Jessica Pinsky
Executive Director

Jessica grew up in Akron, Ohio and moved to Cleveland in 2011 after receiving a BFA in Studio Art from New York University in 2006 and an MFA in painting from Boston University in 2009. She began teaching at Cleveland Institute of Art in 2011 and is currently serving as faculty in the Sculpture and Expanded Media department. Together with Cleveland Institute of Art, Jessica founded Praxis Fiber Workshop in June, 2015.
“It has been a great privilege and honor to bring a new life to the fiber department at CIA and to open Praxis in a city with such welcoming community, kindness, talent and creativity. Thank you to every single person I have met along this journey and to every person who has created art using this precious equipment over the years and so are woven into the rich history of textiles in our region.” www.jessicapinsky.com

Chad Troyer
​Digital Weaving Coordinator

Chad Troyer is an interdisciplinary artist working in textile practices such as weaving and felting. They graduated from Kent State University in 2022, receiving a BFA in Sculpture and Expanded Media, in addition to a BA in French.
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Their art uses the interlacement of yarn to highlight the relationship of textiles to itself, interlacing patterns to craft a metaphor between the artist and their community, family, and environment. Using their rural and Christian upbringing as a framework, Chad satirizes the religious rhetoric they grew up with to elevate a queer message.

Cathryn Amidei
Digital Weaving Director

Cathryn holds a B.A. in Anthropology/Russian from University of Illinois Chicago and an M.F.A. from Eastern Michigan University and was Associate Professor there for 13 years.
She has been the studio Director at the Jacquard Center in Hendersonville North Carolina since 2018.
Cathryn has been engaged with Jacquard weaving for 15+ years.  She has travelled extensively, studying and teaching on the TC2. She spent a year living in Norway working and walking at Tronrud Engineering Headquarters: the Digital Weaving Norway production facility. She owns a TC2 and provides technical support to Artists and Universities in North America when they purchase the loom and after. She lives in Ann Arbor Michigan and is a member of the WSG Gallery.
www.cathrynamidei.com

Will Grimm
Program Manager

Will Grimm is a fiber artist living in Cleveland, Ohio. He was raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where his grandmother taught him to sew at a young age. He graduated from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2019 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Fiber. Grimm’s work has been featured in publications such as Curated Quilts, Fiber Art Now, and BMoreArt, among others. Grimm has shown work in Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Cleveland, and most recently, San Diego. He is the proud dad of two studio cats who insist on inspecting each piece of work before it leaves the studio.

Ajdin Kulić
​Studio Coordinator

​Ajdin Kulić (Bosnian-American, b. 1999) is a interdisciplinary textiles artist and poet. Born and raised in Akron, OH to refugee parents, shaping their worldview and art-making practice. Kulić recieved their B.F.A in textiles at Kent State University and currently works as a Studio Staff member at Praxis Fiber Workshop.
Textiles serve as a medium of ritual and metaphor, helping to uncover the traumatizing intergenerational effects of the Bosnian war. Understanding these effects and how they mark life and sense of self, and healing them, has become a chief artistic undertaking. Kulić’s work is also grounded in research on the mind-body connection, trauma, nervous system health, and polyvagal theory.