Rabbit Goody, a leading expert in the study and manufacture of 18th- and 19th-century textiles, will be featured at a panel discussion at the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art in New Paltz on Sunday, February 20 at 3 p.m. The panel discussion coincides with the exhibit currently on view at the Dorsky, “Binary Visions: 19th-Century Woven Coverlets from the Collection of Historic Huguenot Street.”

This exhibit features more than 20 coverlets woven from cotton and wool on water-powered looms in small factories across the mid-Hudson Valley during the first half of the 19th century. The exhibition is a particularly important opportunity for historians and scholars to conceive new ways of thinking about the visual power of these coverlets.

Rabbit Goody is owner of Thistle Hill Weavers in Cherry Valley. For more than 20 years, Thistle Hill Weavers have been weaving luxurious custom fabrics, carpet and trim for designers, homeowners, museums and the film industry. Goody specializes in creating accurate historic reproductions, working from surviving examples, documented patterns and period weavers’ drafts. Goody was a consultant for the “Binary Visions” exhibit.

Joining Goody on the panel will be Leslie LeFevre-Stratton, curator of Collections at Historic Huguenot Street, and Jessica Poser, assistant professor of Art Education at SUNY-New Paltz. Poser has used the textile collections at Historic Huguenot Street as the inspiration for some of her most recent works of art. The panel will be moderated by Brian Wallace, curator at the Dorsky Museum.

The panel discussion will be held in the Student Union Building closest to the campus entrance off South Manheim Boulevard and is free and open to the public. For more information about the exhibit and the panel discussion, visit www.huguenotstreet.org or www.newpaltz.edu/museum.