newly expanded programming. This year’s keynote: Tammy White, A Wing and a Prayer Farm, on her natural dye and climate change collaboration with international artist Cecilia Vicuña at The Guggenheim Museum.
Fiber Flurry will be held this year at the Arts Council Headquarters at 31 South Main Street in Perry, on April 27th. This year’s festival will offer an expanded learning schedule, beginning at 1pm on Friday, April 26 with a Fiber Artists Forum and a slate of Friday evening workshops.
For the first time, Fiber Flurry includes a juried fiber arts exhibition and skein competition with award opportunities for excellence in fiber. This exhibit will showcase fiber art pieces from local artists curated around the council’s 2024 theme of “Different.” Art and handmade fiber art from the following three categories will be accepted: “Handmade Useful,” showcasing traditional artisanal useful goods and wearables; “For Art’s Sake”, focusing on fine art execution of fiber as a medium for expression and a fine art category for work in non-fiber mediums celebrating wool and agrarian subjects. Photographers, painters, sculptors and all artists working in traditional media are encouraged to submit.
All accepted works will be included in “Different Fibers,” which will open to the public on April 12 in the first floor gallery and will be on view through April 27. This exhibition will be judged, with first, second, and third-place winners in each category to be announced at the Fiber Flurry Festival closing reception on April 27, 2024. Work using traditional techniques to create nontraditional, unexpected, or modern results, work that surprises, or work that uses traditional materials to generate nontraditional results will be given priority when judging.
Those who wish to submit work to be juried in the festival exhibition should submit work through the Eventeny call by March 23.
Handspinners who wish to enter our first-ever Fiber Flurry skein competition, “For the Love of Handspun,” will find multiple categories to choose from, from traditional ply to spindle. In keeping with the council’s theme of “Different,” special weight will be given to Expressive Technique and non-traditional Art Yarn spinning. A novice category also gives new spinners opportunities to show off their newly honed skills.
There is no fee to participate in “Different Fibers” or our skein competition. Funds are made possible by generous contributions from community partners and grant funding.
This show is curated and juried by juror Tami Fuller of East Aurora. Fuller is an award winning fiber artist, gallery owner, curator and exhibiting member of the Buffalo Society of Artists, Roycroft Emerging Artist in Fiber, a 2022 NYSCA CR-NY designee and a member of the Buffalo Weaver’s Guild and the Weaver’s Guild of Rochester. In addition to working as a fiber art educator as Blubird Studio, she is the daughter of a shepherdess raised on a working sheep farm with a knowledge of both fine art execution and technical application of fiber.
Saturday’s festival keynote address will be delivered by Shepherdess and Artist Tammy White. White is a nationally regarded artist who has contributed to Taproot Magazine, Modern Farmer, and What/Where Women Create, as well as collaborations with Vogue. Her production fiber farm, Wing & A Prayer Farm, is located in southwestern Vermont where she raises 100 sheep, goats, alpacas, and various other farm animals. Wing & A Prayer Farm is home to Vermont’s first pure blood Valais Blacknose Sheep and some of the first Valais Blacknose sheep in North America.
White uses foraged and found materials for luminescent, beautiful color on her flocks’ wool. Through inspiring visuals, she will lead attendees on a journey of exploring the world of botanical color and her experience working with Chilean artist, Cecilia Vicuña, as part of her installation and interactive exhibit at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City in 2019. White will also hold two workshop opportunities for learning and contribute to the panel discussion on Friday afternoon.
Sign up to volunteer as a Fiber Flurry insider and help ensure our expanded festival is a success! Volunteers help our instructors in the workshop, greet the public, assist with registration and generally make the wheels go round while learning all the ins and outs of a fiber festival event. Choose your area of interest and let us know your needs through our volunteer sign-up form. Sign up to volunteer through our form by April 5, 2024.
Questions can be directed to the council at 585-237-3517 EX 100 or to event coordinator Tami Fuller at info@oneblubirdstudio.com.
Key Dates
- Vendors Applications due by March 16th, 2024
- Workshop proposals due by March 10th, 2024
- Submit to demonstrate or tutor as a Fiber Flurry helper through April 5th, 2024
- Applications Deadline for Art Entries: March 23rd
- Application Deadline for Skein Judging: April 5th
- Submit to help as a Fiber Flurry Volunteer through April 5th, 2024
Fiber Flurry 2024 Schedule:
Times | Location | |
Friday, April 26, 2024 | ||
Different Fibers | On View | ACWC Gallery, 1st Floor |
Fiber Artists Forum | 1- 3 pm | ACWC Headquarters |
Early Bird Workshops | 5 – 7 pm | The Historic Brick Presbyterian on Church Street! |
Early Bird Private Shop
Workshop Students |
7 – 8 pm |
ACWC Headquarters |
Saturday, April 27, 2024 | ||
Different Fibers | On View | ACWC Gallery, 1st Floor |
Registration, Students Only | 8:30 am | First Presbyterian |
Morning Workshops | 9:30 am | First Presbyterian |
Doors Open, General Public | 10:00 am | ACWC |
Crochet Circle + Open Knit | 10:30 – 12 noon | ACWC |
Lunch Break | 11:30 – 12:30 | Community Sponsors |
Keynote Address:
Tamara White |
12:30 pm – 1:15 pm
(Q+A 1:15 – 1:30pm) |
ACWC – 2nd Floor |
Afternoon Workshops | 1:30 – 3:30 | First Presbyterian |
Vending Closes | 4:30 pm | ACWC |
Different Fibers: Closing Reception + Awards Presentation | 4:30 pm – 5:30 | ACWC Gallery |
Ongoing: | ||
Learn to Knit w/ FF Vol. | All Day Saturday | Free |
Spinning Demonstrations | All Day Saturday | Free |
Open Knit | All Day Saturday |
Keynote Fiber Flurry 2024: Tammy White
Saturday’s festival keynote address will be delivered by Shepherdess and Artist Tammy White. White is a nationally regarded artist who has contributed to Taproot Magazine, Modern Farmer, and What/Where Women Create, as well as collaborations with Vogue. Her production fiber farm, Wing & A Prayer Farm, is located in southwestern Vermont where she raises 100 sheep, goats, alpacas, and various other farm animals. Wing & A Prayer Farm is home to Vermont’s first pure blood Valais Blacknose Sheep and some of the first Valais Blacknose sheep in North America.
