Founded in January, 1973, by Hungarian-born environmental sculptor Gyöngy Laky, Fiberworks was an internationally recognized art center that was instrumental in redefining textile arts. The Fiberworks Gallery showcased textile art at a time when commercial galleries and museums gave it scant exposure. In 1975, the name was changed to Fiberworks Center for the Textile Arts reflecting an increasing range of activities that included lectures, special events, international bazaars, and services for artists, together with a sweeping array of classes.  

Fiberworks was in part an outgrowth of the social and political upheaval of the 1960s. Artists working in traditional craft media like wood, ceramics, glass, and fiber started breaking from traditional norms to explore fine art expression, often avant garde, in their media. At UC Berkeley, Laky studied with Ed Rossbach, a fiber artist who inspired a new generation of artists to break free and explore new ways of working with what, up to that time, had been utilitarian materials. 

Fiberworks had a strong egalitarian ethos that promoted personal growth through art for people of all ages. It encouraged experimentation as well as research into the history of textile arts. Artists’ work was also exhibited in its gallery. Drawing on the wealth of talent in Northern California, Fiberworks attracted notable faculty and lecturers. It offered a broad range of courses through its year-round Community School and Special Studies program: traditional, ethnic, and contemporary textile art, art history, theory, criticism and business practices. Both a Bachelor and Master of Fine Arts were accredited in conjunction with Lone Mountain College of San Francisco. 

In 1978, The Center hosted The Contemporary Textile Art Symposium, one of the major international textile art conferences of the 1970s. Participants came to Berkeley from eight countries. The dynamism of creativity in Berkeley prompted internationally known textile designer Jack Lenor Larsen to refer to the Bay Area as “The Vatican” of this new movement in the arts. 

Many foundations both large and small supported the Center, including the National Endowment for the Arts and the California Arts Council. In 1979 Fiberworks Center ran into financial difficulties, partly due to loss of accreditation, when Lone Mountain College was absorbed into the University of San Francisco. In 1982 both programs were adopted by John F. Kennedy University in Pleasant Hill, CA. Donations and the dedication of committed volunteers, staff and trustees kept the doors open until the Fall of 1987.