Mastering Weave Structures

Sharon Alderman has been a full-time weaver since 1970. Specializing in fabrics to wear, upholstery and other interior fabrics, and color studies woven of cotton sewing thread, she was awarded the Governor's Award in the Arts, Artist Category, in 1996 in Salt Lake City, Utah. Her work has been shown in competitions and invitational exhibitions throughout North America, including the National Museum of Women's Art in Washington, D.C. Her work is in private, corporate, city, county, state, and federal collections. Alderman lectures, gives keynote addresses, acts as a juror, and leads workshops for guilds, art centers, colleges, and at national conferences. She has also taught in Canada and the U.K. Her writing and work have appeared in many weaving magazines: Shuttle, Spindle & Dyepot, Textile Artist's Newsletter, Weavers, and Handwoven. She designs and weaves the Swatch Collection series for Handwoven magazine. She has woven prototype fabrics for engineering firms. Among the exotic materials used in these prototypes are nylon monofilament, metal filaments, fusible materials, and nickel-plated carbon fibers. Sharon's background in the sciences has made her uniquely qualified to construct unusual cloth made of unusual materials. She has a Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry from Harvey Mudd College, Claremont, California, and studied Basic Design in the Graduate School of Architecture at the University of Utah. She lives in Salt Lake City, Utah