NYTM 2026 CALENDAR
work by Elodie Blanchard
Endless Pattern
Online/ Talk / Weaving
Endless Pattern: Weaving, teaching, and design on the BoomLoom Boss
This session will explore the capabilities of the Boss, an award-winning handheld loom that creates complex weave structures and patterns like a multi-shaft loom but has just two pieces and sets up immediately. Traditional looms require that you configure structure first, discover woven patterns later. The Boss lets you explore pattern directly and intuitively without tie-ups, treadles or drafts. The small size and simple interface makes it a powerful, accessible learning tool for material exploration and creative practice, with a range from beginner to expert in one tool.
Designer and founder Lauren Puchowski will discuss the loom and related digital patternmaking tools as a way to expand access to the design language of weaving. We'll examine the creative possibilities in traditional structures such as twill, monk's belt, krokbragd, rosepath, waffle weave, and doubleweave. We'll also touch on applications in public art and personal practice, the loom's active online community, and uses in grade schools, universities and for artists with disabilities. The session will conclude with a Q&A, for a total length of no longer than 60 minutes.
Lauren Puchowski is an artist and maker from North Carolina. Not a weaver, she began experimenting with shedding devices on tiny handheld looms as a way to make weaving an image closer to the gesture of line drawing. A prototype with a rotating heddle bar produced a diagonal rib; that became the basis for the Boss.
Untethered Works
In person/ Talk / Multiple Techniques
Artists Peggy Black, Julia Graziano, and Sarah Pavlik explore abstractions in fiber on Thursday September 10, 2026 from 1-3 PM, and author Nicole Nerhig discussing her book " With Her One Words: Women Weaving their Stories Thursday September 10th, 11:30- 12:30.
Gallery artists Peggy Black, Julia Graziano, and Sarah Pavlik exhibit their recent and evolving textile art, each artist holding a distinct and innovative voice. Working by instinct and intuition, all three are deeply inspired by abstraction as well as the element of surprise and the search for the unknown. Using fiber, these artists create works sensitive to line, shape, color, texture, and stitch, compiling a collection that speaks to their personal dialogue with the materials. From pieced fabrics to dyed, pigmented and painted cloth, this exhibit embodies bold experimentation in fiber. Together, the artists demonstrate the profound relevance of textiles in contemporary art. We encourage the audience to view the exhibition with their own untethered curiosity and imagination.
Special events September 10, 2026
11:30 am - 12:30 pm: Nicole Nehrig, author of With Her Own Hands: Women Weaving Their Stories, will discuss her exploration of the ways women have used textile work to create meaning and purpose in their lives throughout history and around the world. Nicole provides a model for how to create a meaningful life through textiles today that engages our minds and alters our relationship to time.
RSVP to Book Talk with Nicole Nehrig
1:00-3:00 pm: Artist Talks: Black, Graziano, and Pavlik will reflect on their artistic process and practice, including a discussion of specific art works, inspiration, outside influences, techniques, and experimentation, as well as their exploration of design.
3:30-6:00 pm: Opening Reception
left photo: Chris Hay
Textile Art Gallery NYC is an artist run gallery In Chelsea, New York City's premier art district. We are dedicated to exhibiting and selling innovative textile art- abstract quilts, weavings, three dimensional fiber works and all forms of fiber art - that provoke thought, ignite dialogue, and express bold artistic vision.
The Cold Stitch Artist Talks and reception
In the Nordic countries, stitching has long transcended simple decoration or domestic craft. It has been a necessity, a means of storytelling, survival, memory, and care. Shaped by cold climates and long winters, textiles historically became vital vessels of warmth, protection, repair, and continuity, carrying the deep traces of everyday life and cultural identity across generations. The Cold Stitch brings together contemporary artists from across Scandinavia whose practices engage with textiles as both a tactile material and a profound language. The title refers not only to the geography of the North, but also to our relationship with textiles and the act of stitching itself. A stitch repairs, connects, layers, and transforms. It binds physical fragments together while allowing hidden histories, emotions, reflections on the political climate, and personal narratives to remain visible.eractive session for makers and thinkers to collaborate, connect, and spark new ideas.
Textiles in the Present: A Dialogue Between Tradition and Digitality
Online/ Talk / Multiple Techniques
For textile designer Františka Benčaťová, textiles are more of a principle, a system of construction, a certain kind of architecture, as well as a vessel for stories, memory, and the present. Textiles are a timeless medium for her, a vision of the future, a platform for experimentation and innovation, a fascinating living organism that subtly and unobtrusively invades our environment. It is close at hand and yet invisible. Textiles are a ritual, a space, and a memory.
