Careers in Textiles
Explore careers. Learn from professionals. Connect with your peers.
Careers in Textiles connects fiber artists, textile professionals, students, educators, and others interested in building careers in the textile field. Through quarterly career conversations and professional member gatherings, HGA provides opportunities to learn how others have built their careers, exchange ideas, and develop the skills needed to grow a professional practice.
What's coming Next
Careers in Textiles is evolving into a year-round program featuring quarterly career conversations, professional member discussions, and educational opportunities.
Watch this page for upcoming programs and registration information.
Quarterly Career Conversations
Hear the stories behind textile careers. Each quarterly conversation will feature a textile or fiber professional sharing the experiences, opportunities, and decisions that shaped their career.
Open to everyone.
Professional Member Connections
HGA Professional Artists and Professional Organizations will have opportunities to join small-group Zoom conversations to share ideas, discuss challenges, and support one another's professional growth.
A benefit of HGA Professional Membership.
Educational Programs
Careers in Textiles will also offer educational sessions focused on practical skills and knowledge that can help textile professionals develop their creative practices and businesses.
Additional registration fees may apply.
Who is this for?
Sponsorship Opportunities
Fiber Art Programs
Careers in Textiles is for you if you are...
- A student exploring careers in textiles or fiber art
- An emerging artist or designer
- An established textile artist looking to grow your practice
- A teacher, curator, conservator, or museum professional
- A textile business owner
- A professional organization serving the textile community
- Considering a career change or new direction
- Simply curious about the many ways people build careers around textiles
Show Your Support with a Sponsorship
Support HGA and get your organization's name in front of hundreds of fiber art enthusiasts. We understand that every dollar you spend should deliver maximum benefit to your company. Sponsors receive exclusive benefits and services based on their contribution level. Our packages are carefully structured at each level to provide maximum visibility and mutual benefit but can be tailored to meet your organization’s philanthropic or marketing objectives. For more information, call (678) 730-0010.
Session Sponsors Receive:
- Name recognition on HGA's webpage as Sponsor and link to your website
- Logo and name recognition in Shuttle Spindle & Dyepot magazine
- E-Blast sent to HGA’s mailing list promoting your sponsorship
- Post recognizing your sponsorship on HGA’s Facebook page
- Post recognizing your sponsorship on HGA’s Instagram account
- Logo and name recognition on all advertisements and eblasts promoting your sponsored session
- Name recognition and logo on the video screen prior to your sponsored session and at the conclusion of the session
Fiber Art Programs
These universities offer programs of study in the fiber arts.
The Baylor fiber concentration introduces art students to traditional fiber techniques alongside research-based, concept-driven material thinking. Our mission is to cultivate artists and designers who engage with fiber to make the world a better place. Courses emphasize hands-on art making, employing textile processes such as weaving, dyeing, and surface design techniques, machine and hand sewing, felting, crochet, book making and altering, tufting, and basketry, all within a contemporary art context. Students build visual literacy and material sensitivity by studying fiber art history, concepts, and meaning-making to approach fiber art and design for individualized application across a range of creative careers, from the gallery world to the textile industry.
Fashion Institute of Technology
The Textile/Surface Design Department at the Fashion Institute of Technology offers AAS and BFA degrees. This hands-on program nurtures the imagination, teaches the skills, and cultivates the insights needed to design textiles and other products for fashion and home. The curriculum blends conceptual and technical skills, so you’ll study drawing, painting, weaving, and screen printing alongside CAD. You’ll learn about fabric construction, manufacturing, and the industry's commitment to sustainability. You’ll learn to create print and woven designs for apparel, bedding, wallpaper, carpets, and more, and graduate prepared for a wide range of opportunities in this multifaceted field. Located in New York City, the creative center of the textile and surface design industry, the campus extends to design studios, showrooms, museums, and galleries. Our accelerated one-year AAS program helps build skills quickly for candidates who have a previous degree or transferable college credits.
The Fiber program is an intensive curriculum focused on designing and creating fiber work, from textile products to contemporary fiber art. Students focus on woven textiles and have many opportunities to incorporate hand dyeing, stitching, surface design techniques, and more into their original fabric creations. Textile history courses provide in-depth exposure to textile traditions and techniques worldwide, including cultural and economic perspectives. In the second year, students focus on professional practices for artists and designers. Students study business models and develop a personal pathway to future work in textile design, entrepreneurship, gallery or museum work, teaching, or any sector of the textile market. Graduates will leave with a thorough knowledge of woven textiles and dyes, along with small business skills and professional practices applicable to a wide range of employment or entrepreneurial opportunities.
Textile & Fashion Design BFA students at MECA&D investigate the intersection of cloth and the human experience through a balanced study of textile and apparel fundamentals. Students create garments, functional objects, or works of art that affect those who interact with them. The Textile & Fashion Design program emphasizes engaged making that considers a broad, inclusive view of history, sustainability, engagement, and citizenship while using both traditional and digital tools to solve problems. Located in the heart of the Arts District in Portland, ME, Maine College of Art & Design offers a Bachelor of Fine Arts, a Master of Fine Arts in Studio Art, a Master of Arts in Teaching, a Salt Graduate Certificate in Documentary Studies, as well as Continuing Studies for adults and youth.
The MFA Textiles Program at the Parsons School of Design creates groundbreaking, award-winning, hybrid textiles that integrate timeless philosophical principles with craft and technology, grounded in sustainability, social justice, beauty, and wellbeing. A community of makers exploring and creating textiles from locally crafted materials to 3D knitted matter and hand-embellished fabrics is mindfully pioneering textile-based theory and industries, dissolving the boundaries between technology and craft, and investigating the dynamics of materials and systems. Devoted to promoting authenticity, originality, and unique creativity in textiles, students strive for their own voice and full potential as professional textile makers, artists, and designers in fashion, interiors, research, fine art, architecture, performance, speculative design, and other interdisciplinary fields.
The Textile Design Programs at Thomas Jefferson University focus on the intersection of artistic craft and technology, where tradition meets innovation. Our Bachelor of Science in Textile Design equips students with a comprehensive knowledge of fibers, yarn analysis, textile construction methods (weave and knit), surface design (seamless-repeating print design and engineered print design), sustainable practices in the textile industry, and collection curation. Our Master of Science in Textile Design builds on students' prior knowledge and skills to support an intensive study of print, weave, or knit development, resulting in mastery of that area from each student's unique perspective. Our Maker Spaces give students in our programs the opportunity to ideate and explore on traditional textile equipment, then translate those processes into digital/electronic spaces while maintaining the presence of their hand.
Merchandising, Apparel and Textiles (MAT) students explore market trends, retail strategies, supply chains, and more across the global marketplace. Our coursework teaches students industry practices in developing, sourcing, marketing, and merchandising consumer goods and services. Students will gain skills in visual merchandising, sketching and design, buying and sourcing materials, event planning, and more.
Please Note: This listing is provided as a courtesy. It is not a complete listing, nor is it an endorsement of any individual or organization listed. The information was provided by the organization or its representative. HGA does not warrant the accuracy or validity of the information, and hereby disclaims any liability to any person for any loss or damage caused by errors or omissions.
