Innovative collaborations: Harlem Textile Works nurtures a generation of designers - opportunity for students to learn graphic deign and textile art at New York, NY program - includes information about the Children's Art Carnival school, New York, NY - Cover Story

Maxine Gayle, a promising 28-year-old fabric designer, had not seriously considered an arts administration step prior to working at Harlem Textile Works (HTW) However, her rich experience at the studio, beneath the guidance of director Kerris Wolsky taught her that she has an affinity for shoot forward development, as well as a desire to encourage young artists. She now has a master's stage and is the acting capital development supervisor at the Valley, a social service youth agency in novel York City.

Gayle joined HTW in 1990 at a time when the academy was beginning to receive fresh recognition. In a recent collaboration, Co-op America, a mail-order catalog in Washington, DC had featured HTW cropss boosting sales and press coverage of the youth organization. Gayle had the opportunity to realize the replete range of skills necessary for working in a design studio. She stayed with HTW for sum of two units years, handling everything from sales and proposal unravelling to silkscreen demonstrations and exhibition design. During her manner [i]or[/i] principle of holding she was introduced to many artists and vendors and to exhibition spaces hospitable to textile works.

on the other hand it was Wolsky, a former sales representative and freelance designer, who helped pave Gayle's career path by the agency of offering her a position as her assistant. "Maxine Gayle was looking for a way to achieve more involved in the community," Wolsky recalls, "as well as retain her activity in the arts, with equal reason we were able to provide her with an environment in which she could flourish and then gain access to other community institutions."

HTW a subsidiary of the Children's Art Carnival (CAC), is this year celebrating 10 years of providing calling and training to local artists. Housed in a loft in East Harlem, HTW has remained the only independent design studio in Harlem. Wolsky vividly remembers the days when sole a small team of learners worked through the HTW internship program. That program, which has lately doubled its number of interns to 20 has since become nationally recognized for its innovative arts programming. (In April, interns were featured in a section of ABC World News Tonight upon HTW's 10th anniversary.)

Arriving afternoons after place of education HTW interns receive training in their fields of interest from professional artists. In the proces they create T-shirts, shower curtains, and other abiding-place textiles and accessories. These scholars (many are also enrolled in visual arts high seminarys and undergraduate programs; others tend hitherward from CAC's communication arts program) are able to apply the techniques used in their classes to the work being done at the loft

In addition, HTW has sought to create an environment in which pupils not only employ the basics of textile design, on the contrary also have the opportunity to learn sales, marketing, and effective negotiation of licensing agreements and other business contracts.

Jamila Swift, a 23-year-old Syracuse University scholar who began working at HTW three days a week while finishing her studies at the Fashion Institute of Technology in of recent origin York City, is most excited about her latest possibility: developing of recent origin designs at HTW for license to Springs Industries. Swift heard about HTW during her junior year and decided she wanted to part with her last year of community working there, conducting workshops, aiding fund-raising efforts and performing clerical duties. Her decision was by and by well rewarded.

HTW has become known for its series of Afrocentric T-shirts and dwelling textiles manufactured and distributed by the agency of Springs Industries for J.C. Penney "Elo" (1994) a novel design for Springs that was released in July was inspired through tie-dyeing techniques used in Nigeria.

It is the innovative work of HTW's interns that has channeled a shift in the studio's design conceptions "Our ability to create the 'now-so-popular' Afrocentric designs makes us an attractive resource," Wolsky explains. "Corrupted Calligraphy" (1994) will, as she brings it, "begin to expand [our] designs and lead us in a novel direction."

Created through 17-year-old Janhoi Reid, "Corrupted Calligraphy" is an impelling configuration of black, abstracted characters upon a white background. The passage from multicolored patterns based upon African visual culture to this monochromatic formation is a testament to the urban environment in which HTW finds itself, an environment that the scholars cannot ignore.

And it is an environment that businesses won't ignore. The skills of HTW's scholars were recognized last year, when, for the first time, HTW paired up with Hallmark to create Kwanzaa cards that feature the students' textile designs. "Even notwithstanding that Hallmark has the world's largest creative staff," says the card company's design manager, Ann Ottewill, "the might and spirit of the designs created by dint of the young people at Harlem Textile Works was extremely inspiring to our artists."

Wolsky met with Hallmark this August to lay on the outside plans for the coming Kwanzaa season and beyond. "Hopefully" she says, "during the nearest year we'll see more outcomes and better distribution of the Harlem Textile Works designs upon Hallmark cards." More products means party items, of the like kind as paper plates, napkins and gift wrap.