In her online lecture TEXTILES IN THE PRESENT: A DIALOGUE BETWEEN TRADITION AND DIGITALITY, you’ll gain insight into her personal observations on textiles. The designer will offer a detailed look at her textile practise, which draws on craft traditions while pushing their boundaries through industrial machinery and programming to reach a new level of innovation. She experiments with her own weaving techniques to process narrow-leaved cattail by hand. She liberates embroidery from its base material and enriches it by sewing on glass beads in collaboration with a digital embroidery machine. She views the simple basket as an archetypal textile object and, through industrial jacquard weaving, creates multiple perspectives on this object—whether as a three-dimensional form directly on the loom or through a surface-level visual illusion. All of her textile approaches are united by curiosity and experimentation across various textile disciplines, a distinctive focus on structure, and an emphasis on the construction and creation of textile objects through innovative methods.
Františka Benčaťová (1996) is a Slovak textile designer based in Prague and a graduate of the Textile Design Studio at UMPRUM (2023). Her work has been influenced by a study visit to KASK in Ghent (BE) under the supervision of Esther van Schuylenberg, as well as a work placement at Simone Post Studio in Rotterdam (NL).
Her work is characterised by an emphasis on the construction and architecture of textiles, which she uses to experiment with materials at the intersection of traditional craft techniques and industrial processing, combined with digital technologies. The playfulness and curiosity of her work are underscored by an optimistic colour palette, tactile spatial effects and a speculative conceptual approach. The designer enjoys pushing the established boundaries of how textiles are viewed and worked with. She perceives textiles as carriers of stories and emotions, as well as a structural principle for discovering and exploring the possibilities of textiles and their existence in the world (contemporary, imaginary, future). The research process is an important aspect of her work.
She currently works as a textile designer in the automotive industry, where she specializes in industrial jacquard weaving and knitting, with a focus on fibre knowledge, textile technology and innovation.
Textiles Close Up
Online/ Talk / Textile Industry
Textiles Close Up: Virtual Roundtable - The Dressed Body & Wearable Innovations
This September, the Textile Society of America invites you to join a live virtual roundtable that brings together curators, scholars, artists, and cultural practitioners from across Central New York for an engaging exploration of textiles, collections, and contemporary research.
Taking place on September 23, 2026 this 90-minute online program expands upon the themes explored during Textiles Close Up: The Dressed Body & Wearable Innovations in-person event in June, while welcoming a broader audience from around the world. Participation in the June program is not required.
During the September online session, each presenter will give a brief presentation highlighting objects, collections, or site-specific practices from their institution. A moderated discussion led by TSA Board Member Alexa Griffith Winton will follow, inviting participants to reflect on how textiles mediate identity, the impact of materials and technologies on clothing and adornment, and the responsibilities of institutions in interpreting living cultural traditions.
The session will include time for questions from the audience and interaction with presenters. The session will be live-streamed, making it accessible to a global audience. Recordings of the program will be made available, and registered participants will receive a notification when the recordings are available.
Founded in 1987, the Textile Society of America is a United States 501(c)3 nonprofit that provides an international forum for the exchange and dissemination of textile knowledge from artistic, cultural, economic, historic, political, social, scientific, and technical perspectives. Our 1,000 members worldwide include curators and conservators, scholars and educators, artists, designers, makers, conservators, scientists, collectors, and others interested in fiber and textiles. We are committed to developing leadership initiatives, membership, and programming rooted in the plurality of textile histories, producers, and purposes. With an eye toward expanding our voices and audience, we will focus on inclusion of underrepresented groups, and advocacy for robust diversity of our personal and professional viewpoints.
Rethinking Textiles in an Age of Waste
Online/ Talk / Dyeing
Rethinking Textiles in an Age of Waste: A Study of Japanese Traditional and Contemporary Textiles, based on a year of field research in Japan.
This talk presents research and findings from Larissa Zemke's Master's thesis, Rethinking Textiles in an Age of Waste: A Study of Japanese Traditional and Contemporary Textiles, developed through a year of field research in Japan (2019–2020). Using a research-creation methodology, the project examines how traditional Japanese textile practices and philosophies offer lessons for textile sustainability today, with a focus on translating those insights into the activewear industry.
Drawing on archival research, interviews with artisans, and hands-on material experimentation, the talk explores how Japan's textile heritage, from bast fiber cultivation to traditional dye and weaving practices, informs more circular, less wasteful approaches to material design. Larissa shares how these findings shaped tangible design proposals, illustrating how traditional knowledge can inform contemporary innovation in fast-moving, high-waste sectors like activewear.
Attendees will gain insight into Japan's textile traditions as a living case study for sustainability, practical frameworks for applying historical practices to modern material challenges, and a window into research-creation as a methodology bridging academic research and design practice.
This talk is ideal for designers, brands, and researchers seeking grounded, culturally rich approaches to rethinking material use and waste in the fashion industry.
