Kathryn Pannepacker

Kathryn Pannepacker is a textile/visual artist living in Philadelphia, PA. She graduated from Penn State University with a major in English and a minor in art. Afterwards, back in the late 80's, for 4 years in Berkeley, CA., she apprenticed with 3rd generation French tapestry weaver, Jean Pierre Larochette and his partner, Yael Lurie, a painter and designer for tapestry. Kathryn then went to Aubusson, France to continue weaving as an artist-in-resident. She also had the opportunity to be an artist-in-resident in Hachioji, Japan, through the Japan Foundation. Though still weaving pictorial tapestry, she also weaves with unusual materials. She is the former director of the DaVinci Art Alliance, and a rostered teaching artist for the PA Council On the Arts/ Artists and Education, Young Audiences of PA., and BuildaBridge. Through the Mural Arts Program in Philadelphia, Kathryn painted a 7' x 500ft wide mural called Wall of Rugs: the global language of textiles at Girard and Belmont Avenues featuring the textiles of 42 countries. Part 2 (another 18 panels) was completed at Broad and Lehigh Streets. She was the lead artist with Josh Sarantitis, orchestrating weaving workshops at homeless shelters around Philadelphia for FINDING HOME, a textile mural project via the Mural Arts Program, that is at 13th & Ludlow Streets in Philadelphia. Along with colleagues, she’s continued the weaving studio that grew out of this project, now called Arts Street Textile Studio: handmade with the homeless. Kathryn exhibits locally, nationally and internationally, and has work in private and public collections. In the summer of 2010, she was in Canada doing an outdoor textile installation for the international textile arts event “When Thirteen Moons Entwine”. She is committed to the transformative power of art in people's lives and the sustainability of such transformation by involving the community.

See her featured on the cover/Spring 2009 issue of AMERICAN CRAFT.

Course: Methods Lab for Track 2