Textiles
Beyond Weaving
Resident Faculty: John Paul Morabito
Visiting Artists: Indira Allegra & Paolo Arao
June 2-15, 2025
Non-credit Tuition Option - $1,250
Undergraduate and Graduate Credit: Undergraduate (3 credits); Graduate (3-4 credits). Standard tuition rates apply. More info available on admissions page.
Visiting Artists
Indira Allegra
Indira Allegra is a conceptual artist and founder of . Cazimi Studio uses weaving as a framework to creatively transform tension within different sites. The studio is unique in its emphasis on performance, publication and the integration of spiritual care as preferred design solutions. Thinking as a poet, threads of connection are discovered between seemingly disparate experiences. Moving as a weaver, these connections are interlaced into a greater whole.
Allegra's work has been featured in The Art Newspaper, Artnet, Art Journal, BOMB Magazine, SF Chronicle, e-flux, All Arts and ARTFORUM and in exhibitions at the Museum of Arts and Design (New York, NY); Blaffer Museum (Houston, TX), Center for Craft Creativity and Design (Asheville, NC); John Michael Kohler Arts Center (Sheboygan, WI); Gray Area (San Francisco, CA); the Museum of the African Diaspora (San Francisco, CA) and San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles (San Jose, CA) among others.
Allegra is the author of and (Sming Sming Books). Their writing has been featured in Theater, TEXTILE: Cloth and Culture, American Craft Magazine, Panorama Journal, Leonardo and Material Intelligence among others. Their monograph Blackout (Sming Sming Books) is in the collection of major art museum libraries nationwide. Allegra has been the recipient of numerous awards including the Burke Prize, Creative Capital, United States Artists Fellowship, Gerbode Choreographer Award, Art Matters Fellowship and CripTech Metaverse Fellowship.
Paolo Arao
Paolo Arao is a Filipino-American artist working with painting, textiles and site-responsive installations. He received his B.F.A. from Virginia Commonwealth University and attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Recent solo exhibitions include: David B. Smith Gallery (Denver, CO), The Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts (Omaha, NE), The Columbus Museum (Georgia), Morgan Lehman Gallery (NYS), and Western Exhibitions (Chicago).
He has participated in residencies at: Monson Arts, MacDowell, Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, Virginia Center for Creative Arts, Art Omi, Bemis Center, The Museum of Arts and Design (NYC), Millay Arts, Studios at MASS MoCA, Vermont Studio Center, NARS Foundation, Wassaic Project, and the Fire Island Artist Residency. Arao has taught workshops at Penland School of Craft, Haystack Mountain School of Crafts and The Museum of Arts and Design (NYC). His work has been published in New American Paintings, Maake Magazine, ArtMaze, Dovetail and Esopus. Paolo Arao is a 2021 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow in Painting from The New York Foundation for the Arts and a 2023-2024 Pollock-Krasner Foundation grantee. He lives and works in New York.
Resident Faculty
John Paul Moribito
John Paul Morabito is an Assistant Professor of Art and Head of the Textiles Program at 麻豆精选. Their work engages queerness, ethnicity, and the sacred through the medium of tapestry reimagined in the digital age. They approach weaving as an ontological practice through which blasphemy, devotion, the incarnational spirit of Catholicism, the decadence of drag, and the impossibility of queer grace are bound as resonant sensibilities within their opulent tapestries. Morabito has exhibited at international venues including Patricia Sweetow Gallery (Los Angeles, CA); the Zhejiang Art Museum (Hangzhou City, China); the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art (Winston-Salem, NC); CULT Aimee Friberg Exhibitions (San Francisco, CA); Dorsky Gallery Curatorial Projects (Long Island City, NY); Document (Chicago, IL); the Des Moines Art Center (Des Moines, IA); the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art (Overland Park, KS); the Center for Craft (Asheville, NC); and the John Michael Kohler Arts Center (Sheboygan, WI). Their work is represented in public and private collections including the Mus茅e des ma卯tres et artisans du Qu茅bec (Montr茅al, Canada) and the Textile Resource Center at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago, IL). Their writing has been published in Art China, The Textile Reader 2 (China Academy of Art), The Journal of Textile Design Research and Practice, Textile: Cloth and Culture, and Surface Design Journal. Morabito is a 2024 United States Artists Fellow. They hold a BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art and an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Prior to their appointment within the School of Art they served on the faculty at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago from 2013-2022. John Paul Morabito is represented by Patricia Sweetow Gallery in Los Angeles, CA.