What We Do
SDA promotes awareness and appreciation of fiber art and support to artists through publications, exhibitions, and events.
As an organization, we embrace fiber and textiles in the broadest terms including performance, social practice, and sound-based works.
Surface design can be defined as the coloring, patterning, and structuring of fiber and fabric. It is wide-ranging and encompasses paper-making, dyeing, sculpture, stitching, knitting, weaving, embellishing, collage, and so much more.
Our community encompasses the breadth and depth of contemporary artists and designers working with or inspired by fiber art and/or textile-based materials, methods, and techniques.
If you love textiles, you already belong! Learn more about becoming a member.
How it Started
As a result of a ground-breaking conference in 1976 at the University of Kansas, a group of artists worked to formalize an international organization focused on fiber arts. Committed to educate, inspire, and cultivate opportunities, they formed the Surface Design Association in 1977. Early Board members included leaders in the field such as Jack Lenor Larsen, Gerhardt Knodel, and Glen Kaufman, Elsa Screenivasam, Pat Campbell, and many more. For nearly 50 years, SDA has been a leader in the field of fiber arts, providing a platform for critical dialogue, innovation, learning, and mentorship to an audience of 100,000 annually. The SDA community is expansive, from makers and artists to academics and enthusiasts.
To learn more about surface design, check out this interview at the Art League with past SDA President Candace Edgerley and educator Julie Booth.
In 2023 we celebrated our 45th anniversary!
Learn more about what we’ve been up to for the last 45+ years when you become a member with access to decades of our digital Journal archive.
Equity, Access, and Integration
SDA’s Equity, Access and Integration (EAI) initiatives exists to hold space for and amplify the voices of historically underrepresented communities in the fiber and textile art world. The EAI Committee was formed to serve as SDA’s indelible response within its administrative framework to address systemic injustices of all kinds, including racial, gender and ability-based discrimination.
Members of this committee take on the responsibility to keep SDA and its community accountable and committed to achieving this goal. This work will contribute to building an inclusive, mindful and empowered community of artists and leaders enriched in the field of textile and fiber art as a whole.
Values
- Making space for and ensuring the success of leaders of color and those from underrepresented communities within our organization
- Raising the visibility of fiber and textile artists from historically underrepresented communities, including but not limited to BIPOC, ability-based, LGBTQ creatives in the contemporary art world
- Promoting critical dialogue and engagement around textile and fiber art rooted in global and inclusive initiatives.
- Identifying and ensuring opportunities for learning/unlearning and meaningful collaborations across all cultures, races, genders and abilities.
- Ensuring personal and collective work toward a deeper understanding of equity and inclusion through workshops, training, surveys, spotlights and others.
- Keeping SDA accountable to prioritize underserved communities in accessing paid opportunities including guest jurors, curators, speakers, workshop instructors and writers.