Teachers' Biographies

Laurie Autio

Laurie has loved creating patterns on graph paper and computers since high school. She has been weaving since 1985. Her favorite weaving tool is her brain. With it and enough time, she can figure out almost anything (and if she can’t figure out a problem, can use it to tap an appropriate supply of cuss words). Without it she is lost (literally). Her second favorite tool is an extension of the first - her Fiberworks drafting program. It allows the favorite tool to work more efficiently and expand its horizons.

Laurie earned her master weaver certificate from Hill Institute, is a Past President of Complex Weavers, Pioneer Valley Weavers, and Weavers of Western MA. She is also a past Dean of WGB (2008-2010) and current WGB Bulletin Editor. She enjoys teaching, writing, and weaving challenges of various types. Her looms range from 4 to 32 shafts, and are often occupied by lace weaves with designs influenced by her time spent studying geology.

Anastasia Azure

Anastasia combines ancient weaving, traditional metalsmithing and contemporary materials to create dimensionally woven art. Her jewelry training began at the Revere Academy of Jewelry Arts in San Francisco. While earning her BFA in Jewelry Metal Arts from California College of the Arts, she discovered weaving’s immense importance to her life’s work under the tutelage of Lia Cook. She dedicated a three-year residency at the Appalachian Center for Craft in Tennessee to the development of original dimensional-weave jewelry. Her art has won many awards, most recently the 2010 Niche Award for Handwoven Fibers. Her wearable sculpture is featured on the cover of 500 Plastic Jewelry Designs published by Lark Books.

This October, Anastasia’s work will be featured at the Museum of Arts and Design, in New York City, as part of their juried exhibition and sale of one-of-a-kind contemporary art jewelry. Presently, she resides in Providence, RI where she has just completed her MFA in Textiles at the Rhode Island School of Design. Visit Anastasia's Website to see more of her work.

Jane Dumais

Jane Dumais has been weaving since 1996 and raised sheep for 15 years. She is drawn to all things fiber related. In the late 1990s Rodrick Owen taught a one day kumihimo class at the American Textile History Museum. His photos of cords and braids being used for jewelry caught Jane’s attention. Since then she has taken more classes with Rodrick and three workshops with Japanese master Makiko Tada who occasionally visits the United States. Jane learned the Kusari-Yatsu-gumi with beads technique from Makiko. In addition to being the person who brought you coffee over the past year, Jane has been very active in NHWG and NEWS.

Catharine Ellis

Catharine taught the Professional Fiber Program at Haywood Community College for 30 years before retiring in 2008. She is now devoted to studio work and teaching a limited number of workshops. Her original training was in traditional woven techniques, which led her to weave functional fabrics for many years, often incorporating ikat resist dyeing. More recently, her career has been defined by the discovery and exploration of the woven shibori process.

In Catherine's words,

“Woven shibori has challenged all that I know about weaving and has led me to investigate new materials, resists, dyes and finishing processes. The fabrics I have produced include combinations of dyed cellulose fibers, wool felting and resist, permanent shaping with thermoplastics, and woven steel with heat treatment. Continued exploration of woven shibori and its applications will define and my guide my work for many years to come.”

Jayne Flanagan

Jayne has been spinning, weaving, and a member of several New England fiber guilds since the early 1970s. She has taught at WGB, NHWG, Moonlight, Southern Maine Guild, NHA, Mainely Weavers, and NEWS. She is also a Past President of NEWS. She holds an Apprentice Rating from WGB, and Apprentice and Journeyman 1 Ratings from NHWG. Jayne is currently the WGB Corresponding Secretary after a long stint as membership chair. Her parliamentary skills have served the guild (and many other organizations) in several capacities, while her sense of humor keeps us in stitches. Over the years, lots of sampling has produced many pieces of leftover handwoven fabric, large and small, and she is always looking for useful ways to use every last scrap.

Chriztine Foltz

Chriztine studied textiles at the Danish Design College in Copenhagen, Denmark. During the 1980s, she designed woven fabrics for the home furnishing industry in NYC. For the past eleven years she has taught textile classes (advanced weaving, painted warps, felting, etc.) on the college level at the Worcester Center for Crafts and other places. Chriztine is also a textile prototype designer for various engineering companies, helping to solve weaving and clothing design problems for the military and medical fields. Recently she began work on an MFA in Interdisciplinary Art, working with e-textiles.

