Textile Art: Banner Affirmations

Join artist Laura Marsh in a hands-on community workshop that explores the power of personal affirmations through fabric collage and embroidery. In this inclusive and creative session, participants will design and construct their own fabric banners that incorporate uplifting words, phrases, or intentions meaningful to them.

Drawing on techniques from textile art and slow craft traditions, we’ll experiment with layering reclaimed fabrics, simple hand-stitching, and embroidery to create one-of-a-kind pieces that celebrate self-expression and collective resilience. No previous sewing experience is required—just bring your curiosity, a willingness to share, and any small fabric scraps or materials that hold personal significance (optional).

This workshop is an invitation to reflect, express, and stitch together stories in community. At the end of this course, you will take home a finished affirmation banner and leave with a sense of connection. All materials provided.

By the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:

• Reflect on and articulate a personal affirmation or intention using visual language
• Apply basic fabric collage and hand embroidery techniques to create a meaningful textile artwork
• Combine color, texture, and text to express an individual or collective narrative
• Explore the use of reclaimed and personal materials as a medium for storytelling
• Cultivate mindfulness and a sense of connection through the slow, intentional process of making
• Engage in a supportive creative environment that values process as much as outcome

Class breakdown:

• Part I: Conceptual development-choosing fabric, sketching, cutting your banner shape, fabric collage, and embroidery

• Part II: Refinement-class discussion, drawing, embroidering, sewing the backside, tailoring your personal statement

• Part III: Finished banner-embroidering, edging, tassels and embellishments, class critique

About the instructor:

Laura Marsh (b.1982 Binghamton, NY) lives and works in Miami. She received her MFA from Yale University School of Art [Sculpture (2009)] and a BFA from the Cleveland Institute of Art [Painting (2006)]. Marsh is a textile artist who incorporates text about contemporary social and class issues. Her primary materials are fabric combined with statements quoting well-known labor leaders, feminist icons, and her own poetic musings. 

She has been an artist in residence at Oolite Arts, Miami Beach, Mana Contemporary, Miami and New Jersey, and Siena Art Institute, Siena, Italy. Dot Fiftyone Gallery in Miami represents Marsh. 

Selected solos include “Resilient Threads: Connecting Galaxies Across Hemispheres” at Dot Fiftyone Gallery (2025), “Unsolicited Advice,” HUB-Robeson Galleries, Penn State University, Pennsylvania (2023), “Knots Hold Intentionality,” DotFiftyone Gallery (2022), “Entwined,” Deering Estate (2020), “New Havens,” Locust Projects, Miami, Florida (2018).  Marsh has exhibited nationally at venues including The Whitney Museum of American Art (2016), Printed Matter (2023), Jane Lombard Gallery (2021), Locust Projects (2018), and Bernice Steinbaum Gallery (2023). Marsh is in the collections of Francie Bishop Good and David Horvitz, Victoria J. Rogers, Dennis and Debra Scholl, Mariangela Capuzzo, and Mindy Solomon.