I taught two retreats in Taos in close succession this fall. It is always good to be in Taos and the retreat I have in November is a group that comes back every year. I’m always so grateful for this group of weavers that have become friends over the years. It is important to find friends who are tapestry weavers if you can, whether that be online or people you can actually meet in person.
Getting to Taos in the winter is usually fairly easy, and this day was no exception. Going home there was a snowstorm and I didn’t get to enjoy this view looking toward Chama from Highway 64.
Continental Divide, New Mexico
Mabel Dodge Luhan House, Taos
These retreats are held at Mabel Dodge Luhan House. We had lots of cloudy cold days that week, but one day the sun came out and we saw the historic house in all its glory, chickens and all. Mabel called the house Los Gallos.
This hotel is old and it is run by a not-for-profit educational institution so people who stay there have to be willing to embrace the historic nature of the place (meaning stuff is old!). The beds are comfortable and the water is hot. The food is beyond exceptional. There is no wifi in the rooms and you won’t find a mini-frig or a coffee set-up either. You will find beautiful old furniture, adobe walls, a fire in the fireplace in the lounge, and quiet views of Taos Pueblo and the mountains.
We set up all our weaving stuff in this room in Juniper House. This group is working on their own projects so they were focused on design, sampling, and some people were weaving pieces they brought in progress.
Weavers working in the Juniper House studio
Cindy Dworzak steaming a gorgeous tapestry she had just finished.
We did do a quick review of finishing and I brought my steamer so people who had pieces they wanted to finish could get started on that.
I always enjoy seeing the huge variety of ideas people are working on in tapestry. The other thing I love as a teacher is to see how differently people’s minds work. Some people are very much design-by-the-seat-of-the-pants. They’re go-with-the-flow people. And others (probably more of these!) are quite meticulous. One student strives for photorealistic realism; one abstracts a photo with shapes. Watching these methods happening in real time over the week is marvelous for a teacher! This group knows where they’re headed for the most part and that means I get to sit back and watch their skills come out.
Retreats are a fun place to get to know other weavers and make some new friends. We did a lot of laughing and catching up. Jon and his weaving wife Susan always have so many fun gifts for the class and they often include funny sayings including the one below.
Might this be why my “yarn attic” continues to attract more yarn?
There was some loom fixing and that always involves clamps and the very crafty Jon Chowning’s brain. In this case Karen’s Mirrix needed some modification and the two of them got it done.
Karen M and Jon modifying Karen’s Mirrix with longer threaded rod
I really enjoyed this retreat and I’m grateful to all the folks below for being so good-humored, for coming back every year, and for inspiring me to not only continue teaching, but to work through my own ideas. I’ve seen some of them progress from the very beginning and it is wonderful to see how far they’ve come in terms of realizing their artistic vision. It is an inspiring reminder to just keep weaving no matter what the subject is.
Front two rows L → R: Ronna, Karen M, Anna, Beth, Cindy, Ginny, Ercil. Back two rows: Rebecca, Kathy, Jon, Robin, Karen A, Lisa
I DID see bighorn sheep on a hike I took before the group arrived. The photos are horrible, but I stopped at the Rio Grande del Norte National Monument visitor’s center and picked up a lego bighorn sheep (these kits are common at national parks recently). It was actually a lot harder to put together than I thought it would be!
See the sheep below? Of course you don’t. I heard a clattering of rock and had my binoculars with me so I spotted them that way. This is just a zoomed in cell phone photo so you’ll have to imagine how magnificent these sheep were. I ended up seeing 5 of them.
Bighorn sheep on the Slide Trail near the Rio Grande in New Mexico
Do you see them now?
A year ago I made a video about teaching this same retreat in Taos that included a peek at the old road from Santa Fe to Taos and some of Mabel Dodge’s words about it from her book The Edge of Taos Desert. You can watch that video on YouTube HERE.
For those of you who are members of my Patreon, I will have a video for you tomorrow with scenes of the trip, my bighorn sheep adventures, snow in Taos, and some peeks into the classroom and what the weavers were working on. If you’re not a Patron, you can join HERE. Thank you for everyone who supports me in this way! It keeps Change the Shed going and also supports my personal artwork. I offer lots of behind the scenes stuff there and this video of the retreat teaching trip is just another example!