One of the oldest aesthetic traditions in the world, textile art is currently on the cutting edge of contemporary art practice and critical inquiry.

Rooted in material and process, the discipline is expanding to include intellectual discourses based on the poetic nuances of the medium. One of the preeminent fiber departments in the United States, the Textile Program advances these new paradigms while acting as a custodian of past traditions.

Our Mission

The mission of the Textiles Program is to educate students about technical, material, and conceptual issues related to the field. Through an integrated art, craft, and design curriculum, students engage in creative practice and critical dialogue that addresses historical and contemporary issues alike.

Curriculum

The program has three areas of concentration: fiber sculpture, textile printing, and weaving. Within those areas fall specific techniques such as netting, twining, spinning, knitting, embroidery, felt making, image transfer, hand painting and hand printing on fabrics, photo- and computer-generated imaging, dye technology, loom weaving, and creating computer-aided structures. A strong, skill-based curriculum builds dexterity, sensitivity to materials, and technical competence.

At the center of the curriculum is a comprehensive series of courses on the history of textiles. The study of diverse traditions offers cross-cultural insights on topics such as cultural continuity, innovation, gender, domesticity, race, religion, individualism, industrialization, and colonization. A historical and theoretical knowledge of the field provides students with an informed perspective from which conceptually strong and thoughtful work can emerge.

Textile art, by its very nature, is interdisciplinary, involving an integration of disparate elements and a synthesis of knowledge from many fields. Students are encouraged to move beyond conventional definitions and engage in the current multidisciplinary discourse among fine arts, craft, and design.

Many students choose to work on the boundaries of the medium, folding fashion, video, glass, ceramics, painting, jewelry / metal arts, furniture, performance, or installation into their textile work.

Curriculum Summary

Textiles majors are required to take Beginning Studios in three areas of concentration: fiber sculpture, textile printing, and weaving.

As students progress through the curriculum, they develop skills in one or more of these areas in the Intermediate and Advanced Studios. In addition, majors are required to take a Textile Workshop, which offers intensive training in a specific technique.

Majors are also required to take a Textile History and a Textile Topic Seminar to further their conceptual and intellectual understanding of the medium.

In Senior Project, advanced students work toward building a cohesive body of work culminating in a senior exhibition.