K.Steward photo

Dear Members,

After the Festival, I returned to my studio with a renewed sense of purpose. I am honored to continue to serve as your President. All of your devoted Board members have agreed to continue as well. I am very excited about SPIN’s future. I can't wait to see where our wonderful organization is headed. Here are ten goals that I want to highlight for the coming two years. Find the goals that speak to your heart and join me in seeing them come to fruition.

  1. Membership We currently have 480 members. Gloria Lanza-Bajo, membership chair, and I would like to double our membership! Think of the resources our membership creates. Each one you can be change agent. If every one of our members recruited one new SPIN member or convinced a lapsed member to return to our fold, we’d have almost 1000 SPIN members.

  2. Silkworm I’d love to see more articles from silk artists from around the world. I’m hoping we can attract more advertisers. If you have writing skills and the luxury of time, please let Tunizia Abdur-Raheem know that you’re available. My dream is to walk up to a news stand and see our beautiful magazine on the racks.

  3. Chapters The meeting of our Chapters keep us connected with other silk enthusiasts between festivals. Those of us lucky enough to attend can share their new tricks within their chapters. Suz Knight, your chapter chair and I want to add another five new chapters in the next two years.

  4. Website. While many of you have added more pictures in our membership gallery, I’d like to see 100% participation. This interactive website was developed for your use. Take the time to become familiar with all the tools available to you. We have added several items to our member only section. You now have access to the members gallery, the vendors page, the approved Board minutes, classes and Silkworm Archives. Next on our list will be to create mini-classes which will be available for our review. This will be followed by a forum type discussion with the featured artist. Nadja Lancelot,our website chair, is working to make this happen.

  5. MarketingHopefully you’ve been able to take advantage of our vendors page. If you’re a SPIN member you get a discount from the vendors listed. Diane Lawrence, marketing chair, has worked hard for each and every vendor. I’d like us to double our vendors to eighteen.

  6. Signature members Kathy Goodson, Signature chair, is looking forward to new applicants. Our Signature members represent the best of our best. We are all inspired by their talents, skills and guidance. Kathy and I would love to see five new signature members selected in the next two years.

  7. Festival ”Silk in Transition” was a fantastic success. Joyce Estes and Gloria Lanza-Bajo and their team(all volunteers) worked wonders. The move from Santa Fe to Arrowmont was a delightful change. We will be sending out an E-Blast which will include a venue choice ballot.  Please vote so the 2018 Festival team can get started.

  8. International development  Our representatives are recruiting in Germany, Qatar, India and most recently Oman. I’d love to see at least fifty new members from outside of the United States.  

  9. Facebook Our page now has 3731 members from all corners of the world. Jean-Louis Mireault does an amazing job of reviewing applicants for membership. Our goal is to promote International silk art in a positive, supportive way. Our experienced artists provide wonderful guidance for all who ask. I’d love it if all of our Facebook members became SPIN members. Can you imagine what we could do with almost 4000 SPIN members?

  10. Fundraising In the past we’ve depended on our membership to publish the Silkworm, assist members and maintain the website. When we make a small profit with the Festival we can then provide seed monies for the next festival. I want to have a fundraising event to bring our organization forward. I’d love to add your ideas to our brainstorming so please share. I’m excited about our many possibilities. I hope you are too.