Summer is the time to get your feet wet and try something new! So sit dive in to a new class or workshop....color, or collages, or even Japanese papermaking! With 135 classes, 51 workshops and 102 art camps...there's something for everyone!
Textiles have always fascinated artist Saaraliisa Ylitalo. At nine years old, she learned how to sew and soon learned the art of knitting, crocheting, weaving, spinning, dyeing, as well as tatting. Saaraliisa continued her love of textiles in college, where she explored textiles as art. In her twenties, she studied with Walter Nottingham and taught various courses in fiber arts in Illinois and Wisconsin. Saaraliisa traveled four continents for 25 years, living, teaching, and exhibiting in Costa Rica, Japan, Peru and South Africa, with stops in the United States. While she was in Japan, she fell in love with washi paper and apprenticed with a master papermaker in Kyoto.
Paper is Saaraliisa’s chief passion, to her it is non-woven fabric, and she combines it with many other textile techniques. In 2007, she returned to the United States and currently has a studio in the Virginia suburbs of Washington DC.
