Art + Artists

Dance Doyle is a multi-disciplinary artist and educator in the San Francisco Bay Area. Dance's work has been shown nationally, internationally and has been published in Textile Fibre Forum Magazine, Untitled Magazine, Fiber Art Now Magazine, 48 Hills, and Art21.

They have participated in residencies, including the Museum of Arts and Design and Textile Arts Center in New York, Bemis Center for Contemporary Art in Omaha, NE, Institute for Contemporary Arts in San Francisco, and Haystack in Deer Isle, Maine. Dance finished a year-long graduate fellowship at Headlands Center in Sausalito, CA, in 2024. During the fall of 2025, Dance will be a Fellow at Chiulitna Lodge in Port Alsworth, Alaska, and in the winter, a Fellow at MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire. Dance teaches Extension courses at California College of the Arts in San Francisco, CA.

For the last 19 years, my practice has been to draw small sketches, pin it them to my loom, and create shaped, on/off the grid tapestries using natural fibers and various re-purposed mixed-media. I create almost all my work on large 4-harness floor looms but also have created work on TC2s. Using my fingertips only (no shuttles or beater), the visual translation of thought and memory, on and off the woven grid, helped usher in a renegotiation of my past and became my rawest voice.

I was self-taught before YouTube and knew very few rules when I began. I’ve learned through trial and error, and that allowed me the freedom to absorb techniques by movement, develop muscle memory, and learn to just eye-it using only a small sketch. I try to create work the way I envision it and often pull my warp to shape the edges. I use slit-work technique that disjoints the surface throughout the landscapes of my work. I use hand-dyed natural materials like wool, silk, cotton, and linen because of their luster and versatility. I also source and incorporate unconventional, manufactured, and re-used/re-purposed/recycled materials

My focus as an artist has been to grow techniques at the loom with muscle memory, expand my research of this craft and the issues I've felt compelled to cover. With the slit-work throughout and the saturated colors I dye are in attempt to evoke vibrance, movement, and familiarity, particularly as it depicts urban life in overpopulated urban environments. More specifically, I’ve been working on an ongoing series about addiction, homelessness, and mental health, especially as it relates to current conditions in the San Francisco Bay Area. Although my work has addressed relevant global topics, I have always, in different ways, referenced my East Bay and San Francisco origins. My translations in tapestry have all been informed by those complex, beautiful, and fast-changing environments.