LOS ANGELES, CA.- Material Remembrance explores the human desire for storytelling through fiber art, featuring work by Cameron Taylor-Brown and Aneesa Shami Zizzo. Both artists create abstracted imagery referencing historic places and personal memory using textile materials, showing deep commitment to their craft and the mastery of technique that speaks to the breadth of their experiences. Material Remembrance is a featured exhibition of Handwork: Celebrating American Craft 2026.

Taylor-Brown’s mixed-media weavings present a nuanced perception of the world around her as she examines both her personal history and the history of cloth. Her Reflections series of landscapes explores the interplay of real and reflected, positive and negative - and invites the viewer to imagine what might be there…and then again, what might not. Her series Threads of Time examines her response to places of significance in the story of cloth such as a stairwell in an historic weavers’ building in Lyon, France.

Zizzo’s fabric collages intertwine personal history, Islamic folklore and Lebanese landscapes as she delves into her identity as a second-generation Arab-American. Her current series, Bedtime Stories, explores her new role as the mother of two young children, featuring abstract illustrations of childhood stories and life lessons she wishes to impart. These new works are heavily influenced by her previous series, Something Sacred and Reclamation, which commemorate her first trip to Lebanon in 2017 and meeting her father’s family for the first time.

Craft in America announced the launch of Handwork: Celebrating American Craft 2026, a national semi-quincentennial initiative to showcase the importance of the handmade, both throughout our history and in contemporary life.

Handwork 2026 will be a year-long collaboration among organizations, educators, and makers to celebrate the diversity of the crafts that define America, bringing compelling stories and underrepresented art and artists into the spotlight. Craft is universal and democratic; it unites us by bringing people of all backgrounds and beliefs together. A deeply important carrier of tradition and cultural practice, the handmade connects us through history and time.

Cameron Taylor-Brown was introduced to textiles by artist Ed Rossbach at the University of California, Berkeley, and studied textile design at the Philadelphia College of Textiles and Science, where she later taught woven design. Since 1985, she has lived in Los Angeles where she is active in arts and education. Her work is widely exhibited and has been featured in Fiber Art Now, American Craft, Handwoven, and Shuttle, Spindle and Dyepot. In 2019, she curated the critically acclaimed exhibit Material Meaning: A Living Legacy of Anni Albers at the Craft in America Center. She is the founder of ARTSgarage, a textile resource center in Los Angeles, and teaches workshops at ARTSgarage, schools, guilds, museums, and conferences throughout the United States. She is a past president of California Fibers and serves on the boards of the Fowler Textile Council and Textile Arts LA.

Aneesa Shami Zizzo (she/her/hers) is a fiber artist exploring shared memory through appliqued tapestries, soft sculpture and paper collage. Zizzo holds Bachelor of Fine Arts degrees in both Fiber and Art History from the Kansas City Art Institute. She was an artist-in-residence at the Arab American National Museum in 2024 and a Fellow for the Mildred’s Lane Attention Labs: Order of the Third Bird in 2015. Recent exhibition venues include: the Carolyn Campagna Kleefeld Contemporary Art Museum (Long Beach, CA), Craft in America Center (Los Angeles, CA), and the Barbican Centre (London, UK). Her work is in the collections of the Carolyn Campagna Kleefeld Contemporary Art Museum, The Elder Statesmen, Able ARTS Work and Kancan USA.