Saturday, October 25 | 9am - 4pm
Tuition: $125, [Member Rate: $110] + $40 materials fee
Join textile artist Shea for an immersive one-day workshop exploring the intersection of place, water, and textile arts. Participants will create a beautiful 6" x 6" textile map featuring the waterways of the Mississippi River near the Minnesota Marine Art Museum, using accessible stencil techniques that can be replicated at home.
Through storytelling and hands-on textile techniques, you'll explore:
Color theory and design composition principles
Appliqué and hand sewing methods
Stencil-based textile mapping techniques
Professional finishing methods for mounting textile art to canvas
You'll complete: One finished 6" x 6" map-based textile piece stretched to canvas, ready to display in your home.
This workshop specifically celebrates the Upper Mississippi region, using map templates of the Mississippi River waterways surrounding the Minnesota Marine Art Museum. As participants work with these local waterways, they'll develop a deeper connection to the water that shapes our region and artistic traditions.
This workshop is suitable for participants with basic sewing knowledge, including familiarity with using a sewing machine. All skill levels welcome - from confident beginners to experienced sewers looking to explore new techniques.
What's Included
All materials and supplies
Mississippi River map templates
Professional instruction and guidance
6" x 6" canvas for mounting your finished piece
What to Bring
Your own sewing machine (or rent one for an additional $30 - limited availability)
Basic sewing supplies (needles, scissors, pins)
Enthusiasm for exploring textile arts and water connections!
About the instructor:
Shea is from Milwaukee on the shores of Lake Michigan where her body grew to orient towards water. Milwaukee is also the place where she began learning of injustice and this initiated their journey as an activist, community organizer, and water protector. As a textile artist, Shea uses fabric to tell stories of place and self as a way of processing the complexities of this beautiful, devastating world.
While Shea’s work is based in traditional quilting practices, she incorporates innovative techniques into her art. Her smaller art pieces take a unique approach by using a machine to precisely cut fabric layers which are then sewn together into topographic maps. These place-based pieces seek to connect people to the times, places, and experience that give them a feeling of belonging and connection and draw upon Shea’s love of adventure and background in water science. Shea’s larger works also seek to incorporate values of rest and self-care as a radical act of resistance through the comfort and security that handmade quilts provide. Today Shea lives along the western shores of Lake Superior and identifies as a queer woman, parent, adventurer, abolitionist, water protector, and dreamer.
