RSVP to the 30th Year Luncheon + 2024 Spun Gold Awards

Tickets are now on sale for the Textile Center’s 30th Year Luncheon and 2024 Spun Gold Awards, set for Thursday, November 14, 2024, at Textile Center. This festive “reunion” event will be an opportunity to spend time with fiber art friends, and to celebrate a new cohort of Spun Gold Award honorees: Rose Allen, Mary Anne Wise, and Jody Slocum.

We invite you to join us for an Autumnal Harvest Soup bar with breads, savory treats, and plenty of time for relaxed conversation and connection. This event runs from 11 am to 2 pm, and lunch will be served at 12 noon, followed by the Spun Gold Awards presentations.

If you would like to be seated next to someone or with a group, please email Stella at swilliams@textilecentermn.org and we will do our best to seat you together.

Please RSVP by Monday, November 11. A $15 contribution to cover the costs for the luncheon is appreciated, but please contribute what you are able to.

Congrats to our 2024 Spun Gold Award Winners!
Rose Allen, Mary Anne Wise, and Jody Slocum

Rose Allen has deep roots in the Twin Cities fiber arts and quilting scene, with decades of involvement (since the 70’s!) spanning organizations from the Weavers Guild of MN, Minnesota Quilters, Inc., Evergreen Quilters, Minnesota Contemporary Quilters, Minneapolis Modern Quilters, and, of course, to Textile Center. She has served as co-president of Minnesota Contemporary Quilters, taught hundreds of students in quilting classes over the years, and twice co-coordinated the Minnesota Quilters, Inc. annual state-wide quilt show. Her quilts have been exhibited in numerous quilt and fiber art shows, and she remains an active quilter, working daily in her studio making quilts for sale and display. During COVID, she made thousands of cloth masks, offering them for free to anyone who wanted one. Monetary donations that came in for these masks were given to a local food shelf. Allen continues to generously donate her work to non-profits where the money raised is used for programs, supplies, and services for women and children experiencing hunger and homelessness. In addition, she contributes her time and expertise to quilt projects that others have pieced or appliqued for charitable purposes.

Individually and together, Mary Anne Wise and Jody Slocum have lived and championed the lives of textile artists and artisans and appreciators. Prior to founding Cultural Cloth, Wise was nationally recognized as an accomplished weaver, inspired creator of one-of-a-kind hooked rugs, and, as a rug hooking design teacher. Her work is in numerous corporate and private collections throughout the US. Slocum spent two decades focused on her own textile artistry and doing NGO work in Guatemala.

In 2009, Wise and Slocum founded Cultural Cloth, a social enterprise in Maiden Rock, Wisconsin, dedicated to selling handmade home décor and accessories from artisans around the world. Wise and Slocum have traveled extensively, offering workshops, technical support, and business and design skills to promote the work of textile artisans from more than 30 countries — primarily women — helping them to develop, market, and sell their handmade products. As curators and visionary advocates for indigenous textile traditions around the world, they focus on work that supports economic independence to lift up and sustain the livelihoods of thousands of women. Although they have recently sold the business, Wise and Slocum remain involved, curating collections and maintaining client relationships.

In 2014, along with Cheryl Conway-Daly and Reyna Isabel Pretzantzin, they founded the Multicolores collective in Guatemala, a project celebrated in Wise and Conway-Daly’s book, Rug MoneyHow A Group of Maya Women Changed Their Lives Through Art and Innovation. Slocum continues to organize annual tours to Guatemala on behalf of Farmer to Farmer, a non-profit based in Western Wisconsin since 2004, and Multicolores Rug Hooking Tours since 2012.  Together, they have supported and led Textile Center tours to Guatemala, including the October 2024 trip led by Slocum. Their advice, wisdom, and mentorship have initiated and cultivated numerous relationships, far and wide, including introducing international artists from Multicolores, SIDR Craft, and Sufiyan Khatri studio to Textile Center.

Past Spun Gold Winners:

1999
Paul O’Connor – Weaver
Ellen Wells – Textile Art International Gallery Owner
Elsa Sreenivasam – Artist & Teacher
Margot Siegel – Fashion Reporter

2000
Helen Kelly – Quilter
LaVern Bell – Sewer & Teacher
Homa Amir-Fazli – Teacher

2001
Charlene Burningham – Beader, Weaver, Quilter & Teacher

2002
Gladys Raschka – Quilter

2003
Lila Nelson – Weaver

2004
Walter Nottingham – Teacher
Ruth Waukazo – Beader & Teacher

2005
Gini Corrick – Surface Design & Clothing Design

2006
LaVonne Horner – Quilter
Marliss Jensen – Master Dyer & Surface Design
Lotus Stack – MIA Textile Curator
Nancy MacKenzie – Artwear & 3D Sculpture

2007
Anna Smits – Weaver & Teacher
Wilma Gary – Quilter
Thelma Buckner – Quilter

2008
Donna Pauley – Needleworker
Joan Skalbeck – Dyer
Karen Searle – Knitter, Teacher & Publisher

2009
Norma Kenny – Quilter
Mary Temple – Weaver & Teacher

2010
Marj Ford Sethna – Weaver

2011
Susan Stein – Quilter
Diane Fitzgerald – Beader

2012
Paula Pfaff – Weaver
Margaret Miller – Weaver & Founding Textile Center Executive Director

2013
Becka Rahn – Surface Design & Teacher

2020
Carolyn Halliday – Knitter, Teacher, and founding member of Textile Center’s National Artist Advisory Council
Nancy Mambi – Textile Center Librarian
Mary Skoy – Weaver & Teacher
Ginny Smith – Owner of Ginny’s Fine Fabrics

2021
Carolyn L. Mazloomi – Historian, curator, author, lecturer, quilter, mentor, founder of Women of Color Quilters Network, and founding member of Textile Center’s National Artist Advisory Council