The North Suburban NeedleArts Guild’s next general meeting is Tuesday October 6, 2026 at 9:30am both in-person and as a virtual hybrid meeting. Guests are welcome. There is no charge for first time guests to this meeting. If you are a guest who wants to attend virtually please contact us via our website so a link for the meeting can be sent to you. If you plan to attend in person the meeting/lecture is being held at Gloria Dei Lutheran Church 1133 Pfingsten Rd. Northbrook, IL 60062. Our guest lecturer is Ren LaDassor.
Ren LaDassor has worked in the textile industry for over 30 years.
She has worked in TV, Film, and Broadway, and now the majority of her
time is spent on textile art. She is an Arkansas native and earned
her BFA in costume design from the University of North Carolina
School of the Arts. She then spent her 20s working in New York City.
She now lives in Madison, Wisconsin, and works as a textile artist,
graphic designer and costume designer.
Ren’s body of
work uses fiber and wood to capture intimate portraits of the random
perfection of nature. She strives to manifest the perfection of a
woodland scene and lock it into a permanent art form, in a way a
photograph cannot. Influenced by her home in the University of
Wisconsin Arboretum in Madison, she looks out over the forest every
day, watching it morph, blossom, thrive and fade. Using wood from
felled trees, driftwood or other forest detritus, she creates
preserved specimens of nature. The artistry is finding the balance
between the regular and irregular. Her goal is to recreate the messy
chaos of wooden decay and plant growth and she encourages the viewer
to look closely and witness every stitch.
Ren’s lecture is titled “Moss as Muse” and will focus on her career in the fiber arts beginning in television and Broadway in the highly collaborative arts, to solo artist, and now back to collaborative arts as a teacher. It will include anecdotes of how her art came to be, and, getting to know her art through the naming process. Stories of public reaction to her art will also be included.
After the meeting on Tuesday October 6, 2026 and running through October 8, 2026 there will be an in-person workshop with Ren titled “Sculptural Moss Embroidery” held at Gloria Dei Lutheran Church. If you are interested in this workshop you can get more information and/or sign up on our website. The cost of the workshop is $200.00 for guild members and $220.00 for nonmembers. For further information on this workshop and future lectures/workshops please visit our website at https://nsng.org/.