Tapestry Weavers South (TWS) was established in 1996 and currently has 60 members across 16 states. Our artists range from professionals with decades of experience to emerging artists that are learning the art of tapestry. Through individual artist promotion, and public education, TWS endeavors to inform and encourage tapestry traditions in a new generation of weavers across the southeastern region.

Tapestry is often described as painting with yarn and can thus be seen as the combination of fine art with artisanship. Current TWS members hand weave tapestries as diverse as they are unique, ranging from natural, to figural to abstract and geometric imagery continuing a tradition dating to roughly 3000 B.C.E. Over the course of millennia, tapestry weavers have mastered many skills among them drawing, photography, design, and sewing. Many TWS weavers are also skilled in chemistry and color theory, dyeing their own yarns and working to diligently select unique palettes. Above all, tapestry weavers possess a plethora of technical weaving skills used to craft and create the final artworks. Ultimately, these processes are the threads that bind all weavers, ones that require tremendous devotion to and passion for the fiber arts.

With this in mind, the guild’s 2018 annual exhibition in the Yadkin Cultural Arts Center’s Welborn Gallery has the common theme “Weaving Tales,” offering various ruminations on tapestry design, production, and of course the process of weaving art.