FIBER FLURRY 2025!

Workshops | Socializing | Marketplace | Art

An annual celebration of learning, resources and community for fiber, now with newly expanded programming. Fiber Flurry is a signature program of the Arts Council for Wyoming County. Funds are made possible by generous contributions from community partners and grant funding.

This year’s festival will include an expanded workshop schedule beginning on Friday, April 25  through Sunday, April 27. To see this year’s educational roster and pre-register, visit our Workshop Schedule below.

Fiber Flurry 2025 will be held at Arts Council Headquarters at 31 South Main Street in Perry, on Saturday, April 26 and NEW Sunday, April 27. This year’s festival will offer an expanded learning schedule, beginning at 1pm on Friday, April 26 with a free to attend Fiber Artists Forum and a slate of Friday evening workshops. Students in Friday’s workshop will enjoy an early private “first look shop” from 7p – 8p Friday night before the full round of marketplace and demonstrations begins at 10 am on Saturday, April 26.

Fiber Flurry includes festival competitions, a skein competition and a juried fiber arts exhibition, all with award opportunities for excellence in fiber. Handspinners who wish to enter our Fiber Flurry skein competition, “Spin it to Win it,” will find multiple categories to choose from, from traditional ply to spindle. Submissions for competitions must be pre-registered by April 6, 2025.

2025 Vendor Profiles

This year’s gallery exhibit, “Rooted: Buried Treasure,” aligned around the council’s 2025 Golden Anniversary, highlights work from over 20 artists working in fiber and fiber related disciplines. “Rooted” opens with a public reception on March 28, 2025 and runs through May 10. Judging and awards will be presented at the close of festival vending on Saturday, April 27 with a small public reception and ceremony.

This year’s judges are Dr. Gerald Mead, independent curator, artist and collector formerly of the Burchfield Penney Art Center and Jacqueline Swaby of the Genesee-Orleans Regional Arts Council.

Dr. Gerald Mead is an independent curator, noted art collector, arts writer, artist, and emeriti lecturer in the Art & Design Department at Buffalo State University where he received his BS in textile design. A former longtime curator at the Burchfield Penney Art Center in Buffalo, he received his MFA in Visual Studies from the University at Buffalo. His own artwork is in the collections of the Buffalo AKG Art Museum, George Eastman Museum, Castellani Art Museum, Sprint Foundation, and the International Museum of Collage, Assemblage and Construction, and has been exhibited throughout the US and abroad. 

Jacqueline Swaby is the education director and gallery curator for the Genesee Orleans Regional Arts Council and former director of the Arts Council for Wyoming. As a passionate supporter of Fiber Flurry, we are honored to have her join us in her new capacity as judge.

Mead and Swaby will be assisted in judging by our Festival Head and our 2025 Keynote Speaker, Tami Fuller. Fuller is an award winning fiber artist, gallery owner, curator and exhibiting member of the Buffalo Society of Artists, 2021 Roycroft Emerging Artist in Fiber and a member of the Buffalo Weaver’s Guild and the Weaver’s Guild of Rochester. She is an internationally published fiber artist and works as exhibitions Chair for the Buffalo Society of Artists and the Executive Director of the Roycrofters at Large Association. In addition to working as a fiber art educator as Blubird Studio, she is a handspinner whose work has received awards from NY Sheep + Wool.

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.