Textile Hive

Engaging & preserving the rich history and beauty of the Andrea Aranow Textile Design Collection.

Textile Hive was founded to engage and preserve the rich history, intricate techniques, and stunning visual beauty of the Andrea Aranow Textile Design Collection. Comprised of over 40,000 textiles spanning ﬁfty countries, Textile Hive enables a wider conversation around textiles globally through immersive physical and digital experiences.

04/08/2026

A BIG THANK YOU to everyone who joined us for our community opening. We were enjoying the event so much we forgot to take photos 🙃 It was such a pleasure to share the space and welcome you into our new living archive. We truly felt Andrea’s spirit celebrating with us throughout the evening.

A special thank you as well to our small but talented team, who devoted so much energy to making the event happen, and to for nourishing us with such delicious food.

It was especially meaningful to see so many familiar faces who have supported our collection and Portland TextileX Month over the years. While we are still building additional storage and display cases for the space, we are excited to enter this next phase of activating it and hosting more programs. More to come soon on that front soon…

A special shoutout as well to and for the snazzy name tags, which were delicately embroidered by our talented intern .sewing

If you were not able to attend one of our opening events, we would love to welcome you to one of our Sunday tours. Please join us by registering through the link in our bio.

❤️🙏

02/15/2026

Happy Birthday, Andrea 🕊️

Remembering your love of flowers and gardens, and your adventurous spirit, on this sunny day.

11/10/2025

Last week we had the honor of hosting a student visit from the department in our new living archive space. The visit was arranged by the talented . During the tour, Caleb and Tricia realized that Andrea and Tricia’s design lives had significant overlaps in New York City.

Tours like these are foundational to how we hope our new space is utilized. They look both back and forward, helping to contextualize the collection while demonstrating how archives such as ours can inspire current and future generations of textile designers.

Educators, students, designers, and enthusiasts are all invited to explore the collection in person. Learn more and schedule your visit through our website.

10/31/2025

It’s been a week since we opened our new Textile Hive space and we’ve already welcomed over 100 visitors. From our opening celebration to the Weaving a Living Archive panel, first tour, guest lecture, and workshop, we’ve been overjoyed by the response and the energy flowing through the space 🙏

We can feel Andrea smiling down on us, her spirit woven into every corner 🕊️

We still have work ahead before we feel fully settled, but for now, thank you to all the team members who worked so hard to bring this space to life, and to the skilled tradespeople who helped shape it.

Come see it for yourself before construction 🦺 continues in mid November by signing up for a Saturday tour through the link in our bio 👆

See you at the Hive soon and follow along as we shake the space 💫

07/12/2025

Travel Postcards: Liberty London

Our final stop on this summer’s European visit was the iconic Liberty department store in London, a fitting close to a journey rooted in textiles, history, and creative community.

The I Am. We Are. Liberty. exhibition celebrates 150 years of , a legacy interwoven with innovation, collaboration, and bold pattern design. Liberty was also one of our collection’s notable clients over the years, and it was a special treat to see materials from their extraordinary archives.

Curated by Sarah Campbell and writer Charlie Porter, the exhibition invites visitors to explore Liberty’s story through the voices of those who have shaped and been shaped by it. Their vision emphasized openness and creativity, spotlighting the connections between archive, experimentation, and community.

We especially appreciated the inventive use of shape and pattern throughout the show and how it highlighted the role of artists, designers, and makers across generations. The original artwork created for fabric development was stunning, and we loved how the exhibit was woven throughout the historic Liberty building itself, letting each floor unfold as part of the story.

A visit to Liberty is always a treat, but be careful of your wallet as their wares are quite irresistible.

Thank you 🙏 for following along with our travel posts. We hope they inspire you to visit museums, archives, retail spaces and galleries near and far that reimagine how cultural materials and collections can be engaged.

07/10/2025

Travel Postcards: V&A East Storehouse, London

While in London, we visited the new V&A East Storehouse, a space that reimagines what a museum can be. Located in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, it serves as both a working collection store and a public space, offering rare access to objects, archives, and behind the scenes activity.

Instead of keeping the collection hidden, the V&A created a transparent and participatory experience. Visitors can explore visible storage, see conservation in progress, and witness the care and research that bring collections to life. Over 250,000 objects and more than 1,000 archives are housed here, many once kept from public view.

We were especially inspired by their approach to storage and access as we continue designing our new space. A highlight was the education studio, where visitors can request specific objects during their visit, creating direct and personal engagement.

Also striking were full scale architectural installations, including a reconstructed mosque interior and sections from a Frank Lloyd Wright house. These large works are integrated into the space, offering rich an unexpected sense of scale.

The Storehouse is part of a larger vision that includes the soon to open V&A East Museum nearby. Together, they form a vibrant cultural hub with a strong community focus, encouraging participation and shared authorship.

We are here for more experimentation and reimagining of what archive and museum spaces can be, and we look forward to following the progress and updates at the 🙌🙌🙌

ostcards

07/09/2025

Travel Postcards: The British Museum, London

While in London recently, we had the chance to visit the British Museum and see three extraordinary Peruvian textiles now on view in the permanent galleries. Among them were two richly embroidered alto relieve cloaks made for the Negrería dance, a tradition that began as a celebration of the abolition of slavery in Peru in 1854. Performed to honor that history, these dances are constantly evolving, often engaging themes of resistance, identity, and national memory.

The museum holds over 400 textiles that Andrea collected across decades of travel, research, and collaboration. Although she did not have the chance to see this installation before her passing, we know she would have been thrilled to witness these works displayed with such care, woven into a larger narrative of cultural continuity and creativity. The blue and yellow cloaks on view celebrate Peruvian heroes, their vibrant surfaces telling stories through needlework and layered symbolism.

