AAFG 2025-26 Meeting Programs
Membership Meetings:
Held the 2nd Monday, September – May, no December meeting.
Social time begins at 6:30 p.m. Program starts at 7 p.m.
We meet at Zion Lutheran Church in the Gathering Room (2nd floor)
1501 W. Liberty Street
Ann Arbor, MI 48103
For Zoom presentations, members will be sent an email with the Zoom link.
Meeting Formats
In-Person = Program will be held in person at Zion Lutheran Church.
Zoom = Presentation and participation will be held exclusively via Zoom.
Blended = Presentation will be held remotely via Zoom and in person at Zion Lutheran Church. Choose how you wish to participate.
Monthly Schedule
September 8, 2025 (In-Person)
“A Fiber Art Gathering”
AAFG members Jean Hosford, Shannon Ross Albers, Carolyn Michaels, Carol Repasky, and Robin Wilt will have tables set up to display their artwork. These artists will also be on hand to discuss their processes and the materials they use. Techniques include weaving, beading, needle felting, mixed-media, paper, and fiber. Come and admire their craft, ask questions about their techniques, watch demos, and get inspired for your future explorations.
(l-r) Anne Flora, Robin Wilt, Juniper Wolfenbarger, Marla Smith
AAFG members Juniper Wolfenbarger, Robin Wilt, Anne Flora, and Marla Smith will display their work and discuss their processes and artistic practice. Techniques include weaving, felting, mixed-media, paper, and fiber. Come and admire their craft, ask questions about their work, watch demos, and get inspired.
October 13, 2025 (In-Person)
“Immersive Installations”
Melissa Web
Combining contemporary fiber art, installation, photography, and video, Melissa layers accumulations of handmade and reclaimed textiles into architectural spaces to acknowledge historical contexts and material narratives. Dive into her work that imagines a less human-centered future where we learn to live and thrive in symbiosis with the natural world.
Melissa Webb is a nationally exhibiting fiber artist, educator, and independent curator working in the areas of site-specific installation, video, performance, and photography. She is represented by CAMP Gallery, Miami, and holds an MFA from the Cranbrook Academy of Art and a BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art. Over her nearly 30-year career, Melissa has presented her work at numerous arts institutions, galleries, and festivals such as the BravinLee Project’s The Golden Thread in Seaport, NYC, The Cranbrook Museum of Art, Baltimore Museum of Art, School 33 Art Center, Vis-Arts Rockville, ‘sindikit projects, the Institute for Contemporary Art (ICA) Baltimore, The Rotating History Project, Maryland Art Place, and with the Detroit Month of Design, Philadelphia Fringe, Transmodern, and Artscape Festivals.
https://www.melissawebbart.com
November 10, 2025 (In-Person)
“Woven Explorations in Color”
Cathy Jacobs
Follow an artist’s journey to discover the endless possibilities of color through painting, weaving, and layering screens. Cathy finds visual connection with the world by observing the subtle shifts in light and color in the everyday environment, constructing woven, 3-dimensional artworks that uncover the beauty of looking through multiple layers. She’s fascinated by the ever-shifting movement of the wavy patterns, known as the moiré effect, as well as the visual blending of colors that occur when viewing overlapping screens.
Cathy Jacobs received a BFA in painting from Wayne State University in Detroit in 1996. She later discovered weaving and textiles as an MFA candidate at Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti. She has exhibited artwork throughout the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, most notably at the South Bend Museum of Art in Indiana, World of Threads Festival in Ontario, the Architectural Digest Design Show in New York City, SOFA Expo (with Next Step Studio and Gallery) in Chicago, Cluster Crafts in London, and Museu Têxtil of New Orleans and Sao Paolo. She lives with her husband in Ann Arbor and works at her studio in Ypsilanti.
https://www.cathyjacobs.com
December 8, 2025 (In-Person)
Holiday Party
January 12, 2026 (Blended)
Ellen Willson Threads of Interest Series: Lecture #8
“Pacific Materialities: Making the Early Modern”
Stephanie Wong
In this lecture, historian and fiber artist Stephanie Wong gives an overview of the textiles of the Spanish Pacific, a region defined by the continents and waterways that comprised a transoceanic trade route between Asia and the Americas in the early modern period. Wong will explore wool, cotton, piña (pineapple fiber), and abacá (banana fiber) as material representations of the early modern world.
