Polly Spenner

Technician, Weaving

Polly Spenner, a graduate of the RISD Textiles Department and Interlochen Arts Academy, is a Textiles Technician with a concentration in weaving.
She operates and maintains the state-of-the-art Itema Industrial Jacquard Loom and assist the students with their design and materials choices for their original woven fabrics. She also maintains the weaving studios TC1 and TC2
Jacquard Looms, AVL Compu Dobby looms, and Macomber multi-harness handlooms and finishing equipment.

She supports the students technical and design process and promotes their collaboration, which is essential in set up handlooms and off loom constructions. Ms. Spenner is a textiles artist, painter, and screenprinter.
Her Jacquard weavings, sculptures, silkscreen prints, and paintings she also combines to create mixed-media collages. Her focus is the connection between man-made objects and their counterparts in nature.

She was born is Sydney Australia and now calls Rhode Island home with her Chocolate Lab Bandit.

Through her internship at The Danish Weaving Center in Haderslev, Denmark, she worked with Countermarch, Dobby, and tapestry looms. She taught students how to draft patterns, use looms and weave. This experience sparked her interest in loom repairs and maintenance and sharing her weaving knowledge in an educational setting. This ultimately lead her back to RISD to finish her Textiles degree and become a Textiles Technician.

Fellowship: Washington University Friday Harbor Labs, Whitley Center, Artist in Residence, Friday Harbor, San Juan Island Washington Solo Exhibitions: RISD Benson Hall Printmaking Gallery and the Galerie le Domaine Group Exhibitions: Gelman Gallery, in the RISD Museum, the RISD Woods-Gerry Gallery, The Wickford Art Association, and the Imago Foundation for the Arts Gallery. Her work is in the permanent collection of the Poets House Library of New York City, and the Imago Foundation for the Arts.