ASJS will be juried by Kayla Powers

Kayla Powers (b. 1988) is a place-based fiber artist living and working in the North End of Detroit, Michigan.

As a self-taught artist and passionate environmentalist, Kayla makes ecologically focused fiber art with and about the living world. Through the traditional practices of foraging, dyeing, weaving, quilting, and stitching, she explores the common threads of our shared humanity. The materials she works with - cotton, linen, wool, copper - come from the earth and ground her practice in time and place. The colors change with the season as she dyes fabric and yarn with plants. Marigolds and goldenrod in the summer, acorns and spruce cones in the winter.

While stitching fabric or weaving with yarn, she is reminded of the other species who create in this manner: birds weave their nests, spiders spin their webs, beavers collect tree branches to build their lodge. Her work comes from a place of intuition, curiosity, connection, reverence, and from ancestral knowledge, expressed by hand. It is sometimes ephemeral – a chain made of dry flowers, and sometimes solid – a rock-like form woven with copper, and sometimes inhabiting some interstices – a quilt made of delicate silk, full of wildflower seeds, and planted in the ground. We await.

Kayla is currently pursuing an MFA at Cranbrook Academy of Art in the Fiber Department, slated for graduation in 2023. 

Opening Reception: March 8th, 5:30-7 pm