Soft Compositions

with Chris Edwards and Lauren Gregory
$175 lab fee | May 31–June 13 | Communal

This course celebrates handicraft and invites students into the sewing circle in service of solving compositional problems with the language of quilting. Serving students at all levels of experience, participants will learn traditional, nontraditional, machine, and hand-sewing techniques to produce soft objects including quilts, banners, windsocks, dolls, and installations. Demonstrations on mapping 2D and 3D images, piecing, applique, dyeing, and additive image making will encourage the exploration of the alternative and whimsical sensibilities in soft sculpture. Platforming the loose and improvisational mark-making possible with traditional stitch and applique techniques of quilt-making, this highly collaborative and social course will be inspired by the works of Rosie Lee Tompkins, the Gee's Bend Quilters, Claes Oldenberg, RuPaul, David Byrne, and Lee Bowery. Screenings may include True Stories (1986), Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt (1989), and readings may include “Knitting, Weaving, Embroidery, and Quilting as Subversive Aesthetic Strategies: On Feminist Interventions in Art, Fashion, and Philosophy” (Michna 2020). Students will conceive and construct original fiber works in response to assignments that focus on the expressive, personal, and comical possibilities of these materials. Assignments will include completing piecing, construction, binding, and quilting of a full personal quilt project, collaborating on group textiles, even with artists in other classes, and students will make a wearable item for Ox-Bow's Friday Night Costume Party. The course will culminate in a group quilt show installed in the landscape.

SAIC students: This is a 3-credit course; use the course code FIBER 627 001. 

Chris Edwards (he/him) is an artist and Licensed Clinical Social Worker. In his artistic practice, he works primarily in quilting, ceramics, and puff paint. He has taught variations of the class Soft Compositions with Lauren Gregory at Ox-Bow since 2022. He has exhibited work at Western Exhibitions, Chicago; Ox-Bow House, Saugatuck, MI; Wrong Marfa, Marfa, TX; Elephant Gallery, Nashville, TN; and Adds Donna, Tusk, LVL3, Oggi Gallery, Dreamboat, and Julius Caesar, Chicago. He received his MFA in Painting and Drawing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2011 and his Master of Social Work from the University of Iowa in 2014.

Lauren Gregory (she/her) is a multidisciplinary artist and educator whose practice bridges painting, animation, and quilting, exploring storytelling and the interplay between tradition and technology. Initially trained as a portrait painter, she later taught herself stop-motion animation to bring her paintings to life. In recent years, quilting—a craft she learned as a child from the matriarchs in her family—has become central to her work, particularly as she integrates digital imagery and internet culture into this age-old form. Since receiving an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Gregory has created GIFs, looped video installations, and animated shorts that have screened at MoMA PS1 and the New Museum, New York; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Frist Museum, Nashville, TN; and film festivals worldwide. Her directing work includes commissions for the Washington Post and music videos for Leonard Cohen, Norah Jones, James Taylor, Sarah McLachlan, and Toro y Moi. She teaches animation at Parsons School of Design in addition to quilting at Ox-Bow and is represented by Red Arrow Gallery, Nashville.

Hanji Unfolds: Traditional Korean Papermaking 

with Su Kaiden Cho
$175 lab fee | June 14–27 | Skill-building

In this hands-on workshop, students will explore the ancient Korean art of hanji, a traditional craft that transforms mulberry bark into beautiful, durable paper. For centuries, hanji has been an integral part of Korean culture, used in applications ranging from calligraphy and interior design to fashion and contemporary art. Through guided instruction, students will learn the process of preparing natural fibers, forming sheets, and drying the paper. The work is highly tactile and physically engaging, reflecting the labor and rhythm central to traditional papermaking. This class emphasizes both traditional techniques and modern adaptations, encouraging participants to create custom papers that reflect their personal aesthetic while connecting with the deep historical and cultural significance of hanji. Students will also be encouraged to consider how papermaking can intersect and collaborate with other mediums, including ink drawing, printmaking, and weaving with natural fibers. This workshop will explore the historical and contemporary significance of hanji, with special emphasis on its use in art and design. We will study the work of renowned hanji artist Lee Seung Chul, whose innovative installations and sculptures push the boundaries of this traditional material, and Yang Sang Hoon, known for intricate, geometric compositions that merge craftsmanship with modern abstraction. Readings will include selections from Hanji Unfurled: One Journey into Korean Papermaking by Aimee Lee, which offers a comprehensive look at hanji traditions. A screening of the film Hanji (2011) by Im Kwon-taek will further illuminate the material’s enduring cultural relevance. Students will create layered hanji artworks inspired by Lee Seung Chul’s installations or geometric compositions influenced by Yang Sang Hoon’s abstraction. As a final collaborative project, the class will work together to produce a large-scale hanji sculpture for the Ox-Bow School of Art & Artists’ Residency, celebrating the medium’s expressive and communal potential.

SAIC students: This is a 3-credit course; use the course code FIBER 608 001.

