As a first time conference attendee, I didn’t know what to expect from my first day at #Confluence. Even if you can’t be here with us in Minneapolis you can be part of the experience. Read about my adventures and impressions throughout the 2011 International Surface Design Association Conference. …

Get an overview of a small symposium that took on the big issues. See who showed up for this North Carolina State University/Raleigh meeting of makers at the Gregg Museum in March 2011. View some long shots of the exhibitions and sample Keynote Speaker Glen Adamson’s take on the art vs. craft debate. …

There will be a Confluence of styles the moment the textile tribe begins to assemble in Minneapolis for the 2011 International conference June 4th. Sample these visual appetizers as you get ready to roll into Minnesota. If you’re not going, get a taste of what you’ll miss – and of SDA’s commitment to advocating for excellence in the textile arts….

In this new “Shop Talk” series, SDA member and printmaker Cherie Blackwell (CA) will explore how she adapts traditional techniques to print on textiles. Check out this informative overview as well as the great visual energy in her printed textile work….

Check out NewsBlog New Releases Manager Teddy Milder’s take on some recently published books of interest to textile-focused creatives. Get inspired by blackwork tattoo designs on the living surface of skin, nomadic felt-making, imperial Chinese robes, Art Deco textiles, a retrospective of the work of Yohji Yamamoto, and more……

Check out some good reads by other SDA members here. Bhakti Ziek recommends “Just Kids” by Patti Smith; Laura Sapelly recommends “Twelve by Twelve: The International Art Quilt Challenge”; Marjorie Fedyszyn recommends “1000 Artisan Textiles” and Donna Joslyn recommends “Digital Essentials”. Share what you’re reading!…

Read how textile entrepreneur Laura Foster Nicholson uses Spoonflower.com, a print-on-demand fabric service, to satisfy her pattern compulsion! Then come to SDA Confluence conference (June/Minneapolis) and let both Nicholson & Stephen Fraser, co-founder of Spoonflower, inspire you to express your vision in prints. …

One in a growing number of SDA’s “Men in Quilts”, Joe Cunningham has been working in the medium since 1979. Follow along as he takes you through his process on a breakthrough quilt he made in 2006. Creative sparks along his way home in San Francisco’s Presidio ignited his imagination, leading him to freely fuse the ideas and materials that took him to a new level of working “in flow”….

SDA AoE program was started in 2002 to acknowledge outstanding creativity or innovation in a work using surface design/fiber-related media. Check out 5 recent winners here, each of whom received a full year of SDA membership. Detail of “Uprooted”, an award-winning work by Adrienne Sloan, is shown at left….

Be brave and wade into hand- and screen-printing, resist, digital imaging and transfer processes using disperse dyes on synthetic fibers with Aussie Marie-Therese Wisniowski. Get pushed to your edge and grow both technically and conceptually in this 5 day post-conference workshop at Confluence in Minneapolis. Just a few spaces left….