Bauhaus lecture at Open Space Gallery

Today we had an event at the Open Space Visitor Center in conjunction with the Bauhaus show. James gave a lecture about the Bauhaus and Cornelia and I did some demonstration about dyeing and weaving. It was fun to hear people's questions both about the Bauhaus and its connection to contemporary art and about the process of weaving tapestry.

Open Space Gallery.

Halcyon Days II, Emergence, Inscription, Contemplative Garden.

tapestry by Rebecca Mezoff

James Koehler giving a lecture on the Bauhaus.

Cornelia Theimer Gardella talking about her dye process.

Halcyon Days II

Bauhaus website launched...

The Bauhaus project, Interwoven Traditions: New Mexico and Bauhaus, has a new website (huge thanks to Kurt Gardella, Conni's webmaster husband!).

The link is :

www.bauhaus-tapestry-project.com

This project is a group effort between Cornelia Theimer Gardella, James Koehler, and Rebecca Mezoff (that's me!), all tapestry artists living and working in New Mexico (and Conni also in Erfurt, Germany).

I am so excited about the progress on our project in recent months. Conni has worked very hard to get the shows firmed up and find us potential teaching spots in Germany. She is also responsible for the current project description (see PDF on website) and its German translation. Please take a look at the project description as I couldn't state what we are about better than Conni did there.

We are working on publicity and still looking for financial support for the project, especially for the printing of a catalog of the works for the two shows and the opening and potential classes in Germany. Espanola Valley Fiber Arts Center is our fiscal sponsor and any monetary donations can go to them (further info about donation will be on the website soon under "supporters").

The first show is in Albuquerque at Open Space Gallery (The 2010 gallery schedule isn't up on their website yet, but our show will be running July to August) in conjunction with Convergence 2010. The second show is in Erfurt, Germany, Conni's home town, at Michaeliskirche (St. Michael's Church). The opening there is the first weekend in September, 2010.

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend (in the USA--and a wonderful weekend in general elsewhere!). This picture was taken on the rim road west of the Rio Grande gorge driving north toward Colorado to have Thanksgiving with my family in the South San Juans.

Wheeler Peak and Taos, November 25, 2009.

Taos Wool Festival 2009

I did have the privilege of attending the 2009 Taos Wool Festival.  I have to admit that the animals are my favorite.  Maybe I should be an alpaca owner... or one of those fuzzy bunnies who I thought produced angora, but now I think that is goats... and what is the bunny fiber called?

Anyway, I caught up with some old fiber friends including:

Liesel Orend--a fabulous natural dyer and tapestry weaver who taught me everything I know about natural dyeing.  I don't feel like I know much about natural dyeing as I haven't done any outside of Liesel's classes, but she assures me that I can figure it out... and she taught me well, so she is probably correct!  I'm going to test those skills soon with a natural dyeing project.  We'll see whether or not I need a consult with Leisel!

I met up with some good friends at Weaving Southwest for Rachel Brown's retrospective opening.  The opening was packed.  Here are my weaving friends Judith Mirus and Cornelia Theimer Gardella and their husbands Clarence and Kurt outside the opening.

And here is the new piece I finished.  It is called Halcyon Days and is 14 X 39 inches, hand-dyed wool tapestry.

Bauhaus Project Update

I'm sure you've all been waiting with baited breath (or is that bated breath?  I inherited my father's spelling difficulties--and it is worse when I think about it!) for the update on the big Bauhaus project!  

But first, a tangent of course!  My website is sadly very very behind.  You can see it here.  The project description posted there has not been updated.  I am hoping very much to switch my website to a different host as the one I've been using frankly sucks rocks for Macintosh users.  And I certainly am not switching to a PC for the sake of a website!  I don't know why they can't make a sitebuilder work with Safari or Firefox, but they can't seem to do it.  So while I wait for the stretch of time and inspiration needed (and getting those two things to coincide is tough!) to rebuild the site on some kind of artist-friendly host, you won't find my website very up to date.

BUT that doesn't mean I haven't been working my toolies off!  My Bauhaus team

 of Cornelia Theimer Gardella and James Koehler have been meeting religiously (or at least regularly) to discuss all manner of interesting studies and work on pulling together 2 shows and workshops.

Our project has been extended a year and will culminate in 2010, not this year... something I think we are all happy about as 2009 is well into it's 3rd month already.  We have secured a venue for the show in Erfurt, Germany in September and October, 2010 and will be doing a show of our work there.  It is likely that there will be other weaverly events connected with this venue and/or city, so stay tuned!  (I know, it would help if my website was functional--sorry).  We are also looking at some options for the same show in New Mexico in the summer of 2010--so if you can't travel to Germany for shows and workshops, perhaps you can come 

and see us in Albuquerque or Santa Fe.

And lastly, I don't have any great pictures of Erfurt, Germany to lure you there (yet), so here is a cool photo of a petroglyph taken somewhere near my house.  I'm sure I couldn't find it again on purpose, but I know it is out there somewhere.  

And as a post script, can I just say that geez!  I wish "they" could decide to extend deadlines for weaving shows before I spend two long evenings swearing at photoshop and my crazy camera.  I just found out Fiber Celebrated (the reason I was trying to get Inscription photographed) isn't due until April 25th.  Heck, I could weave another whole piece by then!  Ah the joy of possibility and the pain of the late nights fussing with the camera.