Photo by Meg Ryan
Harmony Weavers Guild celebrates its milestone with a Delaware Center for Horticulture exhibition featuring wearable, functional textiles.
A Delaware organization is weaving its past, present and future together in a textiles exhibition.
The Harmony Weavers Guild displays a variety of works throughout September at the Delaware Center for Horticulture in its Interlacing People and Fiber for 50 Years exhibition. The weavers celebrate textiles using color, texture, and pattern and will showcase wearable, functional and decorative pieces.
The exhibition also marks the guild’s 50th anniversary. Established in 1971, the organization began as a group of loom weavers and later, through the advancement of technology, embraced other aspects of fiber arts, including spinners, basket weavers, computerized harness looms and tapestry weavers, explains Gynnie Moody, the exhibition coordinator.
The guild collaborates with a variety of organizations across the state to teach people about weaving and textiles. “We’re always trying to educate and intrigue people about what cloth is and where it comes from and how it relates to our history as human beings as well as its presence in the arts community,” she says.
The 80-member organization continued to meet virtually during the pandemic and aims to provide projects, workshops and other types of education to its members.
The Interlacing People and Fiber for 50 Years exhibition showcases works ranging from dish towels to tapestries and handbags to baby blankets. Moody says some members will even be dyeing the yarn themselves to give their pieces a personal look.
The official opening of the exhibition takes place during Art Loop Wilmington on September 3 from 5:30 to 8 p.m. Visitors can then view the pieces at their leisure Mondays through Fridays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
“We hope to increase the appreciation of fiber in one’s everyday life,” Moody says.
