Kayla Powers

Kayla Powers fiber art

Prickly pear cactus turns purple/pink in the winter as a stress response to environmental conditions. In this case, the ...
03/10/2026

Prickly pear cactus turns purple/pink in the winter as a stress response to environmental conditions. In this case, the purple pigments (anthocyanins) protect the plant from the cold. At the same time, the tail end of winter, the plums are starting to blossom the same purple/pink flowers. This new body of work is an exploration of these synchronous moments. There are so many other forms of intelligence out there. So much to learn from our environment.

Plum Blossoms and Prickly Pear, 2026
Cotton, linen, silk, cheesecloth, embroidery thread, cochineal, 35mm photos printed on cotton
40 x 47 x 2 inches

I collected cochineal from many many prickly pear cacti to make the color on the fabric and embroidery thread in this piece. And there are some double exposed photos of plum
blossoms printed on fabric 🌸

This body of work will be exhibited in Taos, New Mexico this summer. More to come!

02/24/2026

I just submitted this clip as part of a grant application and thought I’d share it here, too. Grant filmed this for my current exhibition at Saugatuck Center for the Arts (up until May 8th!)

Ropes, 2025cotton, linen, silk, wool, natural dyes, maple woodHand dyed and painted with natural materials, woven, sewn ...
01/26/2026

Ropes, 2025
cotton, linen, silk, wool, natural dyes, maple wood

Hand dyed and painted with natural materials, woven, sewn and stuffed with fabric and yarn scraps and wool roving.

☁️

My work is first and foremost about connection - to the earth, to craft, and to each other. My choice to work with natural materials and to utilize the slow processes of foraging, dyeing, weaving, and stitching is in direct opposition to the mainstream, capitalist prioritization of speed, growth, and efficiency.

To cultivate connection requires openness, vulnerability, and sensitivity. But being open in this current world is fu***ng hard. Still though, I think we know that we have to continue to love and care as deeply as possible.

This is a bit of a rant but my dog just died and the government is attacking its people and sometimes making art can feel futile but I trust that seeking out beauty and peace is always worthwhile. 🙏🏼

Hi from New York 🙂 What a delight to get to show some work at in SoHo alongside so many incredible artists. I wove both...
01/21/2026

Hi from New York 🙂 What a delight to get to show some work at in SoHo alongside so many incredible artists.

I wove both of these pieces in 2025 with natural and secondhand fibers and plant (and cochineal) dyed yarn, the first one during a residency at and the second during a residency at with support from the Norwegian Textile Artist Association. The wooden headers were both custom made by my friend

Thank you to Lisa, Athena, and Nicole for all the work you do to highlight women artists ❤️

We said goodbye to sweet Maple girl yesterday 💔 She was such a huge part of our lives for the past 11 years. Life won’t ...
01/18/2026

We said goodbye to sweet Maple girl yesterday 💔 She was such a huge part of our lives for the past 11 years. Life won’t be the same without her. Thank you for loving her with us 🫂

I’m very excited to share that I’m teaching this summer at Anderson Ranch Arts Center, and registration opens today! Set...
01/06/2026

I’m very excited to share that I’m teaching this summer at Anderson Ranch Arts Center, and registration opens today! Set in the heart of the Rocky Mountains, is a place where artists gather to create, share ideas, and grow their craft.

Join my workshop,Sustainable Watercolor: Cultivating Pigments from Nature, on June 22-26. Space is limited, so register soon! I can’t wait to share the Ranch experience with you. Visit their website at andersonranch.org/workshops for all the details.

I’m signing off until the new year ⛅️ 2025 was beautiful, abundant, challenging, and generative. I traveled a lot, had t...
12/12/2025

I’m signing off until the new year ⛅️ 2025 was beautiful, abundant, challenging, and generative. I traveled a lot, had two solo exhibitions, two international residencies, received tons of rejections haha and met so many interesting people at home and abroad. I’m grateful to pursue this path…to spend my days exploring, to continue to cultivate this strange little life here in the desert. Hope you’re all spending time with loved ones, celebrating the abundance in your own lives, giving more than we take, reveling in the mystery of it all ✨

This series is called ‘A Galaxy of Wildflowers’, a title that comes from a line in a poem by Ross Gay. And all of the fl...
12/01/2025

This series is called ‘A Galaxy of Wildflowers’, a title that comes from a line in a poem by Ross Gay. And all of the flowers are tiled individually using their common name. They are made of cotton, linen, silk, wool, cotton batting, drop cloth, copper and thread. And they are all dyed with natural materials - locally sourced plants and even some cochineal. I assembled them like quilts with three layers and they are mostly hand sewn.

They are all available - I’ll put the link in my bio. Be in touch if you have any questions.

This is a real over share but I’m feeling compelled to tell you..for the past year, Grant and I (and maple) have been li...
11/29/2025

This is a real over share but I’m feeling compelled to tell you..for the past year, Grant and I (and maple) have been living in this tiny cabin (150 square feet) at Mountain Cloud Zen Center. There is no running water but we do have heat :) we don’t have storage so everything we own is in this tiny space. (I do have my studio in town which is separate and pretty big so…there’s that). We share a kitchen, bathroom, showers etc with the residents who come here to practice for a month or two at a time. I love living communally and meeting people from all over the world. I’ve always felt really interested in artists who live very differently. It feels like another expression of creativity to live so unconventionally ⛅️

I was excited to include four pigment circle prints in 𝘍𝘭𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘩 along with some of the other process ephemera of making ...
11/21/2025

I was excited to include four pigment circle prints in 𝘍𝘭𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘩 along with some of the other process ephemera of making paint with plants. Eventually, I’ll scrape the pigment off of the cloth and grind it into powder which I then bond with tree sap to create paint. So this moment is temporary and just one step in a long process. Photographing and printing them is a way of preserving this stage in the cycle and also cataloging color from different moments in time and place 🌀 the next slide is a photo taken during my artist talk at the opening.

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Santa Fe, NM
87500-87599

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