Here is a little about our teachers, and links to their workshops.
Amy Snell
Amy Snell is a knitter, instructor, and designer with an eye for the unusual or unusually captivating. Her designs focus on color, contrast, and texture, often exploring unique stitch patterns and clever construction in ways that are interesting but accessible.
Amy loves to help other knitters explore new techniques and expand the way they think about their knitting. Her goal is to make complex concepts approachable for all knitters, while sharing tips that improve your process whether you’ve been knitting for several weeks or several decades.
Benjamin Skiba
Hello my name is Benjamin Mutton. I am a sheepherder on the Navajo Reservation. I shear sheep, I train horses and shoe horses. I make a variety of fiber art, and blacksmith art. My family makes jewelry, raises sheep, raises horses, and farms depending on the seasons.
Carol Garnand
I am a passionate fiber artist. For over 20 years I have been drawing inspiration from our Colorado environment. Starting with white silk fabric I paint, dye and sew fabric to create one of a kind art. I now use natural dyes and have started using botanical items to create designs.
I always loved fabric, sewing and dressing up. When I was a little girl my grandmother and mom taught me to sew. They made all my clothes double since I have a twin sister. By our teens my sister could tailor coats. Not me! I tried different ways to make spectacular clothes. Today I combine my love of sewing with the vibrant world of colors on silk. I create art hangings, seasonal silk scarves, felted shawls and jackets.
Each year I study and develop new techniques. I studied Shibori, a Japanese method of creating patterns on fiber. More recently, fascinated with Nuno-felting, I have begun combining silk painting and felting using native Coloradan alpaca fibers to create unique shawls and jackets.
I am an active member of the Janice Ford Memorial Dye Garden at the Denver Botanical Gardens-Chatfield. We maintain a garden of plants where we make natural dyes, which I use in all of my art. These natural dyes led me to eco-printing using leaves, seeds and other botanical items to create designs. I have begun rust printing using found objects containing iron to create unique patterns.
In my studios in North Boulder and Tabernash, CO I create a variety of fiber art.
I teach dyeing, silk painting, Shibori, Nuno-felting, eco-printing and rust printing. I have taught and done demonstrations at the Taos Fiber Market, the Estes Park Wool Market, Salida Fiber Festival and the Center for the Arts Evergreen as well as for private groups of fiber artists.
Professional Associations:
Rocky Mountain Handweavers Guild (RMWG)
Janice Ford Memorial Dye Garden at the Denver Botanic Gardens-Chatfield
Womens Caucus of Art (WCA-CO)
North Boulder Art District (NoBo)
Laura Salamy
Laura Salamy is the experienced, albeit “not-so-traditional” fiber artist behind High on Hooking (www.highonhooking.com). She serves as President of the Adobe Wool Arts Guild, New Mexico’s only rug hooking guild. Laura teaches in the US and on Zoom. Her work can be seen online, in various books, in Rug Hooking Magazine, and in the Association of Traditional Hooking Artists Magazine.
June Covington
June Covington is an artist and art educator, with a background in Printmaking, who also works extensively in the Textile Arts. Time and process are the essential elements in the work she makes, exploring the expressive qualities of common materials. She is happiest in a room full of people who are learning and making art together.
Education
BA Art Education and Printmaking, Asbury University, Kentucky 1980
Masters in the Humanities, University of Dallas, Irving 2012
Peggy Doney
Peggy Doney has been fascinated with color since her first box of crayons. For many years, she has been discovering color recipes using triad, value, and gradient studies.
If there is anything that Peggy enjoys as much as creating with fiber and color, it’s sharing that passion with others. From an annual fiber arts gathering in her back yard to teaching workshops for guilds, retreats, festivals, and one-on-one sharing, Peggy likes to pass on her excitement for fiber and color.
Peggy knows all the dyeing jokes, has a plethora of dye pots, and now uses her big box of crayons as reference material. She makes her home in Colorado Springs, Colorado, with her fiber-enabler husband, Jeff, and two undyed white dogs.
Laura Ninnemann
Laura has been a fiber artist for the past 60+ years and a fiber arts instructor for 30+ years. She learned to knit and sew from her mother and grandmother in pursuit of her Scandinavian roots, and is the creative force behind Lone Raven Studio (TM).