Shepherds of Needlelace: Armenian-American Lace After the Genocide

The Armenian needlelace (janyak) knot evolved from a net-making technique on the banks of the Mediterranean to a decorative lace knot, the first translation of many in the history of the ancient textile. Artist Emma Welty will give a talk titled Shepherds of Needlelace: Armenian-American Lace After the Genocide. The presentation will explore the history of this style of lace making and its journey into the Armenian-American diaspora at the turn of the twentieth century. Ms. Welty shares the historic images at the lace as recorded in folklore, ethnographic exhibitions, instructional printed matter and digital communities, as well as contemporary needlelace practice.

Emma Welty is an artist, researcher and writer with a textile centered studio practice. Welty completed a BFA from Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Fibers and Art History and an MFA/MA in Visual Art and Art History at Purchase College. Welty’s work utilizes ancestral traditions of Armenian carpet and needlelace to explore economies of labor, notions of “heirloom” and cultural transmissions within a digital diaspora.
Welty was recently in residence at the Newport Art Museum in Rhode Island and the Museum of Arts and Design in Manhattan and has shown at Heirloom Gallery in Brooklyn, NY; Miss Porter’s School in Farmington, CT; Woodbury Public Library, Piano Craft Gallery in Boston, CT; Joseph Gross Gallery at the University of Arizona, and the Newport Art Museum in RI. The talk is open to all, but registration is requested.