Business meeting generally starts at 6pm, arrive earlier for sign-in, refreshments and socializing, with any lecture generally at 7pm.
Guests are always welcome, there is a guest fee, $10, which can be credited toward membership – click HERE for more information.

Our Hospitality team provides coffee and tea along with some cookies at guild meetings.
Please bring your own mug or water bottle.
Member contributions of home-baked treats or other simple snacks are always welcome!

18 February 2026

ZOOM

SUSAN AVISHAI

Among the Garbage and the Flowers   

How Susan came to fibre art, specifically using cast-off clothing, reuse and creativity.  Techniques for creating sculpture from deconstructed, discarded clothing to evoke awareness of the exploitative nature of garment manufacture and the paradoxically enormous problem of textile waste.

BIO Susan Avishai creates sculpture from deconstructed, discarded clothing. Her work evokes awareness of the exploitative nature of garment manufacture and the paradoxically enormous problem of textile waste. Susan has mounted 18 solo shows, won many prizes in national and international juried exhibitions, and is represented in several large corporate and museum collections. She was elected to the Ontario Society of Artists in 2015.Originally from Montreal, Susan has a BFA (1971) from Concordia University, studied as well at the Ontario College of Art in Toronto,and the Académie Julien in Paris. She received an MA (2002, Hollins  University, VA) in writing and literature. Toronto is now home, after years in Jerusalem, New York, Boston, and Ottawa. Her new work has been included in the book Dimensional Cloth, Sculpture by Contemporary Textile Artists by Andra Stanton; profiled in Fiber Art Now; and the SAQA Journal, and she was a featured artist in Australia’s Textile Fibre Forum. She was a presenting artist at the 3rd International Textile Symposium at the Mark Rothko Centre in Daugavpils, Latvia, was chosen for the 2016 Gardiner Museum’s Twelve Trees Christmas program, and has guest curated a show of 11 artists who also work with up-cycled  textiles, exhibited in 2023 at the Mississippi Valley Textile Museum in Almonte, Ontario. Recent work was shown at the Mary E. Black Gallery in Halifax, NS and she participated in Fiberart International 2019. She was chosen twice for Excellence in Fibers and once for Excellence in Quilts organized by Fiber Art Now. Most recently she was invited to be a featured speaker at the 2023 SAQA Conference in Toronto.

Click here to learn more about Susan Avishai