August 21 – September 1, 2025 • Minnesota State Fairgrounds • Selections from A Common Thread 2024 and Fine Art/Fiber
Textile Center’s annual exhibit in the Creative Activities building features 13 artists from our A Common Thread 2024 member exhibition — another terrific collection showcasing the talent of our member artists.
A stop in the Creative Activities building is a must! With an enlarged footprint this year — extending exhibits all the way over to the education building and increasing the demo spaces with new upgrades — more fiber art is on display than ever. Plan time to look at the amazing array of projects made by Minnesotans, from the traditional to the functional to the outrageous — a testament to fiber art as one of our state’s most popular pastimes.
Then, stop by the Fine Arts Building to celebrate the growing presence of textiles and fiber art. We counted over 20 pieces that incorporate textile practices and materials into the finished work. Thanks to all who entered for raising the bar for fiber art in Minnesota!
2025 State Fair featured member artists:
Meg Duncan, Bee Garden
Mattie Ernst, Lace
Kim Hondel, Foraging the Forest Floor
Riley Kleve, Untitled Rainbow
Kris Livingston, Lake Bowl
Mary Lofgren, Nice Jacket
Kelly Meyer, Decomp
Reina Nielsen, Dutchman’s Breeches
Laura Nisi, Bauhaus Poppies
Lily Peterson, Coming Together After Loss
Alanna Stapleton, Don’t Wear Stripes
Monica Villars, Lokwa
Stella Williams, Heat (1995)
Congrats to IAH Q, the winner of the 2025 Textile Center Award for Excellence and Innovation in Fine Arts!
The work, The Past Holds Me, is beadwork on leather and was selected by Textile Center’s Education Manager Chloe Russell Chang.
On selecting the work, Chloe says, “The Past Holds Me contains many wonderful dualities, including references to the past and the present using traditional Ojibwe motifs in a contemporary interpretation. The work is both handwork and illustration, with depictions of berries, water lilies, containers, and the vase painstakingly stitched in hand-beadwork. I was particularly drawn to this work as a communion with personal history, in which an artist’s hands are capable of creating channels of communication through time.”