Larissa Zemke is a textile expert and material innovator focused on sustainability, natural fibers, and circular practices. Her international career across New York, Paris, Vienna, Kyoto, and Montreal spans print and embroidery, knitwear, leatherwork, dyeing, visual merchandising, and product management. She has contributed to an open-source textbook on corporate social responsibility published by SUNY, and is currently co-authoring a fashion-sector edition of the book.
Larissa holds a Bachelor's degree from the Fashion Institute of Technology and a Master's in Design from Concordia University (2023), rooted in a year of field research in Japan on sustainable fiber systems. She aims to advance innovation across the global apparel industry.
Larissa Zemke's consulting practice supports brands and institutions in advancing circular, responsible material practices through slow fashion frameworks and design with care. Her work has been shared through exhibitions, talks, workshops, and publications at leading design schools in New York, Montreal, and London. Recent collaborations include developing a biodegradable insulated jacket with Quebec industry partners and research conducted with Harvard's Innovation Lab.
She is also building a personal platform dedicated to slow fashion and sustainability. Larissa is open to interdisciplinary collaborations driving circular innovation across the global fashion industry.
Machine Stitch
In person / Talk / Embroidery
Machine Stitch: A Talk on Digital Embroidery & Materiality
This artist/designer talk focuses on digital embroidery in creative work, expanding industrial applications to uncover unique human sensitivities of the machine stitch. The conversation will bring together Response Patterns, a collaborative project by Anette Millington and Travis Fitch, and artist Ragna Froda, to discuss experimentation, machine collaboration, and embroidered materiality.
Response Patterns is a collaborative project that leverages Anette Millington’s expertise in pattern and print, and textile embellishment, with Travis Fitch’s in-depth knowledge of digital tools, geometry, 3D-printed embellishment, and architectural design. The ongoing study of geometric and biological patterning informs their research on machine embroidery. Considering the language of patterning- units, symmetries, and algorithmic scale- they work with the embroidery machine to create tactile symbols and surfaces.
Ragna Froda is an Icelandic artist, curator, and educator with a background in fashion/ textile design. Her work focuses on the process of making, working with colors and textures, and the history and culture of symbols and patterns in textiles. Ragna will discuss her “Here we go again” series of digital embroideries. The artwork, originally sketched in ink, undergoes a transformation through embroidery, guided by her assistant Bobby, the embroidery robot. As a team, they explore life events, histories, and dreams.
The talk will highlight shared interests in material experimentation to expand the lexicon of machine embroidery and add emotive and temporal qualities. Examples include the use of environmentally responsive materials, such as UV-sensitive threads, and textural substrates made from fabric collage and quilting. The conversation will also focus on interventions and design processes for working with digital embroidery software and improvisation between machine and maker.
Response Patterns is a collaborative project that leverages Anette Millington’s expertise in pattern and print, and textile embellishment, with Travis Fitch’s in-depth knowledge of digital tools, geometry, 3D-printed embellishment, and architectural design.
Ragna Froda is an Icelandic artist, curator, and educator with a background in fashion/ textile design. Her work focuses on the process of making, working with colors and textures, and the history and culture of symbols and patterns in textiles.
The Garment that Remembers
Online/ Talk / Knitting
The Garment that Remembers: what our clothes know, and who tells their stories
Every garment carries a history: the hand that made it, the origin of its yarn, each repair and each new owner. For most of fashion's history that history has been lost the moment a piece leaves the maker. This live talk asks what changes when a garment is designed to remember.
Working live from her studio on the Fleurieu Peninsula in South Australia, designer and researcher Angelina Russo builds a poncho from vintage and deadstock yarns on vintage knitting machines, in a practice rooted in Italian textile heritage from the Sannio region. Because each piece cannot be replicated exactly, you watch its record assemble, stage by stage, as the poncho comes together.
Alongside the making, you read a garment of your own. Using a card provided online, you sort its fibres into natural and synthetic, look for proof that the fibre is what the label claims, and set down what you expect of the piece, how long you will keep it and how often you will wear it. The card then stays with the garment and waits, in a pocket or a drawer, for the day a decision about its future is due. That small act, a record that travels with a garment, is the everyday form of what the emerging Digital Product Passport is reaching towards.
What you'll leave with:
A card to keep with one of your own garments, written now and answered later
A way of reading any piece you own for the record it carries, and the record it has lost
A route to follow when a forgotten garment asks to be kept, repaired, passed on or recovered
This is a live session, presented before dawn from the other side of the world, with time for questions.
Angelina Russo is a designer and researcher, and the founder of Fleurieu Made, a circular knitwear studio on the Fleurieu Peninsula in South Australia. Working from vintage and deadstock yarns on vintage knitting machines, in a practice rooted in her Italian textile heritage, she makes one-off pieces meant to be carried for years. Alongside the studio she develops the FM Circular Fashion IQ Index, which makes circular practice visible and verifiable. Angelina researches how garments might carry their own records of origin, repair and afterlife, returning fashion's memory to the makers and wearers it belongs to.