October is Portland Textile Month, celebrating fiber arts from costumes to sculptures

"Keep Growing," a tufted installation by fiber artist Felicia Murray is at Gallery Go Go, 700 S.W. 5th Ave. Second Floor in Portland Oct. 2-30.
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For the fifth time, the annual Portland TextileX Month Festival will brighten spaces and open up studios throughout October to display a wide variety of fiber creations, from fine art to fashion.

Weaving together the 40 original programs — artist talks and workshops, community projects and studio sales — is the festival’s mission: To build community and foster cross pollination among textile enthusiasts, artists, businesses, schools and cultural organizations.

This year’s theme: Regeneration. To regrow, be renewed or be restored, especially after being damaged or lost.

Caleb Sayan of Portland’s Textile Hive, who founded the Portland TextileX Month Festival, says, “It is fascinating to see how each weaver, sculptor, embroiderist, tufter and textile practitioners of every stripe is engaging with the theme of Regeneration.”

He found that some artists expressed that their craft practice makes them feel rejuvenated. Working creatively restores and re-centers them.

Others look to regenerate an entire art form or cultural practice as a way to build regenerative community practices, he says.

Andrea Aranow is seen her with her son, Caleb Sayan, and some of her collection at Textile Hive in downtown Portland.

Sayan is on a personal journey of regeneration. His famous mother, Andrea Aranow, who traveled the world to study culturally significant fabrics, died at age 76 last year.

“How do you preserve, honor and carry forward the legacy and life’s work of a fashion and textile collecting pioneer?” Sayan will ask Portland TextileX Month supporters on Oct. 27 at Textile Hive in downtown Portland.

He will explain that his years-long plan is to gather his mother’s research notes, field slides and irreplaceable textiles in one place to exhibit now and maintain for future generations.

The Andrea Aranow Textile Research Center will be established at Textile Hive, which already has the largest digitized independent textile collection in the world.

The collection is invaluable to designers and educators who study historic colors, textures and patterns.

Aranow’s inventive fashion creations — she dressed guitarist Jimi Hendrix in snakeskin bell bottoms a half-century ago — continue to inspire new looks and influence leaders in footwear, upholstery and other trend-setting industries.

Portland TextileX Month events

On Oct. 1, Kate Blairstone and Lane Hunter will show off the collaborative installation in Cargo’s Textile Room.

Four free Saturday events, called Vibrant Spaces, start Oct. 1 at Cargo in Southeast Portland, followed on Oct. 8 at the Portland Garment Factory in Southeast Portland, Oct. 22 at Albina Green Park in North Portland and Oct. 29 at Focus Group Vintage in Southeast Portland.

At Cargo, fabric artists will display their works, representatives from Altar Apparel, Appetite Studio and Herbivore Clothing will discuss ethical production of textile products, and members of Ko-Falen will give a presentation on the Malian mudcloth process.

On Oct. 8, there will be a tour of the Portland Garment Factory's new creative design and fabrication studio, and viewing of a large-scale community weaving project.

At the Portland Garment Factory, after a tour of the new creative design and fabrication studio, rebuilt after a fire, artist, costume designer and filmmaker Fuchsia Lin will speak about her stunning designs for the Oregon Ballet Theatre.

Some of Portland TextileX Month’s events are free; others have a fee. See the complete list of offerings and register at textilex.org.

Here are more highlights of 2022 Portland TextileX Month:

The Blooming Feast by Youkyung Woo is at Woonwinkel Sept. 30 through Oct. 31.

Sept. 30-Oct. 31: The Blooming Feast by Youkyung Woo at Woonwinkel is an installation of colorful, tufted textile art created with recycled wool, cotton and nylon yarns (free, 935 S.W. Washington St.).

Material Memory by Francesca Capone is at Nationale Oct. 7 through Nov. 10.

Oct. 7-Nov. 10: Material Memory by Francesca Capone at Nationale shows a series of visual and tactile objects, made from fabric that carries history from former lives and that take on new identities and narratives by being put back together (free, 15 S.E. 22nd Ave.)

During a free, virtual lecture on Oct. 11, Tali Weinberg explains that she transformed tourniquets into tree rings.

Oct: 11: TextileX Talk is a free, virtual lecture with artist Tali Weinberg exploring life-sustaining circulatory systems, from lungs and arteries to forests and watersheds. Responding to intertwined climate and health crises, she transformed tourniquets into tree rings, coiled color-coded climate data around medical tubing and wove trees out of plastic into lung-like forms.

Aradhita Parasrampuria works with regenerative natural resources like algae as she will explain on Oct. 18.

Oct. 18: TextileX Talk: Aradhita Parasrampuria. Determined to reverse the effects of water pollution, ecological textile designer Parasrampuria works with regenerative natural resources like algae to create interactive biodegradable embellishments that sequester carbon and maintain healthy ecosystems (free, virtual lecture).

Multimedia artist Kindra Crick offers an imagined vision of the spectacular biological machinery at the core of memories, sensations, thoughts and essential sense of self on Oct. 21.

Oct. 21: Embracing Connections Workshop by Kindra Crick at Place landscape and urban design. Multimedia artist Crick offers an imagined vision of the spectacular biological machinery at the core of memories, sensations, thoughts and the essential sense of self (free, 735 N.W. 18th Ave.).

Oct. 23: Art & Dialog Indonesia: The Regeneration Generation invites a group of emerging artists and designers to reflect on the issues and vision of their generation and the ways they wish to shape the future (free, virtual panel).

— Janet Eastman | 503-294-4072

jeastman@oregonian.com | @janeteastman

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• Fall’s visual arts shows feature Native perspectives, new respect for textiles

• Portland’s Textile Hive fabric library was started by the designer of Jimi Hendrix’s snakeskin suit

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