Calling on her skills as a designer with a keen understanding of manufacturing, Elizabeth Whelan believes her textile, Artemis, can advance seating design.  Artemis combines the function of a foam cushion with the beauty of an upholstery fabric into an inventive three-dimensional woven textile is breathable, comfortable and can be manufactured on a standard power loom.  Whelan was granted a utility patent in both the US and EU for Artemis.  She received a grant from the Maine Technology Institute to make a manufacturing trial at AFFOA.

In this presentation, Whelan will take you through the design and development process of Artemis.  After the presentation, she will take questions from the audience and engage in discussion of design and innovation in textiles.

About the presenter:

Elizabeth Whelan is a designer and inventor of woven fabrics.  She creates fabrics that give equal weight to performance, functionality, and aesthetics.  This approach has led her to more forward-thinking textiles and to clients across industries, including Nike, Tumi, and Knoll.  The textiles she created for Humanscale are an integral part of its successful ergonomic seating line. She has found like-minded creators at AFFOA (Cambridge, MA), where she received awards for creating a fabric woven with LED fiber that enables it to be a communication device.

Her national and international awards, fellowships, and grants, include the 2023-24 Rome Prize fellow in Design at the American Academy in Rome, the 2024 Helen Metcalf Visionary Award from RISD and a grant from the Maine Technology Institute. She holds utility patents in the US and Europe, and I lecture, teach, and critique worldwide. My work is in the permanent collection of the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum.

Her studio was established in New York City in 1997.  In 2014, I returned to my New England roots for a lifestyle closer to nature.  She now lives and works in Brooklin, Maine, where its beauty, bounty, and rhythm inspire and inform her work.