| by Maria Rosaria Roseo | Born and raised in Chicago, Illinois (USA), where she currently lives and works, Jacqueline Surdell is a young woman of many talents—first a professional athlete and later an artist, with a background from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she earned her Master of Fine Arts in Fiber and Material Studies in 2017. Family heritage plays a significant role in Jacqueline Surdell’s work. Her love for art and conceptual practice was passed down to her by her grandmother, a landscape painter. Her passion and interest in materials, their history and origin, and various processing techniques, on the other hand, were inherited…

| by Maria Rosaria Roseo | Rachel (Meyers) Hefferan, an artist from suburban Midwest, USA, graduated from the University of Michigan and earned her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She currently lives and works in rural western Michigan. A weaver, farmer, environmentalist, and fermentation enthusiast, Hefferan uses the loom as a metaphorical tool, balancing between science and magic, to create tapestries—woven abstractions that represent and celebrate the beauty and complexity of microbial life and its process of decomposition and renewal of matter. Mosses, lichens, fungi, and molds, with their metabolic activities of transformation and deconstruction, are the primary sources of inspiration for the artist. Through…