Fiber artist and SCAD MFA student Willian Nassu creates incredible textiles on a Jacquard loom. This Brazilian-born whiz marries old school technique with high-tech tools, fitting the 19th-century loom with a computer to project his designs.

For his thesis exhibition, this wondrous weaver chose 10 local “celebrities” to immortalize in colorful yarn and sparkly sequins, and I was quite honored to see my punim at the opening of the “Savannah Icons” show at the Andaz Hotel!

It’s quite a shock to see one’s face enlarged to three feet, but once I got past the weirdness of examining my own two-inch teeth, I marveled at the details of each thread and meticulously-placed sequin. In fact, the more I looked at it, the more abstract it became, and I finally had to go drink some wine before I fell into my own face.

Willian (yes, with an “n”) began the project using actual celebrities (check the Jake Gyllenhaal, yo!) but found that working with within Savannah’s local community was far more satisfying (funny, I feel the same way.)

“I’m not from the U.S. so it was a nice way to research the city and try to get to know people,” he told the Savannah Art Informer.

“I’ve been here for two years almost and I barely know anyone outside SCAD. At SCAD we stay in this very small world and this was an opportunity to break out of that.”

For the record, Willian chose this photo (an Instagram selfie from last summer) before he’d even met me. Now he knows what I dork I am, and I know what an incredible talent he is, so the cult of celebrity shall swing the other way!

Read the rest of SAI’s awesome interview here.