Kit Parks Receives Center for Craft Teaching Artist Cohort Grant

Stamps alum and Fiber Studio Coordinator Kit Parks (BFA ​’15) has been named a 2025 recipient of the Center for Craft’s Teaching Artist Cohort grant. This prestigious national program brings together artists from across the country for six months of collaborative learning, while also providing support to further invest in their studio and teaching practice.

In this Q&A, Kit shares reflections on their creative journey, the role of craft in building community, and how their Stamps experience continues to shape their work as an artist and educator.

What does receiving this award mean to you?

Receiving the Teaching Artist Cohort award from the Center for Craft is an amazing investment in my practice and how I share it. The $10,000 grant will support the purchase of critical equipment for my studio, contributing to the making of my work, workshops I teach, and the production of handwoven goods for my studio shop, Spool & Dye Works. In addition to funding, I’ll join a cohort of artists for 6 months of communal learning to grow in our practice as educators and makers.

I am a big fan of the Center for Craft and their mission to amplify why craft matters. I am excited to deepen my understanding of contemporary craft and bring that back to my teaching and my work at Stamps. 

Can you tell us a little about your work?

My artwork draws inspiration from intimate yet unnerving connections created via technology, the fluid space between private and public, and the psychological experience of being surveilled. Visually, my work is informed by the 1970s Pattern & Decoration Movement and cultural textile practices, with particular interest in carpets and block print designs from Southwest Asia & North Africa. Building upon a history of textiles used for encoded communication, from WWII knitting spies to the queer language of hanky code, I make fiber sculptures that connect folkloric textile traditions from my Armenian culture with the real and constant gaze of contemporary surveillance mechanisms like social media. In recent work, I adapt protective motifs that have been woven into Armenian carpets for centuries, exploring how symbols and cultural practices can evolve, even surviving genocide, to shield against the contemporary threat of mass-surveillance.

How do you stay inspired and creative?

I love being a fiber artist because there is inspiration everywhere and everyone is a teacher – don’t we all know something about textiles? I’m inspired by looking at what people wear, friend’s family quilts, textures in nature, even upholstery on the bus. Reading is inspiring and a critical part of my research. Two books I read recently that I really enjoyed were The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff and Fray: Art and Textile Politics by Julia Bryan-Wilson.

Have you encountered any challenges in your career, and if so, how did you overcome them?

In terms of my art career, the biggest challenge has been protecting my creativity. Capitalism makes us feel like we need to be constantly producing. For years, I thought I had to be in the studio all the time, whenever I wasn’t at my day job. I feel like I missed valuable moments with friends and life experiences because of it. Now I spend more time with friends and loved ones, out in nature, reading, etc. I actually feel more inspired, and my time in the studio is more focused and productive.

When you were a Stamps student, what classes and faculty inspired you?

I took as many fiber classes as I could with Sherri Smith, and they were all transformational. I am grateful I got to study with her before she retired. She’s such an influential fiber artist, and I learned so much from her. I also worked with Heidi Kumao and Robert Platt for my Integrative Project, and they were both instrumental in shaping my practice. The two classes I took with Joe Trumpey guided me to think about my place in the world and the materials I use in ways that still show up in my practice all the time.

Learning to weave and dye cloth gave me the foundation upon which all of my work hinges. We didn’t have any sewing classes when I was in school, but Nancy Thorson, the Fiber Studio Coordinator at the time, taught me to use the sewing machines. A good portion of my livelihood came from sewing before I came back to work at Stamps. 

Can you tell us about your journey since graduating with a degree in art and design?

Since graduating, I’ve lived in New York, Wisconsin, and then back in Michigan. Wherever I went, I found a studio to work out of (or turned my bedroom into one) and tried to meet people in that community and exhibit my artwork. I worked in clothing alterations, youth theater, food service, substitute teaching, landscaping, taught sewing and screen printing workshops and did freelance sewing and design work, before taking on the role of Fiber Studio Coordinator at Stamps in 2019. In 2023, I opened Spool & Dye Works, a studio where I make and sell handwoven goods and teach fiber art classes.