Judy Goodwin

Judy has been teaching fiber arts since the late 1980s. She spins, knits, and weaves, and has a small knitting store/studio in Hanson, MA with yarns, fiber, books, looms, wheels, and knitting machines. She began spinning in the early 1990s and belong to several area guilds. Judy enjoys demonstrating spinning and weaving whenever the opportunity presents itself.

Peggy Hart

Peggy Hart is the owner of Bedfellows Blankets. She does all of her weaving on 1940s industrial woolen looms from New England mills. Peggy came to this process after twenty years of handspinning, handweaving, and plant dying. Her blanket design influences are traditional but eclectic, informed by textiles around the world. Many designs have a distinct African influence. She majored in African History in College, worked two years setting up and running a handspinning and weaving cottage industry as a peace Corps volunteer in Kenya, and later lived in Ghana with her Family.

After returning from Kenya in 1978, Peggy studied industrial textile design at the Rhode Island School of Design. She worked in a textile mill for a while to learn how to operate power looms. She now lives in Western Massachusetts and works in a barn full of antique weaving and braiding machinery, producing and marketing hundreds of blankets each year. Peggy also weaves custom blankets for sheep and alpaca farmers, working with each farmer to create a unique design using their own yarn.

Adele Harvey

Adele Harvey learned to knit as a young child growing up in Hungary. Knitting was taught as a common sense endeavor, not something to be followed from recipes or instructions. Knitting has always had a place in her creative life. In 1990 Adele was a co-author on the first WGB Monograph: 17th Century Knitting Patterns. Recently her weaving with handspun shifu (paper) weft has won several awards. Additionally, Adele is a past Dean of WGB (1986-1988), currently serves on the board as Awards Chair, and has been active at NEWS.

Nancy Hodes

Nancy Hodes’ love affair with fiber started when she was about eight years old, when her aunt taught her how to knit. Her first project was a pair of argyle socks and she has been addicted ever since. Over the years Nancy has done a lot of hand work including knitting, needlepoint, and quilting. Then, nearly fifteen years ago she learned to weave and all else faded in comparison. Nancy started weaving by taking classes at the Worcester Center for Crafts, with Rita Steinbach as the teacher . Nancy says, “She opened a whole new world for me, I became a member of the Weavers Guild of Boston, and as they say, the rest is history!” Nancy is the current WGB Dean and NEWS rep, and has been active in many aspects of the guild volunteer work.

Christine Jeryan

A 30-year interest in textiles has led Chris Jeryan to the study of tartan weaving, fabric finishing, double weaves, historic American textiles, 19thcentury rugs, and more. She has spent her career in Museum Services, scientific research, writing, and editing, and a myriad of special projects. She is a member of the Board of Directors of the National Museum of the American Coverlet in Bedford, PA. Chris currently volunteers at The Henry Ford/Greenfield Village where she is the textile historian and performs a wide range of genealogical and archival research work. She also assists with the training of museum presenters, dressing the looms for weaving, and demonstrating weaving to the public.

Richard Jeryan

Richard Jeryan has been a hand weaver since the early 1980s. He is retired from Ford Motor Company where he conducted research in the use of woven and braided glass and carbon fiber reinforced polymers for the structures of Formula One race cars, America’s Cup yachts, and cars and trucks produced by Ford. As a volunteer, he is the weaving master at The Henry Ford/Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan and has restored and demonstrates their Jacquard loom. He is currently preparing to restore the Museum’s horsehair loom originally used at the Pawtucket Horse Cloth Company in Rhode Island. Richard weaves extensively at home, at a local art studio, and at Greenfield Village. He is the Secretary and Archivist of the Board of Directors of Complex Weavers and the Vice-President of the Board of Directors of the National Museum of the American Coverlet in Bedford, PA.

John Kreifeldt

John Kreifeldt was born in Manistee, Michigan on the shores of beautiful Lake Michigan and holds a B.S. in engineering from UCLA, an M.S. and E.E. from MIT and a PH.D. in Electrical Engineering from Case Western Reserve. He began teaching engineering in 1969 at Tufts University and retired as an emeritus professor of engineering design in 2001. He has consulted for many years for law firms, corporations and US and foreign government agencies on product design as well as lecturing on it abroad as well. His research ranged from new air traffic control systems and methods for the NASA, x-ray radiation cancer treatment machines and everyday consumer products. He holds patents including those for the original REACH toothbrush. Weaving Guild.

