Hive Center for the Book Arts

Explore the power of combing mark-making, colorfields and thread on paper while considering the history and function of sewing and the role thread plays in our lives.

We’ll create a basic sampler of thread forms on paper, and practice poking holes on paper, preventing our thread from knotting, and layering threads to create new structures. Then we’ll explore colorfields and mark-making, expanding our projects into more complex patterns.

We will experiment with meditative acts of repetition and hope to find solace in a new visual language that threads us together.

Open to both beginners and experienced artists with an open mind and willingness to explore.

Vanessa Filley is a mixed media artist who lives and works in Evanston, IL. She is interested in the energetic threads that orient and connect us, ground us in place and time yet tether us to our ancestral past and future, the lines that bring us home. Her work includes large scale sculptural installations, tiny embroidery pieces, poems, photographs, and drawings in watercolor, pinprick and thread. Filley was voted one of Photolucida’s Top 50 in 2018 and has shown work nationally and internationally including the Sonoma County Museum of Art, Berlin Photography Week, the Lishui International Photography Festival, FOCUS PhotoLA, Stricoff Gallery, Galerie Joseph Turene, Western Michigan University, Vivid Art Gallery, Arbor3Arts, The Affordable Art Fair, The Nashville Public Library, the Harold Washington Library in Chicago, the US Consulate General in Saudi Arabia, Door County Contemporary and the inaugural Cosmic Geometries show at Secrist Beach in 2024.