Local Instructors

Barbara Setsu Pickett and her son Michael create highly textured silk scarves for their Mihara Shibori Studio collections. Barbara is an Associate Professor Emeritus in the Department of Art at the University of Oregon. The focus of her teaching and creative practice is velvetweaving, shibori, natural dyeing and artists’ books. Michael specializes in indigo dyeing and shibori and has created unique shibori patterns.

Marilyn Robert has worked in the field of textile design and fiber art since the 1980s. She earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in Fibers from the University of Oregon. She has been the recipient of grants and awards, including a Japan Foundation Artist Grant in 1997 to travel in Japan for study of traditional indigo-dyed textiles and contemporary fiber art. Her artwork is exhibited internationally. She is the author of several articles about textiles, and enjoys curatorial work. She taught for thirteen years at Lane Community College as head of the Fibers program, and as an adjunct Fine Arts professor at the University of Oregon, both in Eugene, Oregon. Marilyn is the co-founder of Eugene Textile Center and currently travels, lecturing and teaching workshops. In 2001, she organized a textile tour to Turkey, where she returned in 2012 for the First International Textile Conference in Istanbul. She teaches both surface design techniques, such as dyeing, printing, mechanical and chemical manipulations of cloth, as well as handweaving. Marilyn is passionate about dyeing with botanical dyes and continues to teach and to learn more about this, her favorite subject.