Tapestry Show

Ancestral Futures show in Taos

Ancestral Futures show in Taos

During the retreat I taught in Taos last month, I took a bit of time at lunch to walk downtown and duck into a couple of stores I like to visit. I was long out of time, but was walking by the Taos Center for the Arts (TCA) before racing through Kit Carson park back to my students when I remembered an important detail I failed to put on the class calendar that week. The Ancestral Futures show was still up at the TCA. So I resolved to be late and ducked into the gallery. I was so glad I did!

This post is full of images of outstanding tapestry and fiber artists from Northern New Mexico, both contemporary and passed on now. I hope you enjoy the photos!

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Horizons show in Santa Fe

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Horizons show in Santa Fe

On the same trip to Taos for the Taos Wools Festival and my tapestry workshop, I made a quick trip to Santa Fe to see the Horizons show at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture. The show is titled Horizons: Weaving Between the Lines with Diné Textiles. I had previously acquired the catalog for the show and knew I had to see it in person.

As I pulled up to the museum on a Sunday morning, I heard singing and then saw the dancers. What a wonderful addition to the trip to the museum. These were Apache tribal members.

Bhakti Ziek, A Tenuous Thread

Bhakti Ziek, A Tenuous Thread

I had the great joy of seeing Bhakti Ziek’s show at Form & Concept Gallery in Santa Fe this week. The show is a retrospective of over 50 years of her weaving life.

Bhakti’s work is full of narrative. The large installation piece that anchors the show, Wheel of Life: The Passing on of Knowledge was her thesis project at Cranbrook Academy of Art in 1989. The work uses various dye techniques and a lampas structure. Each panel is 44 x 33.5 inches. There are many stories behind this work including a reference to her father who was a cello player. The piece’s main narrative about Christian monks in 552 AD who relieved China of some of their silkworms by hiding them in their hollow walking sticks thus ending China’s silk supremacy. The story of this work has a spy-thriller feel to it.

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Unusually spontaneous: Taos, churro fleece, and a textile show

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Unusually spontaneous: Taos, churro fleece, and a textile show

I took a trip to New Mexico on the spur of the moment last weekend. It is unusual for me to decide to take a trip that involves 6-7 hours of driving each way at the last minute, but the stars aligned, and off we went. We had some friends who we wanted to see who were there visiting from Europe and the first weekend of October is Taos Wool Festival weekend. Yes, I know that this festival left Taos and was held in Santa Fe. I didn’t go to the renamed Mountain and Valley Wool Festival partly in disappointment at it leaving Taos, but also because I was tired of driving and didn’t want to go all the way to Santa Fe when Taos was so beautiful.

Instead, I haunted Taos Wool’s pop-up shop and gallery show. One of the highlights of the weekend for me was hearing Connie Taylor speak about churro sheep, wool, and uses for their fleece. Connie is someone I met in 2005 when I was a student at Northern New Mexico Community College in the fibers department. At that time she had a big flock of churro sheep and was making 14 different colors of natural wool. (That fact still astounds me, but I saw it for myself and know it to be true.) I purchased her wool for my saltillo project. In Taos, she had her shade card with her, pictured below, along with a wide range of natural churro yarns.

Renditions: a fascinating show of small format tapestries all visible online

Renditions: a fascinating show of small format tapestries all visible online

I love viewing tapestries in person. I can get a close look at how they were constructed and if I’m lucky enough to be at an opening where the artist is present, I can ask them to show me the back along with peppering them with questions about their work. The small format unjuried tapestry show that the American Tapestry Alliance (ATA) holds every two years is one of my favorite shows because it is full of surprises. There are usually hundreds of tapestries and if I can see them in person, I can have a grand time seeing other people’s ideas and techniques not to mention imagery and color use.

Tapestry Translations: Stories from around the world

Tapestry Translations: Stories from around the world

The American Tapestry Alliance (ATA) puts on an unjuried small format show every two years. It is always displayed alongside the Handweavers Guild of America’s big event, Convergence. In 2020, Convergence will be in Knoxville.

ATA has announced this year’s show. The title is Renditions 2020 and all the information about it can be found HERE.

This is my favorite ATA show just because the diversity of submissions is so outstanding. It is a really fun show to see in person, so make sure if you’re at Convergence in Knoxville in the summer of 2020 that you go and see it! And if you live close enough, it is worth the drive to see this show. You can see some photos I took of the show in Providence, RI in 2016 in THIS blog post.

Travels of one tapestry postcard

Travels of one tapestry postcard

The postcard I wove for the Here and There project did make it to Michigan. I wrote about the adventures of making it HERE.

I love sending real mail. Cards or letters with stamps on them and maybe some artwork. Perhaps tapestry postcards are something I’ll do again.

Here and There online exhibit

The postcard exchange was through the American Tapestry Alliance and you can see the whole online show on the ATA website HERE.

Dorothy Clews (hopefully with a team of helpers!) did a tremendous amount of work to make this postcard exchange happen. In her curators intro she talked about subverting the postal system by sending these pieces of art naked through the mail—sometimes around the world.