Susan Brandeis is Distinguished Professor Emerita at North Carolina State University’s College of Design, where she is a member of the University’s Academy of Outstanding Teachers. She served as the Director of Graduate Programs for the Department of Art & Design; coordinated undergraduate and graduate studies in Fibers and Surface Design; was a founding member of the Anni Albers Scholars Program faculty. She holds a Master of Science degree in Art Education from Indiana University and a Master of Fine Arts in Textile Design from the University of Kansas. She worked with a wide range of students whose interests span the spectrum from designing textiles for mass production to creating one-of-a-kind art works. She has taught a wide range of courses in the textile arts and design including surface design, screen-printing, dyeing, digital printing, fibers materials and processes, off-loom structures, weaving, embroidery and surface embellishment, surface design, pattern, and color; as well as seminar courses in textile history, craft history, research methods, professional practice, and contemporary issues.
Her creative work has focused on continuing investigations in dyeing and printing both industrially produced and hand-woven fabrics, the juxtaposition of pattern and color, the contrast of materials and textures, and digital printing and embellishment, and expressive stitching. Her explorations are directed toward developing a visual “language” of materials and techniques which communicates the essential qualities found in nature, in travel destinations, in ancient scripts and symbols, or in her own home.
Her art works for the wall have been published in the books Celebrating the Stitch, The Surface Designer’s Art, The Art Quilt, Freestyle Machine Embroidery, and Contemporary Quilt Art, and in leading craft, design, and textile art magazines such as American Craft, Fiberarts, and Surface Design Journal, The Design Journal, Textile: The Journal of Cloth and Culture, and Embroidery (UK), and have been exhibited throughout the United States and in England, Ireland, Finland, Japan, Korea, the Netherlands, Colombia, at the International Biennial of Tapestry in Lausanne, Switzerland, and at the Textile Museum in Washington, DC. She is represented in numerous private and public collections, including the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian. She has taught summer workshops at Penland School of Crafts (North Carolina), Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts (Tennessee), Haystack Mountain School of Crafts (Maine), Oregon College of Arts and Crafts (Oregon), Split Rock Arts Program (Minnesota), and Shakerag (Tennessee). She is recipient of three visual arts fellowships from the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources and the author of The Intentional Thread: A Guide to Drawing, Gesture, and Color in Stitch (Schiffer Publishing, 2019). Her second book, an overview of surface design, is schedule for release from Schiffer in late 2023.