An image of the artist smiling

Image: Rebecca (Zenefski) Slater

Since childhood, I have witnessed the world through a lens of emotion which could be a blessing or a burden.  This survival tool helped me navigate an often unpredictable home life. Over the course of my life I have made sense of these emotions using meditative processes to discharge residual feelings through my hands and into my art.

  • Emotional histories of my life guide my work. As a child, transforming the volatile chaos of home into worlds I could control saved me and was my genesis as a maker. I would escape to the nearby beach on Lake Erie, where I’d construct protective fantasy worlds of sanctuary with the wondrous debris that washed upon the shore.

    For years I believed my art embodied the tension between restraint, power and the control I was convinced I had. I now realize those ideas distill down to the universal experience of loss and human vulnerability. My losses shape who I am and the work I create.

    Textiles are my fundamental language. Whether using hand made paper, wet felted wool or hand stitching a wide array of fabrics, the forms I create are often body+emotional stand-ins of me and represent significant events from my life. Themes include unspoken subjects such as grief, mental illness and child sexual abuse.

    A degree in theater design and lengthy career as a scenic artist influences my work and provides a solid foundation for experimentation and exploration. I learned to be extremely flexible utilizing a broad range of materials and processes. Trained in the illusion of theater, the sense of tension, suspension and wonder are constantly at play in my work.

    As I work through the palpable tension around loss, the physical act of making renders it bearable. Wrangling stitches to control what is going on beneath the surface creates a tension between me and the work. The tactile, rigorous and meditative physicality of art making helps me meaningfully discharge these emotions through my hands.

  • Minneapolis based artist, Marjorie Fedyszyn (she/her) addresses the universal experiences of loss and human vulnerability through her sculptural practice in textiles. Careful attention to process and the inherent properties of materials informs her creative vocabulary for this work, which simultaneously expresses ideas from broad environmental concern to personal grief and introspection. Using traditional craft techniques such as paper making, hand stitching, and felt making, Fedyszyn’s abstract forms and installations emerge as emotional histories that investigate ideas of control and the realms of the personal and the global.

    Fedyszyn is a 2023 McKnight Fiber Artist Fellow and has been the recipient of a 2019 Jerome Visual Arts Fellowship and a Jerome Fiber Artist Project Grantee, as well as having received two Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative and Next Step Fund grants to support her work. She is a founding member of the MN Felt Makers Guild and the artist collective, SD8. Her work has been exhibited regionally and throughout the US, including The Robert C Williams Museum of Papermaking in Atlanta GA; The Morgan Conservatory of Paper, Cleveland, OH; DeVos Museum, Marquette, MI and South Dakota Museum of Art, Brookings.Her studio practice is in the historic Casket Arts Building in NE Minneapolis.

  • Selected Exhibitions

    2024 – Sustainability in Chaos, NAHP exhibition, Robert C. Williams Museum of Papaermaking, Atlanta, GA

    2024 – Open Work, McKnight Fiber Artist Fellowship Exhibition, Textile Center MN, Minneapolis, MN

    2023 – North of the 45, DeVos Art Gallery, Marquette, MI

    2023 – Decline and Fall, Silverwood Park Gallery, St Anthony, MN

    2023 – Tenuous Threads, Atlantic Gallery, New York, NY

    2022 – When Trees Dream, South Dakota Museum of Art, Brookings, SD

    2022 – Thought/Process, Inez Greenberg Gallery, Artistry, Bloomington, MN 

    2022 – Yarn/Rope String, Fiber Arts Now digital exhibition

    2021 – National Juried Exhibition, Morgan Conservatory, Cleveland, OH

    2020 – Materiality, North American Hand Papermakers, digital exhibition

    2020 – Drawn To Paper, Atlantic Gallery, New York, NY

    2019 – MCAD-Jerome Fellowship Exhibition, Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Main Gallery, Minneapolis, MN 

    2019 – Fiber Arts International IX, Sebastopol Arts Center, Sebastopol, CA

    2018 – Irreproachable, Redepenning Gallery, Hopkins Center for the Arts, Hopkins, MN

    2017 – Wintertide, NEMAA Biennial, Public Functionary Gallery, Minneapolis, MN,

    2016 – Women’s Art Institute Group Exhibition, University of MN Quarter Gallery, Minneapolis, MN

    2015 – Recollection: Shadow to Matter, SD8 Group Exhibition, Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Minneapolis, MN

    2014 – 60th Arrowhead Biennial, Duluth Art Institute Duluth, MN

    2013 – Elemental Matter, Jerome Fiber Artist Project Group Exhibition, Textile Center, Minneapolis, MN

