Reminder! SDA-WA Group Event Grant applications are due at midnight on October 1, 2018. Our jurors (Pat Herkal, Claire B. Jones, Roberta Nelson and Francesca Penchant), fiber artists with varied careers, volunteered to be on the panel to support you, SDA-WA members! To help you get to know them better, here is the first of all four biographies.

Pat Herkal

Pat Herkal was raised as an army brat, moving frequently on the east coast and in France. Her passion has been fiber ever since her grandmother taught her to embroider and to crochet rag rugs when she was five.

Pat’s husband and she raised their two daughters in Riverton, Wyoming on the Wind River Reservation. She was active in the art and fiber community creating, volunteering and participating in craft fairs around the Rockies. Her main focus was weaving and quilting.

Port Townsend, Washington has been their forever home since 2004. She discovered beads and bead embroidery there and they have taken over her life!

Pat volunteers at Northwind Art Center as a docent and is on the Installation Committee. Her beaded pieces were juried into the NAC Artist Showcase for 2016. Other pieces have been juried into numerous shows at NAC over the years. Some have received Merit and People’s Choice awards. She has been juried into two shows at Confluence Gallery in Twisp, Washington. Pat is an active member of the Surface Design Association and has shown in SDA shows around the Olympic Peninsula.