Blue Skies Workroom
bags, home textiles, garments and books using her own screenprinted fabric and
papers, lots of vibrant patterns and glowing colors. Alyssa has always loved
working with cloth and paper. Her grandfather was a tailor in Brooklyn NY and
allowed her to touch voluptuous bolts of woolens lined like library reference
books in his cutting room. As a small girl, Alyssa learned to sew from her mother,
and as an established artist, to screenprint during a faculty retreat at Penland
School of Craft.
Alyssa’s work can be seen in numerous galleries and shops including Penland
Gallery (Penland NC), Reynolds Gallery (Richmond VA), Pyramid Atlantic Shop
(Hyattsville MD), and Artful Home; and has been exhibited in national craft shows
sponsored by American Craft Council, Smithsonian, and Visual Arts Center. Alyssa
has received awards including two Virginia Museum Visual Artist Fellowships,
Craft & Design Excellence in Art to Wear, and a Pyramid Atlantic Denbo
Fellowship; and has served as artist in residence for VCU School of Business, VCU
Rice Rivers Center, and St. Mary’s College, MD. This summer, Alyssa will return to
Penland to teach a surface design screenprinting workshop, “Print What You
Sew”.
Alyssa lives with her husband, tends to a free-ranging chicken flock, and maintains
her studios along the Chickahominy River in a rural community outside Richmond,
Virginia, not far from where Pocahontas saved John Smith. Her favorite color is
still fluorescent.