Hawaiian Fiber Biennial Unites Textile Innovators in Honolulu

This year marks the 60th anniversary of Hawai‘i Craftsmen, the nonprofit behind some of Hawai‘i’s longest-running craft exhibitions. Among its most enduring programs is Fiber Hawai‘i, a biennial exhibition that will be on view this year June 5–27 at Downtown Art Center in Honolulu’s Chinatown.

Fiber artist Elizabeth Train launched the exhibition series in 1982 with Shore (Brenner) Lipsher, during a time when fiber was beginning to be taken seriously as art. Rather than focus on traditional weaving, Train invited artists across mediums to embrace what she calls a “fiber sensibility.” This approach led to works such as woven wood, wire twisted into textile-like forms, and glass stringers suspended like threads on a loom. “That, to me, was really exciting,” she says. “It pushed the medium a little bit, and it enticed other people to try something different.”

Since then, Fiber Hawai‘i has continued every other year, bringing in jurors from across the contemporary craft world, including figures affiliated with American Craft Council such as the late Paul J. Smith and former Craft Horizons editor-in-chief Rose Slivka. This year’s exhibition will be judged by Native Hawaiian fiber artist Marques Hanalei Marzan, cultural advisor and the Wayne Pitluck and Judith Pyle Curator for Cultural Resilience at the Bishop Museum in Honolulu.