Dr. Carol Ventura is the art historian at Tennessee Tech University and is an author and award-winning artist. Her interest in art, crafts, and history have led her to find and document artists and craftspeople around the world. Dr. Ventura's research has been supported by numerous institutions, including Fulbright, NEA, and the Smithsonian. She presents papers at international conferences and publishes her research in both scholarly journals and the popular press.

Ventura became interested in tapestry crochet in the 1970’s when she was working in Guatemala with a weaving cooperative as a Peace Corps volunteer. Since that time, she has explored the design potential of the technique and developed a system of graphing motifs, which she shares in her tapestry crochet books, magazine articles, and videos.