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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.

Weaving a tapestry version of Taos

Weaving a tapestry version of Taos

I really enjoyed teaching a three-day workshop for Taos Wools Festival in October. I taught in this same room last year but they’ve expanded it and now there are some windows. The class was fun and funny and they wove a lot in three days.

We were working with Taos Wools Chica yarn. This is a gorgeous churro yarn that is hand-dyed by Joe Barry himself. For this workshop there were piles of little skeins in all sorts of colors. It was definitely like being in a candy shop!

Taos Wools Festival 2024: Squirrel, squirrel!!! (In which Rebecca chases all the fiber)

Taos Wools Festival 2024: Squirrel, squirrel!!! (In which Rebecca chases all the fiber)

The first weekend of October is festival time in Northern New Mexico. This year I was at the Taos Wools Festival in Taos the first Saturday of the month. I was there to enjoy the beautiful festival and to teach a three-day tapestry class. The festival was a riot of fiber and beautiful woven things, sheep, yarn, food, and lots of chatting among fiber lovers. The class was three packed days of weaving, learning, and laughing.

The small festival is held on the grounds of Revolt Gallery in the shade of some beautiful big trees, just a small skip north of the Taos plaza. Joe Barry who owns Taos Wools organizes this festival which he started when the original Taos Wool Festival moved to Santa Fe. Joe hated to see the popular festival leave, so he replaced it with an event that has a lot of soul as well as wonderful fiber fun.

Sublime Light: Tapestry Art of DY Begay

Sublime Light: Tapestry Art of DY Begay

DY Begay’s retrospective show at the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington DC opened in September. She has been working on the show for years or perhaps we should say an entire lifetime. I haven’t seen it yet, but the catalog that accompanies it is wonderful. Calling it a catalog is a little misleading. It is a celebration of a weaver’s life, the places she comes from, and the experiences she has had that have shaped her work.

In which two dear fiber friends come to visit

In which two dear fiber friends come to visit

September has been a marvelously creative month for me and that is largely because two of my dearest tapestry colleagues came to visit a week apart. Cornelia Theimer Gardella was here for a week-long joint residency and then Sarah Swett and her adventurous dog Beryl stopped for several nights.

Having fiber friends is important and these visits remind me why that is. Both Cornelia and Sarah have had a big influence in my own tapestry life. I met Cornelia 20 years ago at Northern New Mexico Community College where we were both students in the fiber arts program. And I got to know Sarah through a little fan-girl following and then an American Tapestry Alliance retreat in Colorado almost ten years ago now. She wrote the forward to my book, The Art of Tapestry Weaving.

Weaving outside: Cows, thunderstorms, and puppies

Weaving outside: Cows, thunderstorms, and puppies

In August I took a couple weeks off and went car camping. My intention was to do some backpacking the second week but the thunderstorms in Colorado have been fierce this year and there is nothing worse than camping at 11,000 feet with lightening hitting all around. In fact, the big piñon tree behind our house got hit a few weeks ago. I thought the strike sounded frighteningly close to my bedroom.

So car camping it was. I had some on-foot adventures and some driving adventures where I pretended my Subaru Crosstrek was a truck and I definitely did some weaving. Between all that, I read quite a few books since I was stuck under the awning or in the tent for quite a lot of time in the rain.

I spent some time weaving Mt. Hesperus.