BIO: CATHERINE BILLINGSLEY
Catherine Billingsley was born and educated in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and received her BFA in Weaving and Textiles from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 1969. She moved with her family to Greensboro, NC in 1986, then to Greenville, NC in 1992, and then back to Greensboro in 2017. While in Greenville, Catherine returned to school and in 2003 earned her MFA in Textile Design from East Carolina University in Greenville. For the next 5 years she was part of the adjunct faculty and taught the entry-level textile survey course and all levels of weaving.
Catherine has worked as an independent artist doing commissions and exhibiting mainly in the midwest and southeast. Her largest commission was done for the Center for Creative Leadership in Greensboro, NC in 1992, and it hangs in their Administrative Wing. Woven of wool, the hanging measures 42” high and 32 feet long. Her most recent commission for St. Timothy’s Episcopal Church in Greenville was completed just before Easter, 2013.
Catherine also has taught weaving for the Milwaukee Area Technical College (WI) and the Center for Creative Arts in Greensboro, NC, as well as for weaving guilds in the midwest and southeast, and she is recently retired from teaching weaving in Ayden, NC. Between 1989 and 1993 she and her husband owned and operated the Kessenich Loom Co.
The artist may be reached at her studio/home in Greensboro, NC, where she lives and works with her sculptor husband Carl.
[email protected]
336-897-7066
PUBLICATIONS (of possible interest):
2018 Fold Unfold: the American Coverlet, author, Selvedge magazine, UK publication, Issue #83, pgs. 68-70
2016 . Visual Artist Profile, Journal of Creative Arts and Minds, Vol. 2, No. 1, June, pgs. 56-67
2013 In Review: Ed Lambert Retrospective, author, Surface Design Journal, Winter
2010 Under African Skies, about Leea Pienimaki, author, Surface Design Journal, Summer
2009 In Review: String, Glass, Red Chili Peppers and More, Surface Design Journal, Summer
Kente Weaving on a 4-Shaft Loom, editor, Complex Weavers Journal, February, pgs. 52-54
2007 In Review: SHOWCASE: SDA Representatives, author, Surface Design Journal, Vol. 31, No. 2, Winter, pgs. 58-59
2001 The Ghana Textile Odyssey, author, Surface Design Newsletter, Winter, pgs. 15-16
1988 Wonders of Weaving: Working at Loom Gives Sense of Order to Instructor’s Life, Lib Swindell, People and Places, Greensboro News and Record, Greensboro, North Carolina
1980 Loraine Kessenich, a profile, author, Interweave, Spring, Interweave Press, Loveland, Colorado