Born in the United States to parents from Singapore and Hong Kong, Stephanie writes, weaves, sews, spins, and prints mostly in the American Midwest. She received a PhD in Latin American History from Brown University in 2025 and was awarded a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad fellowship in 2021 to conduct research in Mexico City, Mexico. In 2022, she received a China Initiative Grant from the Watson Institute to conduct research in East and Southeast Asia. Her nonfiction writing has been published in Eater, Los Angeles Review of Books, New York Times, and Public Books, among others.
February 9, 2026 (Blended)
“Hat Design”
Woolly Wormhead
Known as “The Hat Architect,” Woolly Wormhead uses their own unusual construction and short-row colorwork knit techniques to create delightful wearable designs. Get a glimpse into their process of pattern making and discover how their neurodivergence offers a unique perspective to their innovative approach.
Woolly’s work has been widely published, and their patterns are trusted and celebrated by knitters all over the world. They originally trained in electronic engineering and worked in the industry for several years before returning to their first love – textiles. From there, they studied textile technology, then fine art and sculptural textiles, before doing a post-grad in education and going on to teach art and textiles in London for several years. They’ve pulled from this knowledge to question the structure of the humble knitted fabric and challenge our understanding of construction. As an Autistic with ADHD, they bring a unique perspective to stitches, what they can do, and how we can manipulate them. They’re also an advocate for neurodivergent and mental health care. Alongside their knit design, teaching, and writing, they often write and give talks on the links to and benefits of knitting for folks whose brains are a little bit different.
https://woollywormhead.com
March 9, 2026 (In-Person)
“Weaving Worlds…Literally”
Levon Kafafian
This Detroit-based artist tells stories about speculative worlds and futures by weaving together the narrative threads of costume, artifact, performance, and installation. Discover how they infuse their imaginative work with future ancestral practice, hybridity, and magic to channel the Armenian diasporic imaginary.
Kafafian has exhibited at CUE Foundation (New York, Ny; 2025), MoCAD (Detroit, Mi; 2024), UM Stamps Gallery (Ann Arbor, Mi; 2023), Arab American National Museum (Dearborn, Mi; 2019) and co-led a 7-week weaving program with Trapholt Museum for Moderne Kunst (Denmark, 2022).
https://www.shadedknot.com
April 13, 2026 (In-Person)
“Jean Buescher Bartlett: Artist/Designer/Bookbinder”
Jean Bartlett
Feeling a strong connection to the natural world and to Scandinavian, Japanese, and German design, Jean’s work melds the traditional training she received in sewing, painting, design, photography, handmade paper, bookbinding and letterpress printing, and celebrates her reverence for the overlooked and the everyday. Explore through her work what it means to be a sentient being, how humans construct and organize, the potency of place, the life/death/decay cycle of organic forms, and the redemptive power of natural phenomena.
Jean Buescher Bartlett received a BS in Design and an MFA in Book Arts. A multi-disciplinary artist, her paintings, drawings, photographs, prints, handmade artists’ books, collages, and mixed media work have been exhibited internationally over the span of five decades. For fifteen years Jean taught Book Arts and the History of Modern Design at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit. She additionally taught at the University of Michigan, the Paper and Book Intensive, Penland School of Craft, the Morgan Conservatory, Pyramid Atlantic, and the Women’s Studio Workshop. Jean has also been a professional bookbinder for thirty-five years. Jean owned and operated Bloodroot Press from 1990 to 2020, focusing on limited edition, letterpress printed, illustrated and handbound books, broadsides, and ephemera. The University of Michigan is now home to Jean’s Permanent Book Arts Archive. https://www.jean-bartlett.com
Monday, May 11, 2025 (In-Person)
“Celebrating Member Fiber Explorations”
The final meeting of the season invites all members to share fiber art projects they have been working on all year, and workshop participants are welcome to show their unique responses to the Guild workshops they attended. Wear your creations or bring the artwork you would like to display. There will also be a presentation of the upcoming lineup of workshops and speakers for 2026-27.