Textile and fiber art practices are currently on the cutting edge of contemporary art and critical inquiry, and represent one of the world's longest and most accessible aesthetic traditions. The fiber arts program at SADAH emphasizes exploration of materials within a contemporary context that considers emergent and related issues of multiculturalism, technological advancement, gender, sexuality and more. Students will examine the relationships among material, process and the maker, as well as the critical role that cloth and fiber processes have played in global economic marketplaces historically. The fiber arts program emphasizes student engagement in both in studio practice and critical research. Students will learn to weave on-loom while also being introduced to many off-loom processes like wet felting, spinning, knitting, crochet, surface design, stitch and screen-printing. Studio sessions are supplemented with readings and discussion that explore social and cultural concerns related to the techniques learned. Relevant issues include functionality, identity, consumerism, community, repetition, pattern and decoration.