    2013 – Fantastic Fibers, Yeiser Art Center, Paducah, KY

    2012 – Twelve Strands: Mentor/Protégé Program Exhibition, Textile Center, Minneapolis, MN

    Grants/Awards/Acquisitions

    2023 – McKnight Fiber Artist Fellowship

    2023 – Next Step Fund Grant, Metropolitan Regional Arts Council

    2020 – Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grant

    2019 – MCAD/Jerome Foundation Fellowship for Early Career Artists

    2019 – Metropolitan Library Service Agency/Anoka County Library acquisition 

    2019 – Aroha Philanthropies Scholarship for teacher training in Vitality Arts for older adults 

    2018 – Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grant

    2018 – Next Step Fund Grant, Metropolitan Regional Arts Council

    2013 – Jerome Fiber Artist Project Grant recipient, Textile Center of MN

    Professional Activity

    2022 – Yarn/Rope/String, Fiber Art Now magazine July 2022 

    2022 – Sculptural Basketry Plus, Studio Assistant to Ann B. Coddington, Penland School of Craft, Penland, NC

    2021 – Minnesota Center for Book Arts, Artist Collective, Minneapolis, MN

    2021 – Artist Residency Felted Sculptures, Eden Prairie High School, Eden Prairie, MN

    2019 – The Meditative Ritual of Art Making, Susan Schaefer, SW Journal

    2019 – Aroha Philanthropies Scholarship for teacher training in Vitality Arts for older adults

    2017 – The Power of Local Groups: SD8, Surface Design Association Journal; The Power of 8, SDA Conference 

    2016 - 2021 – Fiber Arts Youth Guild Instructor, Textile Center, Minneapolis, MN

    2014 – Founded the artist collective SD8; Edina Highlands Elementary artist residency

    2013 – Founded MN Felt Makers’ Guild

    2010-2012 – Textile Center Mentor Protégé program, Carolyn Halliday, Mentor

    1986-2003 – Freelance scenic and prop artisan; Guthrie Theater, MN Opera, Spoleto Festival, Science Museum of MN and Dayton’s Department Store

    1981-1986 – Freelance design assistant and prop artisan for N.Y. City Opera, Spoleto Festival, The Roundabout Theater, Manhattan Theater Club and The Hudson Guild Theater

    Community Projects

    2021 – Resemblance, a self identity workshop for older adults, Jones-Harrison assisted living residence

    2019 – Hand Rolling Paper Thread, Art-A-Whirl; Casket Arts Building, Minneapolis, MN

    2018 – Meditative Stitching in the Gallery, Hopkins Center for the Arts, Hopkins, MN

    2014-2019 – “Let’s Make” American Craft Council Show, St. Paul, MN project manager representing Textile Center MN

    2015 – Felt Making Fun in the Garden, Walker Art Center with the Textile Center MN

    2014 – What’s Growing Here? C4-Central Corridor Light Rail Transit Green Line Community felting project with Textile Center

    Education/Selected Workshops

    2024 – Masterclass: The Engineer & Madam Bricolage Are Lovers, Sheila Pepe instructor, Anderson Ranch Arts Center, Snowmass Village, CO

    2022 – Sculptural Basketry Plus, Ann B. Coddington, instructor; Penland School of Craft, Penland, NC

    2019 – Over-beaten Abaca Paper Residency, Jocelyn Châteauvert instructor; Charleston SC

    2019 – Sculptural Fibers, Ann B. Coddington instructor; Textile Center, Minneapolis, MN

    2018 – Sumi Ink and Wearable Felt Workshop, Jorie Johnson instructor; Minneapolis, MN

    2017 – Tied, Twisted and Knotted, Tanya Aguiñiga, instructor; Haystack Mountain School of Craft, Deer Isle, ME

    2016 – Women’s Art Institute at St. Catherine University, Pat Olson, Elizabeth Erickson and AK Garski instructors; St Paul, MN

    2015 – Sculptural Felted Forms, Andrea Graham instructor; Minneapolis, MN

    2014 – On and Under Your Skin, Felt Workshop, Marjolein Dallinga instructor; Minneapolis, MN

    2011 – Slow Felt Movement – SDA Conference, Chad Alice Hagen instructor; St Paul, MN

    1985 – Wood Carving and Wood Joinery With Hand Tools, The New School; New York, NY

    1982 –  Bachelor of Arts/Theater Design; State University of New York - Fredonia, Fredonia, NY