Fiber Arts

Ceibo is a handbag-accessory vegan brand created by Maria Cadena in Houston, Texas in 2016. Its name refers to the Ceibo tree, one of Maria’s favorite trees which grows along the Pacific coast in Ecuador. Cadena is a self-taught designer from Guayaquil, Ecuador who moved to Houston during 2014. She has a major in Marketing and Economics and started designing women’s accessories nine years ago when she created her first brand.

Above:  Ceibo Bags, “Mini Square Ring Bag.” Vegan fabric and brass hardware. Photo courtesy of the artist.

Claire Drennan is a fiber artist and fashion designer, exploring the intersection of art, craft, and sustainable materials. Drennan’s pieces are wearable, whimsical and versatile, as well as ethical and sustainable. Drennan uses a knitting machine, which is roughly the size of an electric piano and nearly fifty years old. The machine makes use of a binary punch card computer and a knitting carriage that is manipulated manually across a bed of latch-hook needles. Drennan is continually inspired by the capabilities and limitations of this elegant Machine.

Working primarily with textile materials and processes, Rena Wood’s work gives physical form to the ephemeral sense of memory. Often using vintage materials, she combines her own history with that of a previous maker. The time Wood spends working is marked by each stitch, each knot and each repetitive act of her hands. She constructs and deconstructs materials to show suspension: formation and ruin, remembering and forgetting, the passage and stopping of time.

Above:  Rena Wood, “Shibori Scarf.” Silk. Photo by Amanda Shackleford.