A collector of American Indian and tribal art for many years, he began collecting these textiles on sabbatical in Borneo in 1997 and has written and lectured about them in the US and abroad. It’s an obsession. His sister Janet Baucom is a member of the Hudson Mohawk Weaving Guild.

Scott Norris

Scott Norris is an experienced linen weaver, dyer, and instructor. He has been weaving for nearly 20 years, and has worked exclusively with his own dyed linen for the past 5 years. In addition to classes on linen weaving and linen dyeing, he has taught many classes and workshops for beginning, intermediate, and advanced weavers, on subjects that range from winding a warp and dressing a loom to 8-harness huck design, finger-manipulated laces, and the production of tablecloths.

Scott has been published in several weaving magazines and craft publications including March/April 2011 Handwoven, American Craft, and Ceramics Monthly. Visit Elam's Widow Website for examples of Scott's work

Barbara Provest

Barbara Provest has been reading weaving books and weaving since 1970. She purchased her first spinning wheel in 1959. She bought her first antique swift and clock reel when she was 12. Her mother saved her first piece of weaving from the sixth grade. She was the crafts counselor at her father’s boys camp for seven years. She took many years of classes from Jean Bacon with the Nobscot Weavers and joined WGB to participate in further classes and to take full advantage of our library.

Thoroughly trained by the Guild classes, lectures and special workshops, she teaches our Guild classes at Kirkside. Having achieved the Apprentice and Journeyman rating, she is now studying and weaving for her Master Weaver rating. Under our “Outreach Program” Barbara started classes for disabled weavers by setting up a weaving studio at the Walnut Street Center in Somerville, Ma. She regularly visits weavers in their homes to help warp up their looms. She has studied at SAORI Worcester to understand the Japanese looms that are so convenient for the disabled. Barbara loves to “pass along” the arts of weaving and spinning to the future generations and participates in a lot of shows and fairs to catch the eye of potential future weavers where she passes out WGB membership applications. She works with the American History Textile Museum for the children’s Colonial Days programs and teaches weaving classes there. She gives thanks to the WGB and the Boston Area Spinners and Dyers for all she has learned. Did we mention that she has a loom (or two) in every room and a spinning wheel too?

Paula Taggart

Paula Taggart’s interest in sewing developed in 4-H Clubs leading to a major in Home Economics at Russell Sage College followed by 29 years of teaching Family and Consumer Sciences.

Marjie Thompson

Marjie Thompson enjoys being “stuck’ in the pre-20th century weaving world. Her focus is the textiles produced both at home and by the professional weavers. Marjie enjoys adapting these weaves to contemporary colors and uses. She is the coordinator of the Complex Weavers “Early Weaving Books and Manuscripts” study group, past president of NEWS, a past Dean of WGB (1996-1998), past president of Complex Weavers, an active guild member Weavers’ Guild of Boston, NH Weavers’ Guild, and a member of many study groups including Cross Country Weavers.

Her woven pieces have received the HGA award, Handwoven’s Weaving for the Home Award, and Marjie is one of a handful of weavers awarded the “Weaver of Distinction” title from NEWS in both the gallery and fashion shows. She is the coauthor of Forgotten Pennsylvania Textiles of the 18th and 19th Centuries, The Huck Pattern Collection, Miniature Patterns for Weaving by Josephine Estes, and the editor of The Gartner Manuscript. Her articles have appeared in Weavers, Handwoven, Complex Weavers Journal, Shuttle, Spindle, & Dyepot, and The Spinning Wheel Sleuth’s Loom Supplement.

Deborah Watson

While she loves everything from Andean backstrap weaving to weaving with fine linen, Deb Watson especially enjoys weaving rugs. She learned basic rug weaving techniques in a WGB workshop with Connie Kindahl and took several workshops with Peter Collingwood at Harrisville Designs when Peter was still teaching there. After his workshop on block weaves she bought a shaft-switcher for her Cranbrook loom and has focused on making 3-end block weave rugs with shaft-switching.

Deb has won several awards at NEWS for her rugs and Best of Show in Handwoven’s Synchronized Swatches contest in 2008 for her rug and matching table runner. Deb is a past Dean of WGB (1992-1994)and has held many guild jobs, including her current position as Nominating Chair. In 2011 she became the 67th WGB Master weaver.