In this special episode of SEAMSIDE, you'll hear reflections from a variety of community members who found connection, creative renewal, and unexpected insights while stitching side by side at our HUDDLE retreat. Working with textiles alongside others unlocks family stories and personal histories – there's something almost magical about the way fabric becomes a bridge across time and relationships. WANT TO JOIN US FOR THE NEXT HUDDLE? Learn more about our upcoming retreat here. And you can alway...
Apr 29, 2025•1 hr 5 min
Textile artist Heidi Parkes reflects on her transformative 13-month residency at Milwaukee's historic Pfister Hotel, discussing how the experience deepened her artistic practice, expanded her community connections, and prepared her for her upcoming mid-career retrospective exhibition. What happens when an artist's private practice meets the public eye for an entire year? Fresh from completing her prestigious residency at Milwaukee's historic Pfister Hotel, Heidi Parkes returns to SEAMSIDE to unp...
Apr 03, 2025•1 hr
I felt an immediate resonance when Demetri’s work first popped up on my screen. Here were these meticulous, vibrant prints of vintage photographs of ancestors, bedazzled in sequins and beads and quartz crystals. So we struck up a chat and over the last few months have really nurtured a budding friendship. It was over the course of my conversations with Demetri that I knew it was the right time to bring SEAMSIDE back. In this SEAMSIDE conversation, Demetri and I explore: ① how our identities can ...
Mar 06, 2025•1 hr 8 min
The last time Judy Martin and I caught up was about a year ago. At the point in time, she was just starting Your Fragile Life, a quilt project that she just wrapped up in recent weeks. If you haven’t heard our first chat, you can find it in the feed under April 2023. That conversation is one of the most-listened to episodes of all time, and in that chat, called HOW TO HOLD YOUR LIFE IN YOUR HANDS, Judy and I talk about: ① the tole time plays in our work ② how we can meet ourselves in our materia...
Jun 27, 2024•42 min
Recently Dana Staves , writer and textile artist, wrote a post on the NOOK that was so sweet and real and inspiring that I asked if she wouldn't mind recording it for y'all to hear. And luckily for us, she did. Thank you, Dana. I hope you enjoy this reflection on art & craft by Dana Staves. If you’d like to see how the NOOK can support you in your creative process, claim your free trial at the link below. → Get your free trial to the QUILTY NOOK...
Jun 08, 2024•7 min
Barbara Campbell Thomas had a long-established painting practice when, about a decade ago, her mother bought her a sewing machine. Little did she know, but that gift provided her the perfect missing piece to her creative practice. What draws me to Barbara’s work is the balance between tautness and texture. Her stretched and pieced canvas quilt works pushes back an “all or nothing” perspective on genre. Her work is naturally generative and generous, creating expanses for so much. In this SEAMSIDE...
Jun 06, 2024•58 min
Welcome to MEMBERSTORY, a new series of bonus interviews that bring you real-life stories from the NOOK. These conversations have been a great way to get to know some of folks that make the NOOK so special. I hope you enjoy this conversation with Wendy Muir from Adelaide, Australia. If you’d like to see how the NOOK can support you in your creative process, claim your free trial at the link below. → Get your free trial to the QUILTY NOOK...
May 25, 2024•4 min
Russell James Barratt and his wildly joyful quilts make me want to lasso the UK and bring our two countries closer together. His work is loud and colorful, his demeanor is gentle and composed, and those two sides of Russell make for an imminently enjoyable friend to chat with. In this SEAMSIDE conversation, Russell and I explore: ① how he balances the tension of empty space and maximalism ② why the arc of creative exploration is longer than long ③ how we can use our quilts to say things words do...
May 23, 2024•57 min
It’s been a year since Coulter Fussell and I first chatted here on SEAMSIDE. In that conversation, we talked about the South and family history, the role of community in her work, and how she maintains hope in the face of conflict. You can find that first conversation, HOW TO WORK WITH WHAT YOU’VE GOT, in your feed below in March 2023. In this new SEAMSIDE conversation, Coulter and I reconnect and explore: ① why in the world she’s making headboards ② the traditional magic of making dolls ③ why C...
May 16, 2024•42 min
In this raw and unedited conversation, we talk about Tyrrell's newest work along with three artists he thinks everyone should follow → Get your free trial to the QUILTY NOOK → Claim your free copy of 10 THINGS I WISH I KNEW BEFORE I STARTED QUILTING → See images and more at the EPISODE WEBSITE → Follow Zak on INSTAGRAM...