Su Kaiden Cho (he/him; b. South Korea) is an artist whose practice spans painting, sculpture, and installation, exploring the intersections of Eastern and Western diasporas. His work is deeply rooted in phenomenology, engaging with the interplay between the visible and invisible, often through material studies and spatial explorations. Recently, his focus has shifted toward postminimalist approaches, experimenting with monochrome and color-field compositions, with an emphasis on texture and dimensional surfaces. Cho’s practice reflects his ongoing investigation into absence, presence, and the uncanny. He earned his MFA in Painting and Drawing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and now serves as an educator, holding a teaching fellowship at SAIC. His artistic achievements include prestigious residencies, fellowships, and awards, including a residency at the International Center for the Arts in Umbria, Italy, led by Michelle Grabner, and the Ox-Bow Summer Residency in 2024. Cho has exhibited in over 20 solo exhibitions and more than 40 group exhibitions, both nationally and internationally.

Global Papermaking: Techniques & Play 

with Megan Diddie & Aya Nakamura
$100 Lab Fee | June 28–July 4 | Exploratory

This course will focus on Eastern and Western papermaking techniques. We will work with cotton and abaca fiber and use molds and deckles to explore watermarks, embedding, and pigments, and we will also process Kozo fiber from start to finish in order to make washi, or Japanese paper. Participants will practice the steps of papermaking while discussing the mechanics and science behind them. By the end of the course, students will be able to play with the techniques and materials the class provides and ideally forge their own individual paths to paper. We will discuss paper's historical roots and contemporary uses in art; readings will include Dard Hunter’s The History and Technique of an Ancient Craft and Anish Kapoor’s “Silence and Transition,” and a mid-class lecture will introduce the work of contemporary papermakers and artists like Hong Hong, Zarina Hashmi, and Yoonshin Park, among others. We will briefly advise students on how to set up a simple home studio, so that they can expand on what they have learned beyond the classroom. We would like to emphasize that papermaking is a communal endeavor, and that collaborating with fellow classmates will be helpful when troubleshooting or executing assignments. Along with completing each day's tasks, including clean up, students will be asked to produce a final project. While these projects need not be completely finished, students will present their ideas and the steps they have made towards creating these pieces to the class.

SAIC students: This is a 1.5-credit course; use the course code FIBER 635 001.

Megan Diddie (she/her) embraces the process of making as a way to tap into deeper, calmer states of mind. Her work describes relationships between human bodies, plants, landscapes, and built environments. Drawing is at the heart of her practice, serving as a language to work through ideas, anxieties, and the unconscious. Her video and animation serve as an extension of her drawings, allowing her to complicate and refine stories. Diddie co-founded Switch Grass Paper alongside collaborator Aya Nakamura. This mobile papermaking studio explores local fibers and the role they can play in artmaking while also bringing papermaking to the Chicago public. She received a postbaccalaureate degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and an MFA from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Aya Nakamura (she/her; b. Japan) is a visual artist invested in craft, drawing in time, and abstraction as a relational medium. She has shown at venues in the United States and abroad, with recent shows at Western Exhibitions and Secrist | Beach, both in Chicago. Other venues include The Hangar and Dawawine, Beirut, Lebanon; Supa Salon, Istanbul, Turkey; Mana Decentralized, Jersey City, NJ; MPSTN, Fox River Grove, IL; Heaven Gallery, Chicago; the Research House for Asian Art, Chicago; and the Merwin Gallery at Illinois Wesleyan University, Bloomington. She is a recipient of the DCASE Individual Artists Program grant from the City of Chicago, the Denbo Fellowship from Pyramid Atlantic Art Center, and the George and Ann Siegel Fellowship from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She holds a BA in Fine Arts and Political Science from the University of Pennsylvania and an MFA in Painting and Drawing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Nakamura is represented by Western Exhibitions, Chicago.

Sculptural Basketry: Exploring Form, Color & Tactility

with Dee Clements
$175 lab fee | July 13–25 | Skill-building

Focusing on the expressive potential of 3D weaving and sculptural basketry, this course invites students to explore a range of basketry techniques to create forms, vessels, and structural objects with an emphasis on tactility, color, and creative experimentation. Beginning with small sample projects to introduce key techniques, followed by opportunities to develop a personal small-scale sculptural piece, students will have the option of weaving over molds and formers or working freehand, using various base types to explore how structure and form emerge through process. We will also experiment with dyeing reed, learning techniques to create surface pattern and dimensional color through immersion, layering, and resist processes. We will study historical and contemporary approaches to sculptural basketry, with visual presentations and discussions of artists such as John McQueen, Ed Rossbach, Lillian Elliott, Hugh Hayden, Theda Sandiford, Katherine Westphal, and others whose work expands the boundaries of fiber and form. These case studies will anchor our creative exploration of how basketry can intersect with conceptual, sculptural, and material practices. Emphasizing experimentation, material play, and hands-on making, this course is perfect for artists, designers, and craftspeople interested in fiber, sculpture, and the expressive possibilities of woven form. One assignment will invite students to consider the conceptual and abstract possibilities of weaving by introducing spokes, lattices, netting, and mixed materials. The course will culminate in a presentation of woven wares.

SAIC students: This is a 3-credit course; use the course code FIBER 634 001.

Dee Clements (she/her/ella) is a sculptor and designer whose practice uses the language of weaving and ceramics to explore her interests in materials, ethnography, and gender politics. She holds a BFA in Fiber and Material Studies and Sculpture from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and an MFA in 3D Design from Cranbrook Academy of Art. Her work is currently represented by Nina Johnson Gallery, Miami.