Faig Ahmed was born in Sumqayit, and lives and works in Baku, Azerbaijan. Ahmed graduated from the sculpture department of Azerbaijan State Academy of Fine Arts in 2004. He represented Azerbaijan at the nation’s inaugural pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2007. Ahmed has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions worldwide; his works are held in public collections at the Art Institute of Chicago; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Seattle Art Museum; RISD Museum (Providence, RI); Chrysler Museum of Art (Norfolk, VA); Bargoin Museum (Clermont-Ferrand, France); MOCAK Museum of Contemporary Art (Kraków, Poland); the National Gallery of Victoria (Melbourne, Australia); Arsenal Contemporary Art (Montreal, Canada); and Istanbul Modern, among others. 

 https://faigahmed.com/

April Bey grew up in The Bahamas and now resides in Los Angeles, where she works as a visual artist and professor at Glendale Community College. Bey received a BFA in drawing from Ball State University and an MFA in painting from California State University, Northridge. Bey’s work is in the collections of the California African American Museum (Los Angeles); the National Art Gallery of The Bahamas; the Center for Contemporary Printmaking (Norwalk, CT); Fullerton College Art Gallery (Fullerton, CA); the Museum of Art and History (Lancaster, CA), and others. Bey has exhibited widely in the United States, as well as in three biennials in The Bahamas and in Italy, Spain, and Accra, Ghana. 

https://www.april-bey.com/

Jovencio de la Paz was born in Singapore and lives and works in Eugene, Oregon. De la Paz received a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art, Department of Fiber. Currently an associate professor and curricular head of fibers at the University of Oregon, de la Paz has exhibited work in solo and group exhibitions both nationally and internationally, most recently at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver; Museum of Contemporary Craft (Portland, OR); The Sculpture Center (Cleveland, OH); Hyde Park Art Center (Chicago); and Uri Gallery (Seoul, South Korea), among others. In 2022, de la Paz was named a USA Artists Fellow for their significant contributions to the field of craft.

https://jovenciodelapaz.org/

Ahree Lee, born in Seoul, South Korea, is a multidisciplinary artist working in video, new media, and textiles. Lee lives and works in Los Angeles, and received her BA from Yale University and her MFA from the Yale School of Art. She has received commissions from the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, the Irish Museum of Modern Art, and Sundance Channel, among others. Her work has been featured in Hyperallergic, Metropolis, and Fast Company.

https://www.ahreelee.com/

Kayla Mattes is a visual artist who was born in California and lives and works in Los Angeles. Mattes earned a BFA from Rhode Island School of Design and an MFA from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Recent exhibitions include Asia Art Center (Taipei, Taiwan), Richard Heller Gallery (Los Angeles), and Collaborations (Copenhagen, Denmark). Mattes’s work is held in the DeWoody, Progressive, and Meta Open Arts collections, among others. Her work has been featured in New American Paintings, i-D, and It’s Nice That, and appears in the book Weaving: Contemporary Makers on the Loom (Ludion, 2018).

https://kaylamattes.com/

Shelley Socolofsky was born in the United States and lives and works in Portland, Oregon, where she is on the faculty of Portland State University’s School of Art + Design. Socolofsky holds a BFA from the Manufacture des Gobelins (France) and MFA degrees from the University of Oregon and the Fondazione Arte Della Seta (Italy). Select exhibitions include the Milieux Institute for Arts, Culture, and Technology (Montreal, Quebec); the New Hampshire Institute of Art (Manchester, NH); the Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts (Grand Rapids, MI); Sarratt Gallery at Vanderbilt University (Nashville, TN); and the San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles (San Jose, CA). Socolofsky has been awarded residencies and fellowships from the Civita di Bagnoregio (Italy), the Jacquard Center (Hendersonville, NC), Fondazione Arte Della Seta, and Manufacture des Gobelins,
among others. 

https://www.shelleysocolofsky.com/

Joan Truckenbrod was born in North Carolina, raised in Chicago, and now lives and works in Corvallis, Oregon. She is professor emeritus in the Art and Technology Studies department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she received an MFA. Truckenbrod’s work has been exhibited at the Wright Museum of Art at Beloit College (Beloit, WI), Intermedia Arts (Minneapolis, MN), and in solo exhibitions in Paris, London, Chicago, and Berlin. Public collections include the Whitney Museum of American Art (New York), the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Victoria and Albert Museum (London).

https://joantruckenbrod.com/

Vo Vo is a Vietnamese artist from Aotearoa (the Māori-language name for New Zealand) who lives and works in Portland, Oregon. Vo has been a radical educator for thirteen years and has worked in more than twenty countries, teaching racial justice, intercultural communication, trauma-informed care, de-escalation, and transformative justice. As a speaker, curator, artist, and musician, Vo has exhibited and toured globally. Vo curates IntersectFest: A Festival for and by People of Color, now in its sixth year. In their recently initiated career as a visual artist, Vo has worked primarily in textiles, embroidery, weaving, and furniture building, and has participated in exhibitions and residencies in Portland, Oregon; Saskatchewan, Canada; and Cleveland, Ohio.

http://vovovovo.weebly.com/

Sarah Wertzberger was born in Lawrence, Kansas, and now works as a textile artist, designer, and educator in Portland, Oregon. Wertzberger received her BFA in painting from the Maryland Institute College of Art and her MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design. Solo exhibitions include Holding Contemporary (Portland, OR) and Heath Ceramics (San Francisco). Wertzberger has received an Oregon Arts Commission Career Opportunity Grant and an Individual Artist Fellowship. She is currently a mentor in PNCA’s Applied Craft and Design program.

http://www.sarahwertzberger.com/

Shannon Stratton is a writer, curator and artist with a focus on expanded concepts of craft. She is one of three recipients of the 2022 Lois Moran Award for Craft Writing. She is based in Chicago where she is Executive Director of the Ox-Bow School of Art and the Director of the Post-Baccalaureate Certificate in Painting & Drawing at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.