May 11, 2024•23 min
Tyrrell Tapaha , a sixth-generation Diné weaver and sheepherder, will tell you there’s nothing in his work that specifically belongs to him. And while it may be true that there’s nothing new under the sun and that all artists draw from deep wells of collective experience, I can’t help but think that there is something special about Tyrrell’s work—the use of text, the collage-like shifts in weaving patterns, the subject matter—that sets his work apart. In this SEAMSIDE conversation, Tyrrell and I...
May 09, 2024•1 hr 2 min
Time continually marching forward. Each new day just piles on top of yesterday and gets buried further back in what we have come to call history. I think there's a problem with thinking about time that way, and that's what we're exploring today on SEAMSIDE. I'm going to share with you a quilt that I made called Generation. It's part of the Southern White Amnesia, a body of work that I've pulled together in the last couple years, exploring the stories that Southern White families tell each other ...
May 02, 2024•20 min
My good friend Maura Grace Ambrose joins for me for this SEAMSIDE special episode I’m calling FREE ADVICE where we answer your questions on quilting and the creative life. In this episode, we share our thoughts on the following questions: ➞ how our quilt aesthetic has changed over time, ➞ how to learn quilting without spending a lot of money or time ➞ what to do with random experimental pieces ➞ how to help objects made from imperfect salvaged materials look their best ➞ Maura offers a fool-proo...
Apr 25, 2024•1 hr 3 min
In this episode, I share more about a quilt I call LIKE FAMILY. It's part of the Southern White Amnesia Collection, which explores the kinds of stories that Southern White families tell one another, or maybe more importantly, the ones they don’t tell one another about their own family history. You may have heard me talk about other pieces in the same collection on SEAMSIDE before, and if not, I'd encourage you to check out some of those episodes. So far, we've got SILVER DOLLAR, SNAKE HANDLER, O...
Apr 16, 2024•21 min
I first met Victoria Van Der Laan in Catskill, New York, standing in the gravel driveway in front of the HUDDLE House where me and twenty-five other NOOKers where spending a long weekend quilting together. I had assumed she’d just whisk me away for a quick coffee and pastry while I was in town and that would be it, but Victoria ended up coming back to the house for a trunk show and then spent all afternoon with us just sewing and sharing stories. Noticing the warmth and generosity she moves thro...
Apr 11, 2024•56 min
I think I’ve been thinking about time all wrong. I’m not sure it’s linear, but maybe that it accretes and infuses itself into itself. What does all that mean? This quilt says it better than I ever can. In this SEAMSIDE conversation, I share some stories about: ① how we need a new way of thinking about time ② the life cycle of a single garment ③ how we can tend and nourish the past → Get your free trial to the QUILTY NOOK → See images and more at the EPISODE WEBSITE → Follow Zak on INSTAGRAM...
Apr 04, 2024•11 min
Talking to Kathryn Greenwood Swanson is like completing an electrical circuit that you hadn’t realized was open. Big ideas just light up this entire conversation. Kathryn and I catch up on the one year anniversary of our SEAMSIDE chat to catch up on everything that’s happened since we last talked. If you haven’t heard our first conversation, Kathryn runs a thriving creative reuse shop in Turner Falls, Massachusetts called Swanson’s Fabric, and you can find it here. In that conversation we talked...
Mar 28, 2024•59 min
Talking to Kathryn Greenwood Swanson is like completing an electrical circuit that you hadn’t realized was open. Big ideas just light up this entire conversation. Kathryn and I catch up on the one year anniversary of our SEAMSIDE chat to catch up on everything that’s happened since we last talked. If you haven’t heard our first conversation, Kathryn runs a thriving creative reuse shop in Turner Falls, Massachusetts called Swanson’s Fabric, and you can find it here. In that conversation we talked...
Mar 28, 2024•1 hr 9 min
Every time Woomin’s work pops up in my feed it’s a quilty dopamine hit. Her appliqued wall pieces depict scenes from her life in Queens New York and back home in Korea. And you don’t have to see very many of her pieces to realize that her world is abundant in story-telling objects and almost completely devoid of pesky and interfering humans. To hear her talk about how in her previous sculpture practice, she often felt alone, solo on stage, but now having connected with fabric, she never feels al...
Mar 21, 2024•1 hr 3 min
This textile piece, OUR CHILDREN, that we’re talking about today explores how we’re taught about our racial identity, gender, and sexuality from a young age. It’s a part of a collection I’m calling Southern White Amnesia which explores the stories that Southern white families tell (and don't tell) about their own family histories. In this SEAMSIDE conversation, I share thoughts about: ① the first time I realized I was White ② the lingering legacy of off-handed comments ③ how to reprogram all tho...
