CLSC Class of 2026 Banner Committee member and fiber artist Elizabeth Bender processes through the Golden Gate Wednesday during the CLSC Recognition Day Ceremony in the Hall of Philosophy.
NORA SMITH
Staff Writer
For fiber artist Elizabeth Bender, learning to read knitting patterns came more easily than words themselves; she learned to knit when she was just eight years old and found her own language through the artistic expression of fiber arts.
“I would just knit, and I didn’t care (about making finished products),” Bender said. “So, I did a lot of knitting for just the sake of knitting. Also, that’s the thing: adults want to make things, very specific, tangible things, and I didn’t care. I just wanted to knit.”
The banner for the CLSC Class of 2026, created by Bender and Class of 2026 Co-president Kriss Young Miller.
As a recent Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle graduate, Bender hadn’t known about Chautauqua until her close family friend and co-president of the Class of 2026 Kriss Young Miller had begun working at the Quaker House and spread the word to Bender. In preparation for graduation, Bender said she found a creative outlet through which she could channel the pomp and circumstance of the CLSC festivities.
Bender, who has severe dyslexia, discovered early on that knitting could be a hobby that didn’t require any reading or writing; she said knitting patterns are often described as a different language, but they always made perfect sense to her.
Bender said she was “unschooled,” an approach to homeschooling that emphasizes self-directed learning over a structured curriculum. She said she doesn’t see how else she could have thrived if it weren’t for this style of learning.
“For me particularly, because of my severe dyslexia and other learning disability things going on, it allowed me to have time to knit, to be outside, to learn through audiobooks and documentaries and have some belief that I was smart and just because I couldn’t read until I was 15, if I’d been in school, I would have been so stigmatized,” Bender said.
This approach, Bender explained, allowed her to dedicate much of her childhood to making art — particularly object art. She said her house was under construction for four years in her youth, so she would constantly gather art supplies from the dumpster in case she ever wanted to create something with them.
For Bender, the idea that she could create something tangible surpassed everything else. She said she only cared about creating something, anything that could then exist in the world.
Later in life, Bender attended the Savannah College of Art and Design and now resides in Brooklyn, New York, where she works in knitting and free-motion lace.
To make lace, Bender said she uses a sewing machine, drops the feed dogs, attaches an embroidery foot and sews onto water-soluble stabilizer, a fabric that dissolves in water so that she can essentially draw with the thread.
“It’s like a scribbling kind of thing, like a doodling, but I used to do these scribblings when I was little,” Bender said. “It very much mimics that, where I would pretend to write and I would do these pages and pages of scribbling.”
Bender now sells scarves and clothes made of her free-motion lace and even said she’d love to teach a class at Chautauqua Institution one day.
“I’m much better at declaring that I am an artist now,” Bender said, explaining that being treated properly for anxiety and depression has made an enormous impact on her life today and her ability to consider herself an artist.
“There’s a lot of people, especially in fiber arts, who don’t want to say they’re artists, they identify as makers, and I don’t love that,” Bender said.
Bender said, as a field, fiber arts is already undervalued and has historically been viewed as women’s work. For her, it’s important for fiber artists themselves not to undervalue the medium, and she said she personally aims to elevate the importance of art, specifically its accessibility.
“Even when it was vitally important, it was seen as somewhat frivolous,” Bender said. She used the example of quilts and Afghans as household objects the women in her family own; all are made by different family members and are time- and labor-intensive, showing the historical importance and value of the objects themselves.
Now, Bender has put her fiber arts skills to use as a member of the CLSC Banner Committee. She worked alongside Miller to create this year’s banner, doing the stitched lettering. In addition to her contributions to the banner, Bender created two handmade dresses to wear for Recognition Week festivities, proudly showcasing her artwork to celebrate the occasion.
“I jokingly said part of the reason I wanted to graduate from the CLSC is that I really wanted to make a dress, and so I made one dress and it has our class colors on it …” Bender said.
