Speaker Series, Group Gathering ✥ Material Salon with Sofi Khachmanyan
Monthly Gathering | 1h
online | replaySpend an hour inside a 3,000-year-old wardrobe. You've seen these robes in church, in old photographs, maybe in your grandmother's stories, and never knew they were talking. A shape first carved on a statue of an ancient Urartian god. A rainbow Armenians once called the Belt of the Mother of God. Every color, flower and stone was chosen for a reason.
Dr. Sofi Khachmanyan has spent years following those threads through medieval Armenian manuscripts, and she brings them to us, along with her own embroidery and lace. Come curious. You'll leave seeing the cloth around you a little differently.
Her research, the first of its kind, now in English
A Master Artist who still makes knotted lace by hand
Start spotting these symbols in the churches, rugs and heirlooms around you
Don't spend this winter alone. Treat yourself to the talk + a whole month of Wednesday Embroidery Socials, a warm table and new friends, for $95 (save $75), until Dec 1. Starting Wednesday, Dec 2, step into a room of curious makers who are glad you came. Hands busy, mind quiet, conversation flowing: it's the fresh air your week was missing.
MATERIAL SALON SERIES
Join us monthly for intimate virtual sessions with Folk Lounge, featuring working artists and scholars across the world. This is a forum where craft takes center stage through demonstrations, discourse, and cultural context. Talks that slap for terminally curious established artists & newcomers. You're invited to participate in conversations that expand your eye for ornament, explore untold stories, and connect with a community that spans continents and traditions. More about this series >
MEMBER PERKS
Some things are better with a standing invitation. Membership at Folk Lounge means real investment — in your joy, your skill, and the depth of what you're making. It's 8-10 classes a month with a lounge built for the craft, a community that grows with you, and Founders status for those who are in it for the long haul. In person is where it lives — online and replays are there when you need them. This way in →
SPEAKER
Dr. Sofi Khachmanyan is a textile scholar, fashion designer and Master Artist whose new book reveals how sacred garments carry meaning across centuries. For three decades she has taught fashion design and garment construction at the college level, passing hand skills from one generation to the next. Her research reads the symbols in ceremonial dress and sacred objects, and in her studio she still makes knotted lace and felted silk. Join her to learn to read cloth as a language of belief and beauty.
HOST
Folk Lounge is a contemporary craft collective founded by multidisciplinary artist and design leader Shagho that bridges ancestral ornamental traditions with urgent contemporary needs. Through contemplative craft circles held in public parks and collaborative programs with cultural institutions, Folk Lounge creates living spaces where traditional practices become responses to the crises of our time: nature deficit, digital overwhelm, cultural homogenization, and the erosion of intergenerational knowledge transmission.
TERMS
By registering or attending any Folk Lounge event, you confirm awareness of associated risks and release the Organizer, Assistant Organizers, and Event Hosts from all related liability. You affirm agreement to our Weaving Belonging, Mindful Making and Participation Agreement — and if acting as a legal guardian, that you're authorized to agree on another's behalf: folklounge.com/terms