Taking fiber arts in a new direction

“Petal Pocket (Red),” a 2025 work utilizing kimono silk, denim, muslin, tulle, wire, thermoplastic and gold leaf, created by Natale Adgnot, will be displayed from May 30 through June 29. NATALE ADGNOT PHOTO

By NEAL RENTZ

Fiber artists use such materials as yarn, thread, and fabric in the creation of their works. Works made from those and other materials by dozens of artists will be on display at The Gallery at Yellow Studio in Cross River. 

The “Fiber Forward” exhibit, which will be held from May 30 through June 29, features work from female and non-binary artists. 

Tina Villaveces, founder and director of The Gallery at Yellow Studio, said recently she came up with the idea of “Fiber Forward” in January 2025 and began the open call for artworks in March 2026. 

“Over the years, I’ve met several fiber artists with interesting bodies of work, and I wanted to showcase their art in a focused and intentional way while also surveying what other artists across the field are creating,” Villaveces said. 

“The title, ‘Fiber Forward,’ was intended to elicit forward-thinking, boundary-pushing fiber submissions, artwork unlike anything you’ve seen before,” Villaveces said. 

Fiber art has become an important art form, Villaveces said. “I wanted to bring that conversation to Westchester for the collectors, art lovers, and engaged audiences here who deserve to see the full range of what artists are doing with thread, fabric, rope, and fibrous materials. The 38 artists in this exhibition work across sculpture, installation, embroidery, weaving, and mixed media, and their work addresses everything from the politics of women’s labor and memory to resilience, community, and material meaning.”

Through an open call, the exhibit drew nearly 200 submissions for the exhibit from the U.S. and abroad. Villaveces chose 56 pieces from 38 artists.

“What I was really looking for was a sense of innovation and experimentation, work that pushes the medium forward in some way, visually and conceptually,” she said. 

Villaveces said she hoped exhibit visitors would leave with a deeper understanding of what fiber art is today. “This is a medium with an enormous range, and I want people to experience that range firsthand, to encounter work that surprises them, challenges them, and introduces them to artists they may not have known before.”

“I also hope visitors leave feeling connected to the Yellow Studio community,” Villaveces said. “The gallery has always been about more than showing art. It is about building something, a place where artists and audiences come together, where conversations happen, and where people feel welcome. That is as much a part of what we offer as the work on the walls.”

“Fiber Forward” will participate in the Upstate Art Weekend, scheduled for June 25 through 29. The annual arts event brings together artists, galleries, and audiences from the Hudson Valley and Catskills every summer, Villaveces said, adding this will be the third year the gallery is participating in the event. “It is always one of the highlights of the gallery calendar,” she said. 

One of the artists participating in the exhibit is Natale Adgnot, who lives in Brooklyn and New Paltz. She has two artworks on display in “Fiber Forward.”The first piece from Adgnot is “Pocket Kakemono.” The textile wall sculpture was made from a western snap shirt, reclaimed kimono silk, cotton muslin, tulle, thermoplastic, and metal leaf on panel, she noted.

The second piece from Adgnot is “Petal Pocket (Red),” made from acrylic painted denim, reclaimed kimono silk, cotton muslin, tulle, wire, thermoplastic, and metal leaf on panel. 

Both are part of her series “Saddle Couturage,” Adgnot said. “The materials in the series are autobiographical and central to this body of work, a metaphor for my yearning to bridge cultural gaps in understanding,” she said.

Katrina Majkut of Pound Ridge is providing three of her DIY Counted Cross-stitch Kits artworks from the series “Stitch n’ Bitch.” The series consists of activist artworks that are “aiming to disrupt traditional craft store embroidery kits,” Majkut said.

“At any major craft store, embroidery kits exclusively promote conservative narratives and motifs that reinforce oppressive stereotypes of femininity, are void of professional and intellectual ambitions, promote limited ideas of domesticity and motherhood, and offer narrow opportunities for self-expression and exploration,” she said. 

Majkut said she is presenting the “Keep Free Expression in Circulation Kit,” a collaboration with the National Coalition Against Censorship, because she was censored in 2023 and made national news.

“While a seemingly benign medium, the craft’s biased messages and permanent placement in the home makes it a powerful influencer,” Majkut said. “The craftivist mission of the ‘Stitch n’ Bitch Project’ is to upend these visual and symbolic constraints. The project aims to modernize, democratize, and decolonize mass-produced/consumer-based embroidery kits by making them into diverse, inclusive, and creative social change outlets.”

The Yellow Studio is an important showcase for female artists, Majkut said. “The art world is still male dominated with them getting the majority of shows or their being no parity on a galleries roster; even being a mother-artist is still covertly not accepted,” she said. Majkut gave her thoughts on what she would like those visiting the exhibit to take away.

“Visitors will hopefully behold the power of textile art,” she said. “It’s not the passive, out of date and out of touch, gendered obsolescence of the past. There are women or non-binary artists taking radical risks and approaches to textile processes and the very identity of textiles.”

The opening reception for “Fiber Forward” is Saturday, May 30, from 4 to 6 p.m.

The Gallery at Yellow Studio is in Yellow Monkey Village, located at 792 Route 35, Cross River.