Tammy White has been dyeing her farm’s yarns naturally with dye stuffs from her gardens and surrounds for 14 years. She teaches natural dyeing on and off her farm year round at regional industry-related events such as fiber festivals, schools, retreats, and fiber summits. Her dyed work and expertise and wool has been requested by artists and designers around the world for use as installation art and as part of garment design.
White uses foraged and found materials for luminescent, beautiful color on her flocks’ wool. Through inspiring visuals, she will lead attendees on a journey of exploring the world of botanical color and her experience working with Chilean artist, Cecilia Vicuña, as part of her installation and interactive exhibit at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City in 2022.
In addition to delivering this thought-provoking presentation and discussion on natural dye and textile choices’ impact on our environment in this time of climate shift, White will also hold two workshop opportunities for learning and contribute to a Fiber Artists Panel discussion on Friday afternoon in ACWC Gallery Headquarters, from 1 pm – 3 pm.
We are excited to host White and learn from her experiences and global perspective.
White’s presentation will run from 12:15 pm to 1 and will be followed by a period of optional open discussion and questions for the artist in order to ensure that students enrolled in the afternoon workshop schedule can register for classes on time. Those attending the keynote are encouraged to seek lunch and refreshment from one of our community partners at the close of the morning workshop schedule at 11:30 in order to arrive at the lecture in the 2nd floor Lecture Room on time.
Artist Forum
Artist, Curator and Educator Tami Fuller, Roycroft Master Weaver Kathy Cairns Hendershott, Pilar McKay, PhD. and Shepherdess and Artist Tammy White of Wing and a Prayer Farm will discus practice, process, philosophy and all points of woolcraft in between in the exhibition gallery on to start the weekend’s festivities.
The forum will be followed by Friday evening workshops by Fuller, White and Susan Swanson, and private early access shopping for workshop students.
This forum is part of “Different Fibers,” “Different Fibers,” the Fiber Flurry inaugural fiber art exhibition showcasing fiber art and fiber-“adjacent” work from WNY regional artists curated around the council’s 2024 theme of “Different.”
This exhibition will be judged, with first, second, and third-place winners in each category to be announced at the Fiber Flurry Festival closing reception on Saturday, April 27, 2024. Work using traditional techniques to create nontraditional, unexpected, or modern results, work that surprises, or work that uses traditional materials to generate nontraditional results will be given priority when judging. The viewing public can cast their vote for People’s Choice at the gallery up through 1 p.m. on Saturday.
Tami Fuller of East Aurora is an award winning fiber artist, gallery owner, curator and exhibiting member of the Buffalo Society of Artists, Roycroft Emerging Artist in Fiber, a 2022 CRNY designee and a member of the Buffalo Weaver’s Guild and the Weaver’s Guild of Rochester. In addition to working as a fiber art educator as Blubird Studio, she is the daughter of a shepherdess raised on a working sheep farm with a knowledge of both fine art execution and technical application of fiber.
Kathy Cairns Hendershott is weaver, knitter, and Roycroft Master Weaver near Warsaw, NY. She says: “I’m especially known especially for my use of careful color-blending and bold use of traditionally-based patterns with modern colors.”
Pilar McKay, is a communication professor, rural arts and culture advocate, and active creative placemaking practitioner. She serves as one half of Rural Arts Weekly, a social media and digital literacy project for artists and art advocates and is also Associate Director at the Arts Council for Wyoming County and co-founder and Managing Director of Shake on the Lake, a professional theatre company that specializes in performances to underserved rural communities. She is also co-owner of World’s Smallest Wool Shop and a working fiber artist. McKay will serve as a voice and as a moderator.
Tammy White is a nationally regarded artist who has contributed to Taproot Magazine, Modern Farmer, and What/Where Women Create, as well as collaborations with Vogue. Her production fiber farm, Wing & A Prayer Farm, is located in southwestern Vermont where she raises 100 sheep, goats, alpacas, and various other farm animals. Wing & A Prayer Farm is home to Vermont’s first pure blood Valais Blacknose Sheep and some of the first Valais Blacknose sheep in North America.
White will also present the festival’s keynote on Saturday afternoon, Through inspiring visuals, she will lead attendees on a journey of exploring the world of botanical color and her experience working with Chilean artist, Cecilia Vicuña, as part of her installation and interactive exhibit at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City in 2022.
Our Mission
To bring art to the people and people to the arts by:
• Providing services to artists
• Fostering connections between artists and community
• Offering a safe space for all people to express self and art