I was very impressed with your web site and it has prompted me to write to you. I have been working in textiles since I was 5 years old. On Sunday the 6th of July I will turn 76. Your mom’s teacher, Constance Howard, was one of my favorite artists and a wonderful friend. In the early seventies, I was setting up a textile program at a Catholic college in Buffalo, NY and used one of her books as the textbook. I wrote to the editor and Constance responded: “I will be teaching at Sheridan School of Design outside Toronto. I end on Friday and you can pick me up and I will stay a week with you.” We became best friends.

At the time, I had a show of my students textiles at the college gallery. Constance spent quite some time viewing their work in the gallery and then came into my office and said, “Jack, the work is wonderful and I do not see you in any of their work.” I thought that was the nicest thing she could say to me as I worked very hard to have students express their own visions, not mine. She accepted two of my students into the textile program at her school and both graduated from Goldsmith. Constance and I stayed in touch until she died.

In 1976, I moved my family to Dallas in 1976 to served as Art Supervisor for 350 Art Teachers K-12 in DISD. I returned to the classroom in 1993, taught for 10 years, and retired as Irving HS Teacher of the Year (2002) and Texas Teacher of the Year. I also received the Robert Raushenberg Award, along with 30 other American art teachers. Although I proposed to retire that year, my principal asked that I train someone to teach my textile classes. So I went part time until another teacher could take over my classes.

For the last 11 years, I have devoted my energies to my art, wife and five grandchildren. I have devoted my thoughts and energies to my own work and exhibited, curated shows, and taught many workshops. I had a web site up for some time; but since maintaining it is not my forte, it has lapse. However, you can access some of my work by googling my name.

I am working on a new web site and came across your information. I would love to talk with you. I have been closely involved with many significant textile artists in the US and abroad; and I would love to tell you more about myself and share my information. You cannot imagine how viable the textile arts are in this country. I have worked with a group of men quilters (We held an exhibit of our work in Texas a year or so ago) and with an extraordinary quilter/collector in Orchard Park NY.

Would you like to connect?