Intermountain Weavers Conference 2025
I’ve attended IWC as a student (took Deborah Corsini’s wonderful wedge weave class) and taught there once before. Right off I want to give HUGE KUDOS to all the organizers and volunteers at IWC who pulled off another wonderful conference last week in Albuquerque! This was a great experience for me and also for students and other workshop leaders as well. The icing on the cake for tapestry artists was that master weaver Elizabeth Buckley was the keynote speaker. And the icing on the icing, for me, was meeting so many wonderful fellow fiber artists, some of whom I knew mainly by reputation or via Instagram.
I taught a 3-day class in Weaving Landscape in Tapestry. This was a class focused on design approaches to landscape, designed to assist students in developing a simple sketch or photograph into a weave-able full-size cartoon. The eight students worked hard for three days, some on more than one design, and complained not a bit about not weaving during class time. They were thoughtful and congenial in class critique, providing specific and insightful suggestions to each other regarding tweaks to cartoons. It’s especially helpful when the teacher’s voice isn’t the only one in the room!
For the first time IWC offered one-day classes on Saturday to accommodate weavers who could attend only on the weekend. My one-day class in Using Photographs to Design for Tapestry attracted five serious and thoughtful students who worked hard on translating their source photographs into cartoons. I am grateful to have met each and every weaver who took my classes.
Alas, as I so often do, I got so caught up in being in the room with students that I completely forgot to take photos during either class. Apologies!
I do have photos of the gallery featuring work by conference attendees, both students and teachers. See below. There was a wonderful array of vendors of weaving and spinning supplies, tools, and goods from weavers in Peru and the “stan” countries of Eastern Europe/Asia. I resisted temptation for once.
The next IWC will be held July 6-10, 2027 at the Antlers Wyndham Hotel in Colorado Springs, CO. I understand that the conference rooms and attendees’ lodging will all be under this roof for maximum convenience. Mark your calendars!
