Like all great arts, textiles recreate our visiton of the world. We hold them up as exemplars of skill, ingenuity, creativity, and ambition. Textiles are poetic metaphors woven from ideas just as much as they are physical items woven from fibres.

Joy Boutrup is a textile engineer, chemist, and historian from Denmark. Catharine Ellis is a textile artist from North Carolina who specializes in combining weaving and dyeing. They first met at Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina. They have worked and taught collaboratively for many years.

In this lecture Amy Putansu will discuss how notions of spirituality have influenced her own hand-woven artwork. Inspired by Buddhism, Zen design precepts, and the minimalist art movement, Amy presents a powerful way to reimagine textiles as an invitation to the divine.

Traditional ajrakh block printing is one of the most iconic crafts to survive into the twenty-first century. But ajrahk, as practiced by the Khatris of the Kachchh Desert, has done much more than just survive; it has flourished and expanded to become a craft with a keen sense of tradition and a vision for how this tradition can be taken into the future by a new generation of ajrakh artisans.

Aya Matsunaga is a Japanese textile artist who tempered her formal studies by moving to Nottingham, England and embracing the UK fibre art scene of the 1990s.

When leading natural dye expert Michel Garcia goes into a garden, what does he see? He sees botanical strategies for survival that often give new insights into dye procedures and methods.

When leading natural dye expert Michel Garcia goes into a garden, what does he see? He sees botanical strategies for survival that often give new insights into dye procedures and methods.

For over thirty years Susan Shie has been producing art on cloth that mixes the personal and the political. Her distinct method of working combines narrative, drawing, and writing into large-format, highly graphic art quilts. Her imagery combines the immediacy of street-art with the depth of personal journal keeping. In this lecture Susan will talk about how her work has developed over her lifetime. Beginning with narrative interests in art-making from childhood, she incorporated new techniques during college and grad school and has refined her approach throughout her professional art career. Her processes have shifted as she added sewing to her painting as a feminist choice. In the end, her life’s work is a body of stories of the life around her—an ongoing series of illustrations of how art and life can be one.

On October 5, 2015, Barbara Todd delivered her lecture, "Stone Drawings and Quilted Lines" or "One Day Tells Its Tale To Another." to a full house at the Maiwa School of Textiles.

Jenny Balfour Paul tells her story of tracing the life of unknown explorer Thomas Machell. Indigo planter, writer, illustrator, and adventurer.

Each member of our panel has carved a road in the wilderness. It is not easy to walk off the map, but they have all done it, struck out alone to follow a path as unknown to themselves as it was to others. And then something happens ...

Each member of our panel has carved a road in the wilderness. It is not easy to walk off the map, but they have all done it, struck out alone to follow a path as unknown to themselves as it was to others. And then something happens ...

Each member of our panel has carved a road in the wilderness. It is not easy to walk off the map, but they have all done it, struck out alone to follow a path as unknown to themselves as it was to others. And then something happens ...

The Artisan's Alliance of Jawaja make their presentation to a Vancouver audience at the Maiwa Textile Symposium via Skype.

Inspired by both the colour and the plant, the Lamberts created Bleu de Lectoure in 1994. Soon their lives were given up to woad. It took more than two years working with chemists from the University of Toulouse to uncover the original fermentation, extraction, and dyeing processes. In an antiques store one day, fate helped them out. They stumbled upon a notebook that belonged to Napoleon’s chemist.

Join Michel Garcia as he leads us on a walk through the garden of natural dye plants, explaining the motivation and origins of this project, how it has evolved, new challenges faced, and what the future holds.

Join Michel Garcia as he leads us on a walk through the garden of natural dye plants, explaining the motivation and origins of this project, how it has evolved, new challenges faced, and what the future holds.

In part two, Ashoke Chatterjee presents the remainder of his lecture and answers questions from the audience. Part one contained the visiual and the first part of Mr. Chatterjee's presentation. Part two is audio only. Mr. Chatterjee presented his lecture via satallite from Ahmedabad, India

In part one Charllotte Kwon introduces Ashoke Chatterjee and explains the application process for a Canadian visa (Mr. Chatterjee, an Indian dignitary with flawless credentials was denied a visa to visit Canada). Ashoke presents the first part of his lecture with visuals via an internet connection to our Vancouver audience.

In part three Rosemary Crill explores India's trade with the west as the focus shifted from printed cottons to muslins and Kashmir shawls. She concludes her lecture by answering some questions from the audience.