HGA Convergence in New Orleans, 2026

We were SO excited when HGA announced that Convergence was in New Orleans for 2026. It is a city that my husband and I have talked about going to but never gotten around to making the effort to plan. I've realized that to get excited about any vacation, I need to have a starting point to go there. Like a concert (Madness in Seattle, Rammstein in Minneapolis...) or a weaver's conference. Now that I've been to NOLA, I get it. Every time I mentioned to someone that we were headed to New Orleans who had been, they lit up. What an awesome city. HGA had the conference downtown close to everything which made it easy to try all sorts of food and hear lots of jazz. 

I keep saying that putting together proposals and trying to fill classes is just too stressful for me to manage along with my day job, but then when I'm there, the whole time, I'm so glad I made the effort. Will the stress and anxiety ever subside? Probably not. Is it worth it every time? Yes. I know more and more people every year and if I stop teaching and sharing my knowledge with other fiber artists then I loose that momentum that I've spent...decades...building. Something I've learned to do though, while I'm there amidst other weavers and fiber artists, is I start to think of more proposals and run ideas by my colleagues while I'm there...and write them down. I have a 2028 Proposals draft started and need to go through my notes in my sketchbook.

Convergence was busy from Day 1. The fashion show was particularly stunning this year. I had 3 blocks of time at the Leader booth and had better than usual sales this year. My Finish and Exhibit that Piece! Seminar was a low attendance but we went forward with it anyway and it was still fun and informative with a smaller group. A day or 2 later my husband said he ran into someone who took my seminar and she was very complimentary about how much she learned. This was Bryan's second Convergence, Reno was his first introduction to the weavers guild world and he fits right in along with being super helpful.

I took Tina Linville's Class on “Crafting Clarity: Writing Art Statements.”  I've always struggled with writing artist statements and bios. Her class actually got me excited to work on mine!  I utilized her talk to work on a Bio I needed to submit and it might be the first time ever I felt like it was saying and doing what I wanted it to.  She also pointed out to us just how much different types of writing and statement us artists have to do. I feel like I could take a longer workshop on this, but it was a great start to what I really should be focused on with my submitted writing.

My Beadweaving Sampler Class (Even Count Peyote, Flat Herringbone and Right  Angle Weave) was the last day of the conference and everyone was excited to take the class but also tired from all the stuff we'd been doing and classes we've been taking. I was worried about being tired, but I get so exited to teach beading that I didn't notice. Peyote and Herringbone went well for most everybody, Right Angle Weave was a bit more difficult because it doesn't have a flow to it. 2 students would agree, the other 2 eventually got it (and one had to leave early). 

Above are some of the student's flat herringbone stitch that 

I remembered to take photos of while everyone went to lunch.

My friend Sydney (thank you Instagram for another in-person fiber-friendship) invited me to pop into her dye class. I caught the end and got to see some of the beautifully dyed warps that her and her students worked on. It was also cool to see how they set up a hotel conference room for a dye-class. Lots of plastic coverings.

We stayed an extra 3 days past the conference. On Monday morning HGA hosted a very nice volunteers appreciation breakfast. I considered that I hadn't really done any volunteering, I will on the fly if my schedule allows but I was also trying to enjoy myself, it was nice to thank those who did though, and talk with the HGA staff and discuss the forward movement of HGA. 

The next stop on Monday was taking the bus out to Small Expressions at Longue Vue House & Gardens. The down side to the buses and trolleys was that there were a lot of screens that weren't working and my google map wasn't updating properly so we missed our stop. The bus driver asked who requested the next stop and pulled over early to drop us off, worried that two, clearly out-of-towners, weren't going to survive the walk in the heat. We did, we were quite hot by the time we got to the exhibit. As with the rest of the exhibits put on by HGA, Small Expressions 2026 is phenomenal and I'm honored have my original Resist Bangle as be part of it. 

We were close to one of the large pubic cemeteries at the Longue Vue House and got to walk that in a light rain storm, the overcast sky was really fitting and the graves in New Orleans are as beautiful as you hear about and unique as you always hear or see in photos. 

Looking back, Monday was a pretty long day too, Tuesday we walked around more, shopped and had an amazing dinner at Maïs Arepas. I picked this restaurant partially because it was close to the Rabbit Hole where we were headed for music for the night and the online photos looked great. It did not disappoint! Then we headed (a bit too early, as everything runs slow in the South) to the Rabbit Hole to see the Rebirth Brass Band. This was the only show we paid to go see and it was such a great time. I hear that every show is different at the Rabbit Hole when you go see Rebirth. The bartender cannot get enough of getting to see them all the time 

The last day was more exploring, we like to walk around and for some reason the heat didn't get to me as bad as it did in Reno. I also am probably better at knowing when I need to quite before it feels awful.  I took lots of photos of cool doors, hinges, bright color house paint colors, and "look! Real shutters!" We had great food, took a nap nearly every day, and I finally know why people light up when you mention New Orleans if they've been before. We'll look forward to going back sometime.

Convergence Knoxville 2021: Exhibits with my work

I had no idea where to start with my posts about Convergence this year so I'm breaking posts down into subjects that I'm able to organize better.  This post is about my work shown in 3 of the Exhibits at HGA.

The drive down to Knoxville from Lansing was blue skies and fluffy clouds the whole way!

