Deborah Valoma is a faculty member and current chair of CCA's Textiles Program.
Deborah's specialized field of research is the cultural history of textiles as a global aesthetic practice. In addition to teaching a comprehensive series of graduate and undergraduate courses on textile history and theory, she has written articles including “Cloth and African Identity in Bahia, Brazil” (published in Berg Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion) and "The Impermanent Made Permanent: Textiles, Pattern and the Migration of a Medium" (published by Fiberarts).
In 2010, Deborah edited and wrote the introductory essay for a special issue of Textiles: Journal of Cloth and Culture on the topic of dust, and has recently completed a book on the preeminent Native American weaver in California titled Scrape the Willow until It Sings: The Words and Work of Basket Maker Julia Parker (forthcoming from Heyday in 2013).
As a studio artist, Deborah explores the material, conceptual, and poetic nuances of the medium through a hybrid practice incorporating both digital weaving technologies and hand processes. Deborah's work has been exhibited at galleries and museums, including the de Young Museum, San Francisco; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and the Textile Museum, Washington DC. Deborah also designs costumes for several dance companies in the San Francisco Bay Area.
In 2011 Deborah was an artist in residence at the Museum of Contemporary Craft in Portland, Oregon, in conjunction with the Weaving, Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, a retrospective exhibition of the work of weaver Laurie Herrick curated by Namita Gupta Wiggers. Her piece, Longing, took the form of an installation and performance that integrated the shared sensual, spatial, and rhythmic dynamics of weaving and dance.
Deborah is engaged in ongoing collaborations with other artists. Currently she is collaborating with dancer and choreographer Victor Alexander on a full length dance production entitled Line of Sighs funded by a grant from Chicago Dancemakers Forum and the Illinois Arts Council.
Deborah has also served on advisory councils and on boards of directors of several community-based art organizations that focus on the preservation of traditional performance arts from diverse cultures and countries, including Cuba and Brazil.
Website: www.deborahvaloma.com
Selected Work