Mar 14, 2024•15 min
The casual Instagram scroller would be forgiven if they scrolled past one of Rachel’s patchwork pieces and assumed it was something generated by artificial intelligence. But AI can only dream of creating the real-world objects of beauty that Rachel creates. They capture light and color, breeze and the occasional animal slops. In this dreamy SEAMSIDE conversation, textile artist and photographer Rachel Hayes and I discuss: ① the rewards and perils of public art pieces ② the intangible and metaphy...
Mar 07, 2024•52 min
In this episode, I share a collection of stories behind SNAKE HANDLER, a large banner I made featuring a writhing white snake. It’s really a three-part story about wrestling, specifically wrestling with identity, privilege, and role in the struggle for racial justice. I share personal reflections on understanding and confronting my privilege, recommending reading suggestions, sharing two strategies I use to address biases and hurtful statements, and encouraging us to take active roles in address...
Feb 29, 2024•18 min
Leslie Rogers is an unpinnable butterfly of a human. Her creative practice flits from quilts to performance to garment-making to puppetry. She’s a deeply thoughtful artist whose often whimsical or jarring pieces are underpinned by hours of historical research. Leslie and I met at Penland, and if her name sounds familiar, it’s because she came up in my conversation recently with Paolo Arao. That episode, HOW TO BRING IT ALL TOGETHER is a treat in and of itself and I’d encourage you to give that o...
Feb 22, 2024•1 hr 6 min
As you may have heard the NOOK had our first in-person gathering recently called a HUDDLE. As part of this gathering, I asked participants to share what they were thinking about over the weekend. Funny enough in this old house, there was an old wooden phone booth that provided just enough privacy for us to sit and speak our thoughts into a small digital handheld recorder. What you're about to hear in this special episode of SEAMSIDE is a collection of sixteen short reflections: some are really v...
Feb 15, 2024•42 min
A few weeks ago, I caught up with quilt researcher and author Janneken Smucker to thumb through her new book together. If you haven’t heard our conversation yet on A New Deal for Quilts, I recommend you go back and catch that episode first, and then come join me for this conversation. Because today we’re going behind the scenes, behind the book, and into the International Quilt Museum itself. I’m joined by the curator of International collections at IQM, Marin Hanson, to hear what it was like to...
Feb 08, 2024•31 min
For most of my life, I had a tough time wrapping my head around the idea of privilege. But as I started researching my own family, something became crystal clear: the two branches of my family tree had two different experiences here in this country. On my dad's line, they are all subsistence farmers. They barely had enough money to get it registered on the census. On my mom's side of the family, however, where all the enslaving happened, they were wealthier in ways that my dad's folks could've n...
Feb 01, 2024•21 min
By now you’ve probably heard that our good friend Heidi Parkes is the 15th Artist in Residence at the Pfister Hotel in Milwaukee. I talk about Heidi like everyone knows her, and if you’ve been in my world for very long, I’m sure you’ve heard me talk about her. We are both former public school educators turned professional artists and have been friends for almost a decade now. If you’re not familiar with Heidi’s work, she documents her life in her quilts, tracking days, places, and memories throu...
Jan 25, 2024•32 min
I’m convinced that Roderick Kiracofe is one part human being and one part guardian angel. He’s been a huge support both of me and many other quilters out there, generously lending his experience and insight that only come from the decades he’s spent as an advocate for quilts. On a recent trip to NYC, he and I caught up at Tatter’s Blue Library to immerse ourselves in Brooklyn’s beautiful textile research space and the all the shades of blueness. We cozy up on a big blue couch in the corner of th...
Jan 18, 2024•35 min
In this quilt talk, I share the KNIFEMAN quilt: a story-driven project shaped by an encounter I had while purchasing a foraging knife, exploring themes of identity and how each one of us living our best lives gives permission to everyone around us to the same. You can see images of quilts we discuss on the episode website https://www.zakfoster.com/seamside/ knifeman WHY LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE? There’s a rich narrative in this KNIFEMAN project that blends quilting with personal reflection and soc...
Jan 11, 2024•35 min
To get 2024 started right, I thought I would pull together some of my favorite moments out of the last year as a way of not only reflecting, but mining it again for the wisdom, the advice, the perspective and experience that my guests have offered, and hopes of setting all of us up for a more creative, more fulfilling, more satisfying 2024. When I sat down to begin thinking who would I pull in from the last year of SEAMSIDE, it was a lot more challenging than I thought. I tried to pick a wide va...
Jan 03, 2024•1 hr 10 min