Convergence is just that, Fiber Art people from all over the world (mostly US and Canada) meet in a city chosen by HGA and we take over their Convention Center, Hotels, Classrooms, Galleries, and anywhere that will exhibit, show fiber work, or let us sit and weave/knit/spin/meet.  HGA themselves host a number of Juried Exhibits along with the local guild exhibits and often local galleries present something fiber-themed. We Converge together and you can tell where your people are by their name tags and the fact that 90% of them are wearing some sort of beautiful handwoven scarf around in July.

Even the Marriott where I was staying had great artwork throughout.

It didn't really hit me completely until I was there telling other convergence attendees that I had pieces in 3 of HGA's exhibits. That's the most I've ever had shown at once at a Convergence Conference, so that's really exciting for me. They were all from the same series: Leaf Me Alone.

I'll be honest, this Leaf Me Alone theme began with my divorce, or need to get divorced back in 2013/2014. With the pandemic, being left alone rose to another level and it became Leaf Me Alone's time to shine. Introverts like myself and Bryan were really cozy not having to do anything but go to work and come home and do our thing. I didn't realized how much I felt being pressured to be busy and social all of the time, pandemic-time was a much-needed reset. I had started making masks during that quiet and the Leaf Me Alone Mask became an obvious, somewhat time-sensitive art piece. It was accepted into the Small Expressions Exhibit.

I had an older, smaller version of Leaf Me Alone (2) in the Leader's Exhibit.  I had shown it at the Michigan League of Handweaver's Conference a few years ago when Cameron Taylor-Brown with the juror. She commented that these smaller ones (10in W x 14.5 L) looked like maquettes, which is true... I do think my word pieces translate much better on a large scale. I also love that word she used, maquette. I had warped for these small Leaf Me Alone pieces to get back in the groove of double weave pickup, and I did have Small Expressions on the brain when I started them. I still have 1 more small one to finish.

Last but definitely not least... Leaf Me Alone (the large version) came into being at the beginning of this year. It's really part of the larger word pieces that I'm picking away at and a sister piece to She Can't See the Forest through the Trees. I was so happy to have this not only finished to submit this year, but it also won an Honorable Mention.  I went to the juror's talk and she said that she felt this piece was "relaxing" which I hadn't really heard of my work before, but I'll take it.

This is also the first time I've won an award exhibiting with HGA, I'm never sure I'll win an award, there are so many amazing weavers and fiber artists in HGA!  I am so honored just to be showing with them.

I started my first full day in Knoxville meeting with Clara who I know from the Lansing Weaver's Guild and has since moved to Florida, it was so good to catch up with her while we perused the exhibits at the Knoxville Convention Center. 

I was going to blog more about the various exhibits and a few of my favorite pieces that I took quick photos of but I started to feel too overwhelmed and will never get these posted if I overthink it. Maybe I'll get to that, maybe I won't, I have a lot going on this year.

Other post subjects on my time at Convergence will hopefully be coming: 
Finish and Exhibit that Piece! (the seminar I presented)
Leader Booth/Sales (and all the awesome people I met)

Convergence Reno 2018

Convergence Conference, Reno NV, 2018.  To start, I did a terrible job at taking photos while we were there. So this is just a little run-down of our 5 days in July and my first year being a Leader with Handweaver's Guild of America's Convergence Conference at the Peppermill Casino and Resort.

HGA did a wonderful job with the Conference and Gallery Guides.  The map of the hotel/casino in the back of the booklet was indispensable.  It took us a bit to get a grasp on the hotel layout after being on the road since 4am.

I failed to take any photos of my room set-up for my 90-minute seminar on "Traveling Bead Studio" I had a full class of 15.  I think I'd open this up to 20-25 people in the future, but it was nice being able to have a small group with great conversation flow and easy to show my traveling studio set-ups in person. I had a lot of wonderful response from the class, thank you!  

This happened to be the first time I've flown with my jewelry set-up.  It also travels in cases like my mini studios.  I usually have a ton of displays and hat boxes for showing and storing things but for sanity's sake I simplified ( see above).  It was really nice to have the opportunity to show my work in the Leader's Booth and speak to the people who took my Seminar along with meeting other weavers and fiber artists.  I was a bit overwhemled with all of my running around and talking to people that I didn't market myself very well.  In 2020, I need to put FB back on my phone so I can use the Convergence Conference Attendees Page better.  I am loving that people are posting their finished projects from classes as they get home and get back to them.  

The fashion show...again, not great photos, but the energy was so amazing at it, I didn't want my phone in front of my face the whole time:

On our last day Bryan and I went up to the very top floor with the suites.  What a view Reno!

We also made it to Reno City Hall where the Complex Weaver's Exhibit was being shown.  I swoon at the talent we have in all of our national guilds!  (We did see the Exhibits at the Conference, Mixed Media, Garment, etc... again, I failed to take photos and happened to be really tired that day).

Complex Weavers Exhibits

And we took a Lyft out to the Wilbur D. May Museum to visit the Small Expressions Exhibit and see my 2 pieces there, only to find them closed on Monday.  :(  We walked the ground though and found some dinosaurs and a bright figurative silk display.

When in downtown Reno, we did the tourist-thing and visited the Silver Legacy, Circus Circus (saw a short act there) and the National Bowling Stadium (it wasn't open for anything).

And one of the days had an AMAZING lunch from Miguel's!

Thank you so much to HGA, weavers, fiber artists and colleagues for another great Convergence Conference.  See you in Knoxville 2020!

(And in 2020 I won't be battling a cold!  I feel like I missed a lot due to naps to get over a cold, but I held it together for my talk which was the most important!)