Deborah Silver
Handwoven art
Deborah Silver is a native of Cleveland, Ohio. She discovered her love of weaving while attaining her BFA at the Cleveland Institute of Art, majoring in Fiber and minoring in Drawing.
After a weaving internship, Deborah learned the craft of antique furniture upholstery. She then combined her skills to open her own fiber art business. She worked closely with interior designers, creating site-specific fiber commissions for private residences, businesses and religious institutions. Her works are in the collections of Montefiore Home and B’nai Jeshuran Congregation in Cleveland, Ohio.
Deborah’s weavings employ the split-shed technique, transforming traditional pattern structures into a signature method of hand-weaving. All weft yarns travel from selvedge to selvedge, differentiating this cloth from tapestry. Her past works have been inspired by the increased cross-culturalism in the world which has been facilitated by technology. Her recent art is drawn from American women’s history and from memorials found in old cemeteries.
Deborah’s weavings have been shown in numerous local and international juried exhibitions, receiving many awards, including the Complex Weavers Award and First Place at “Complexity 2018: Innovations in Weaving”. She received a Cleveland Jewish Arts and Culture Fellowship award in 2015, and an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award in 2019.
Deborah continues to explore the many facets of split-shed weaving in her art, discovering new ways to combine her imagery with pattern structures.
Deborah is the author of The Technique of Split-shed Weaving, a book that illustrates pictorial weaving using a split shed on four shaft looms. She also lectures and teaches workshops on split-shed weaving. She is married to the painter, Patrick Haggerty. They live happily in a home with too little wall space and too many cats in Cleveland Heights, Ohio.