Luster Mikromakeri Portfolio

This is the portfolio to accompany my application to attend Luster Mikromakeri.

This sketch represents my proposed project of doubleweave tubes.

In January 2026, I had an exhibition with Helen Kong (ceramicist), titled Soft Curve, Hard Line in the DesignTO Festival in Toronto. It was installed in the window of a shop called Souk and Silk.

I wove three textile panels and Helen made three vessels.

For full project details, see the Project page or DesignTO page.

This project was funded thanks to the generosity of the Ontario Arts Council/Government of Ontario.

Soft Curve, Hard Line, cotton, linen, clay, (with Helen Kong)
Soft Curve, Hard Line, concept drawing
Soft Curve, Hard Line, Installation view (with Helen Kong)

During the summer of 2025, I attended an artist residency at Det Vilde Spinderi in Denmark.

I went to gain skills on a knitting machine, and used my curiosity about creating curves to knit a small work made from long curving panels. I continued exploring this motif by weaving curves on the computerized Toika loom.

Lastly, I wove a basket, which, in a sense, is a 3d curve. It has the delightful symmetry with the other pieces: the Danish word for basket is kurv, which sounds a lot like the English curve.

Much more about my experience and learning can be read on my studio newsletter, in editions: September 2025, October 2025, November 2025, January 2026, and (coming soon) February 2026.

This residency was funded with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts.

Untitled knit work, wool, 90cm x 110cm
Untitled woven work, cotton and wool, 48cm x 48cm
Installation view, July 26, 2025.

Generation is a project from 2022 during which I wove fabric to recover chairs designed and built by my grandfather, Rudolph Rataj, for the company Brunswick Manufacturing, which was started by a Norwegian immigrant named John Stene.

This project was lead by a curiosity into my own family’s making and craft history, as well as a way to get to know a man I never met.

For full project details, please visit the Project page.

This project was funded with the support of the Ontario Arts Council/Government of Ontario.

Generation, installation view at Craft Ontario, photos by Jocelyn Reynolds
Exhibition image featuring a large room with didactic poster, chairs, and textile samples.
Generation, installation view at Craft Ontario, photos by Jocelyn Reynolds
Image of a chair covered in hand woven fabric on a low plinth
Generation, installation view at Craft Ontario, photos by Jocelyn Reynolds