Introduction
Education at TAG Arts Guild
TAG Arts Guild education is led by Maria Fenton, founder of TAG Arts Guild and Fine Arts Professor of Fashion Design at Howard University. Programs are offered in small cohorts to support individualized instruction, technical feedback, and meaningful engagement with the work. Course-specific details, locations, and instructor information are provided upon enrollment.
Start Here
New to sewing, tailoring, or fiber arts? Begin with one of these foundational programs.
Sewing Fundamentals (Sunday Section)
For beginners and returning sewists: build a foundation in machine sewing, seams, pressing, finishing, and garment construction before moving into intermediate work.
Sundays 12:00 PM
Sewing Fundamentals (Tuesday Section)
For beginners and returning sewists: build a foundation in machine sewing, seams, pressing, finishing, and garment construction before moving into intermediate work.
Tuesdays
Fiber Art Sampler Technique Workshop
A beginner-friendly introduction to techniques such as crochet, knitting, felting, and hand-stitching. Explore different approaches before choosing a deeper fiber arts direction.
Sundays 10:30 AM
Learning Pathways
Learning Pathways
Sewing
Start Here
Sewing Fundamentals (Sunday)
For beginners and returning sewists: build a foundation in machine sewing, seams, pressing, finishing, and garment construction before moving into intermediate work.
Sundays 12:00 PMStart Here
Sewing Fundamentals (Tuesday)
For beginners and returning sewists: build a foundation in machine sewing, seams, pressing, finishing, and garment construction before moving into intermediate work.
TuesdaysNext Step
Intermediate Sewing (Wednesday)
For students who have completed Sewing Fundamentals, this studio develops garment construction, fit, machine skills, and finishing through guided projects.
Wednesdays 4:30 PMNext Step
Intermediate Sewing (Saturday)
For students who have completed Sewing Fundamentals, this studio develops garment construction, fit, machine skills, and finishing through guided projects.
Saturdays 1:15 PM
Patternmaking & Tailoring
Next Step
Patternmaking Basics
For learners with basic sewing skills, an introduction to drafting and modifying patterns through an understanding of body architecture and silhouette.
Sundays 1:30 PMSpecialized Study
Tailoring I
An introduction to professional tailoring for students ready for focused technical study. Develop stitch discipline, canvas shaping, pad stitching, pressing, and foundational fit refinement.
Mondays 5:00 PM · Saturdays 3:00 PM
Fiber Arts
Start Here
Fiber Art Sampler Technique Workshop
A beginner-friendly introduction to techniques such as crochet, knitting, felting, and hand-stitching. Explore different approaches before choosing a deeper fiber arts direction.
Sundays 10:30 AMSpecialized Study
Advanced Creative Fiber
For makers ready to explore beyond introductory fiber techniques, experiment with felting, weaving, embellishment, soft sculpture, and mixed-media textiles toward a finished project.
Sundays 3:30 PM
Advanced Construction
Specialized Study
Foundations of Intimates Construction
For sewists with prior experience, an intermediate introduction to stretch fabrics and lingerie construction. Practice elastic finishes, negative ease, knit underwear, and foundational bra components.
Wednesdays 6:00 PMBeginning 11/4Specialized Study
Advanced Garment Construction
For students with intermediate sewing or equivalent experience, build advanced garment-construction and fit skills through linings, sleeves, collars, pockets, and structured finishes.
Thursdays 6:00 PM
Every course requires the studio kit. Read the complete materials list.
Featured & Seasonal Programs
Limited-run programs, seasonal offerings, and special topics.
Soft Furnishings Studio
A beginner-friendly, project-based studio for making interior textiles. Learn cushions, piping, invisible zippers, and decorative seams through finished home-goods projects.
Saturdays 10:00 AM
11/7–12/12
Halloween Costume Clinic — October 24
For costume makers planning or starting a Halloween look, explore concepts, patterns, textiles, construction, and early troubleshooting.
Saturday 10:00 AM
Halloween Costume Clinic — October 31
For costume makers needing last-minute help, focus on quick fixes, finishing, and feasible changes that can be completed in the session.
Saturday 10:00 AM
Hand Puppet Fabrication
For makers, performers, and educators interested in character-making, explore foam carving, fleece application, mouth plates, and puppet construction.
Community & Salon
Community & Salon
Meditations in Fashion: A Creative Salon
Open to every level, this weekly gathering brings together guided reflection, conversation, and quiet handwork with your own project.
Sundays 5:00 PM
Certification
The TAG Certification System
The TAG Certification System is an initiative to standardize roles, skills, and competencies across the creative textile disciplines. It describes what a practitioner can demonstrate — drafting, fitting, finishing, dyeing, weaving, rendering, sourcing, teaching — rather than how many years they have spent or which institution admitted them.
Competencies are grouped by discipline and mapped to levels. Assessment is evidence-based: work samples, technical documentation, and demonstration.
Levels
How to self-identify your level
Beginner
New to the discipline. Building vocabulary, tool handling, and safe, repeatable basics under direct guidance.
Intermediate
Works independently on defined projects. Can troubleshoot common problems and read technical instruction without support.
Advanced
Sets their own methods, adapts techniques across materials, and produces resolved work to a professional standard.
Expert
Sets standards for others. Teaches, mentors, publishes, or leads production, and contributes new methods to the field.
Levels are held per discipline, not per person. A master tailor may be a beginning weaver; an expert dyer may be new to patternmaking. Claiming a beginner level in one practice takes nothing away from expertise in another — it is simply an accurate description of where the work stands today.
Recognition
TAG-Approved Programs
External schools, studios, and independent instructors may apply for TAG recognition. Review considers curriculum against TAG competencies, instructor qualifications, studio safety, materials access, assessment practice, and student outcomes. Approved programs are listed publicly and may issue TAG-aligned competency records to their students.
Governance
TAG Stakeholders Committee
The Committee keeps the standard honest by holding it against practice in the field. Seats are drawn from across the ecosystem:
- Schools and academic departments
- Professional associations and guilds
- Government agencies and workforce boards
- Fashion companies and manufacturers
- Galleries and museums
- Media and publishing
- Entertainment, stage, and screen
- Researchers and scientists
- Sustainability and materials experts