Fiber

Pauline Verbeek-Cowart, a native of the Netherlands, received her B.F.A. degree (1982) in fine art from the Maryland Institute and her M.F.A. degree in textile design from the University of Kansas (1995). After teaching at KU, she joined the faculty of the Kansas City Art Institute, where she has been developing the area of constructed textiles since 1997. She was on the board of the Surface Design Association and coordinated two (2000 and 2003) textile conferences, which took place on the campus of the Kansas City Art Institute. She is one of the leaders in the use of new technologies in hand-weaving and is actively researching Jacquard applications using industrial looms in The Netherlands and the US.

Most of her weavings span several feet in both directions and comment on the nature of woven surfaces. Through structure, material, image and/or surface treatments, she demonstrates that weaving is unique in building an image. Her industrially woven work crosses boundaries between Fine Art and applied textiles and is directed toward structurally textured fabrics for apparel as well as home-furnishings. Her work has been exhibited extensively in both national and international venues including France, Germany, Japan and Korea.

She is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, including the Kansas City Art Institute's Excellence in Teaching award (2007) and most recently the 2008 Kansas Arts Commission Master Fellowship. Her work is in private and corporate collections and has been featured in books and publications such as Fiberarts Design Book, American Craft Magazine, Fiberarts Magazine, Surface Design Journal, Shuttle Spindle & Dyepot and Textileforum.

Contact: 816-802-3342 or pcowart@kcai.edu

Kim Eichler-Messmer received her M.F.A. in textiles from the University of Kansas in 2007 and her B.F.A. in drawing and printmaking from Iowa State University in 2002. She was an artist in residence at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in Gatlinburg, Tenn., in 2007-2008. Her work has been exhibited nationally in shows such as Quilt Visions 2008 in San Diego, Art Quilts Elements in Wayne, Pa., and Fiber National 2007 in Lancaster, Pa.

Her large- and small-scale quilts for the wall are hand dyed and screen-printed. Her work is inspired by patterns and repetition in the natural world, in architecture, in music, in the routine of daily life and in the ebb and flow of time. Repeated imagery, frayed edges, translucent overlays and hand stitching are standard elements in her work.

Alison Heryer is an interdisciplinary artist whose work combines costume, performance, installation and community engagement. 

Heryer's collaborative work as a costume designer for theatre, film and print has been exhibited in venues, festivals and galleries across the globe, including Austin Museum of Modern Art; DODGE Gallery in New York; 808 Gallery in Boston; ZACH Theatre in Austin, Texas; Redmoon Theater in Chicago; Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago; The New Victory Theater in New York; and the Prague Quadrennial Exhibition of Performance Design and Space.

She is the co-founder of the nomadic dream project, an ongoing series of performance events that use costumed characters to transform people’s experience and perception of public spaces from their daily routine. Her self-produced events often explore narratives and intersections between found environments and the clothed form.

Heryer received an M.F.A. degree in theatrical design from The University of Texas at Austin and a B.F.A. degree in fashion design and history from Washington University in St. Louis. Recent recognitions include the Michael Philippi Emerging Designer Award in Chicago and the Austin Critics Table Award for Costume Design.

www.elhanson.com
 

Peggy Noland began her academic career studying religious studies at Rockhurst University in Kansas City, but soon changed her mind to pursue a decidedly different discipline: fashion.

For the last four years and counting, the self-taught designer sells her avant garde but playful line of clothing in her boutique, Peggy Noland Kansas City, located in the heart of Kansas City's Crossroads art district. Her store's environment is worth the trip alone, as visitors will find themselves engulfed in a giant cheeseburger, on a bed of poly-fill clouds or amidst giant green hands with hit pink fingernails depending on that month's installation. She is recognized as a leader in Kansas City's creative community. Pitch awarded Peggy a Mastermind Award in 2006, and she's a recipient of a Lighton International Artist Exchange Program grant.

Noland is consistently costuming collaboratively with Kansas City's own, SSION and Whoop Dee Doo, both headed by KCAI alumni.Although Noland is a fixture in her city's art scene, her clothing is also widely recognized outside of the Kansas City scope. National publications including The New York Times, Spin, Rolling Stone, Nylon, Missbehave, Lucky and XLR8R and international publications like Japanese Elle, British Elle, WWD, WGSN and Dazed and Confused have featured Noland's pieces. Her work will be published in three books in fall 2010. Noland was invited to lecture during Hallmark Cards Color Week for the Trends Department, and has had pop-up shops in Berlin and New York. In September 2010, Noland showed her latest collection during New York Fashion Week and exhibited at New York's The Hole gallery.

She maintains her largest clientele in Moscow and Tokyo via her retail website, peggynoland.com, and dresses a number of musicians - including Beth Ditto of the Gossip, Fischerspooner, Peaches, CSS and Tilly and the Wall.

Noland's clothing is featured in the video below in which Tilly and the Wall sing the ABCs on Sesame Street.

Noland designed the clothing worn by CSS in the Nike commercial below.

Maegan Stracy’s work is primarily informed by contemporary fashion, art history and textile traditions. Her most recent work highlights the impracticalities of the fashion world. Stracy conceives of accessories that are un-usable and garments that are inaccessible through material choice and investigations. By combining these practical forms with impractical packaging her work shows how unattainable the fashion world can be. Her work emphasizes the importance of branding and packaging in the fashion world but also relates to other aspects of consumerism.