A wide shot of a ceramics studio, featuring students working with pottery wheels and other tools.
Sofia looks off camera, sitting in a shaft of sunlight. She wears a black tank top.

Sofía Fernández Díaz

Lecturer

Bio

Sofía Fernández Díaz is a multi-disciplinary artist and educator from Mexico City. Her experimental, process-centric practice combines meditative labor, repetition and intuition with traditional fiber and craft techniques she has learned through living and working alongside artisans from across Mexico. Sofia’s work focuses on material exploration — primarily fibers, natural dyes and pigments, blown glass, and beeswax — to explore humanity’s interaction with the natural world.

Courses

Title Department Catalog Term

Description

This course introduces students to a diverse range of textile materials, processes, histories, politics, traditions, and cultures of fiber and their relationships to contemporary art practice. Historical and contemporary approaches to process and materials are explored as students are introduced to a variety of fiber techniques in construction and surface application. Taught technique can include printing, tapestry weaving, immersion and resist dyeing, knitting, crochet, felting, coiling, hand embroidery, machine sewing, piecework, and embellishment. Textiles have rich and complex histories in all cultures. Examples from across time and place will be explored and discussed through visual presentations, assigned readings, in-class discussions, visiting artist lectures, and field trips. By the end of this course, students will become familiar with the formal, conceptual, expressive, and political potential of fiber as an expressive medium with limitless possibilities. Course work will vary but typically includes the creation of technical samples, critique projects, and reading responses.

Class Number

1544

Credits

3

Description

This course introduces students to a diverse range of textile materials, processes, histories, politics, traditions, and cultures of fiber and their relationships to contemporary art practice. Historical and contemporary approaches to process and materials are explored as students are introduced to a variety of fiber techniques in construction and surface application. Taught technique can include printing, tapestry weaving, immersion and resist dyeing, knitting, crochet, felting, coiling, hand embroidery, machine sewing, piecework, and embellishment. Textiles have rich and complex histories in all cultures. Examples from across time and place will be explored and discussed through visual presentations, assigned readings, in-class discussions, visiting artist lectures, and field trips. By the end of this course, students will become familiar with the formal, conceptual, expressive, and political potential of fiber as an expressive medium with limitless possibilities. Course work will vary but typically includes the creation of technical samples, critique projects, and reading responses.

Class Number

1207

Credits

3