The curators were supported by textile researcher and curator Susana Navarro Hospinal, who first met Andrea while a graduate student and later co-curated our Threads of Time exhibition last fall. Her insights helped shape this presentation into one that honors both past and present.

Also featured is the work of contemporary Peruvian artist Nereida Apaza Mamani, created during a residency at the British Museum. Rooted in the Andean tradition of storytelling through textiles, her pieces speak directly to the garments on view. One pink embroidered cloak draws inspiration from the Negrería dance but replaces traditional symbols with literary references exploring contemporary political issues in Peru. Her Mensaje presidencial cloak, stitched with layers of newspaper, and a set of altered schoolbooks using Wari and Inca quipu techniques, offer a powerful critique of the narratives taught in state education. These works reframe official memory, grounding personal and collective histories in tactile form.

A visit to the British Museum is well worth your time the next time you find yourself in London.

07/03/2025

Travel Postcards: Vivian Suter at Palais de Tokyo, Paris

Tucked within the soaring halls of , we recently stepped into Disco, an immersive and untamed world created by Argentinian born artist Vivian Suter. The title does not refer to music, but to one of her beloved dogs. Based in Panajachel, Guatemala, a lakeside village surrounded by volcanoes, Suter has spent the last four decades living and working immersed in nature, away from the traditional art world.

Her 493 unstretched, untitled, and weather worn paintings span twenty years and are suspended throughout the space in a loose choreography that shifts with air, light, and movement. Many bear traces of her open air studio: mud, leaves, paw prints, even the memory of a 2005 mudslide that buried her workspace. That event marked a turning point in her embrace of chance and the natural world as creative collaborators.

For this show, the museum opened its glass ceiling to the elements, allowing the works to move and breathe with the weather, echoing the conditions in which they were made. Curated in collaboration with , Disco offers a quiet disruption of traditional display and a moving tribute to resilience, adaptation, and the beauty of being exposed.

A refreshingly stripped down curatorial and exhibition design approach, honest, raw, and free from excess framing. The kind of spirit Andrea would have deeply appreciated 🕊️

07/01/2025

Travel Postcards: Mobilier National Archives, Paris, France

During our recent visit with , we had the opportunity to visit the extraordinary archives of , one of France’s most significant cultural institutions. With a history dating back to the early 17th century, this organization is responsible for furnishing the official residences and offices of the French Republic, including presidential palaces, embassies, and diplomatic missions around the world.

Mobilier National houses a remarkable collection of over 130,000 objects, including furniture, textiles, tapestries, and decorative arts. Originally founded as the Garde-Meuble de la Couronne under Henry IV, and later organized by Colbert during the reign of Louis XIV, it has evolved into a living archive of French design heritage. The institution not only safeguards these pieces, but continues to support their ongoing restoration and creation through a dynamic network of artisan workshops and training programs.

Among the most impressive aspects of our visit was learning about the organization’s support of historic craft production through its national manufactories. These include the Manufacture des Gobelins, known for monumental tapestries; the Manufacture de Beauvais, focused on wall hangings; the Manufacture de la Savonnerie, specializing in knotted pile carpets; and the lace conservatories in Alençon and Le Puy, preserving needle and bobbin lace traditions recognized by UNESCO. Each of these workshops employs skilled artisans who continue centuries-old techniques while innovating for the present day.

The visit offered not only a look into an exceptional archive, but also an inspiring reminder of how deeply design and craftsmanship are woven into the fabric of national identity. We’re excited about the potential for future collaborations between our collection and the teams at Mobilier National, and look forward to continuing the conversation across archives, cultures, and generations.

06/05/2025

It is the end of an era. This past weekend, we hosted our final tour in the space we have called home since 2012. Over the years, we have welcomed hundreds of visitors through tours, events, and workshops.

While it was never meant to be a permanent home, it was a beautiful one, and we will miss its high ceilings, timber frames, and warm brick facade.

Thank you to everyone who visited the collection and shared this space with us. We would love to hear your favorite memories and moments in the comments, and we hope you will join us when we reopen in our new space this October. 🤲

05/14/2025

Hi 👋 it’s Caleb. It’s been a minute since we’ve shared any updates from Textile Hive. After wrapping up last fall’s Origins and Legacies exhibits, I took a little breather 😮‍💨 to reflect on the future of TH.

At the same time, an opportunity to acquire a permanent space presented itself—and I’m excited to share that this fall, we’ll be moving into our new home. The space was formerly Blue Dog Recording Studio, and our re-construction just began last week. It feels fitting that our next chapter starts in a space with a musical history. I think my mother would have appreciated that energy 🕊️

I’m incredibly thankful to have my talented and organized friend leading the renovation. As with every Textile Hive project, I’m approaching this with a beginner’s mind, curious, open, and intentional about creating a space that serves as a design and educational resource, a community hub, and a living archive.

I’ve especially enjoyed exploring materials, thinking through how the energy of a space can support our work, and tackling design challenges around storage. It’s also been a chance to reflect on all the past spaces that have housed and shaped the collection over the years.

I’m looking forward to sharing more about the process and introducing some of the incredible collaborators helping bring this space to life. I also look forward to sharing reflections in future posts about all the spaces the collection has inhabited over the years.

Looking forward to welcoming you all into our new space this fall 🤲

Address

133 SW 2nd Avenue UNIT 430
Portland, OR
97204

Opening Hours

10am - 4pm

Website

https://www.textilehive.com/

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