Etta Sandry (she/they) is an artist, educator, and facilitator currently based in Boulder, Colorado. Rooted in weaving, her interdisciplinary work is situated in the expanded material practices field between craft, contemporary art, and creative research. Through making, writing, teaching, and facilitating, she explores craft practices as socio-technical systems that have historically been overlooked and undervalued as modes of knowledge and technical production. This work looks at craft materials and processes as systems that enact distinct forms and functions – like the interlaced grid of a woven cloth or the spiraling twist of a plied thread – and are entangled in ongoing social and political histories that impact how we take them up in art, design, and daily use. She is especially interested in woven forms that disrupt the grid and trouble weaving’s binary form through dimensional, multi-layer, and lace constructions. Her studio work and academic research engages craft sample making as an experimental praxis and process of thinking through material.

Etta has exhibited work in the United States and Canada and has participated in artist residency programs at the Kala Art Institute, Maison des métiers d’art de Québec, and ACRE Residency. They were the 2022 Experimental Weaver in Residence at the Unstable Design Lab at the University of Colorado, Boulder where they now conduct research as a PhD student. Etta has presented their research at venues including the Designing Interactive Systems Conference and the Textile Society of America Symposium. Their teaching and organizing work centers on fiber structures, critical writing, and sustained engagement in artist-run and community-based arts organizations. Recent teaching positions have included running the workshop Sampling: Experimentation through Material play at the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts and teaching Experimental Textiles at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Etta has worked as an organizer and administrator in numerous arts communities and currently serves as a board member for ACRE Residency in Chicago/Wisconsin. Etta received an MFA from the Fibre & Material Practices program at Concordia University.



Contact: etta.sandry[at]gmail.com