Anatomy of a Puzzle
The little local library in my community has been closed to the public for about a year now. But in addition to a shelf outside where people can share books in an open exchange, there is a table where people can leave jigsaw puzzles that they are finished with and take ones that they would like to do. I recently brought a stack of finished puzzles that I didn’t need to keep and looked over…
Postcards from the Edge
It all started in 1977. My best friend Nancy and I were knocking around downtown Portland, Oregon, where we attended college, and we wandered into the Greyhound bus depot, as one might do in those days. There was a rack of postcards, and I pulled out a 3-D postcard of The Last Supper. It became the first of a collection that has spanned four-plus decades and most of the continents. I don’t collect just any…
Five Texans and a Stowaway...
Six months ago I returned from my last teaching trip to find the world a very different place. At the time it sounded like my April and May workshops might be shut down, but I was hoping to be back on the road teaching by summer. Now we know that everything has been cancelled or postponed for the remainder of the year, and likely for well beyond that. Like many of you, I would guess,…
Off to Peru, 2019
Every year Andean Textile Arts sponsors a benefit tour to Peru – sometimes two, in the case of special events, such as the Tinkuy conferences. The organization always sends two board members as representatives who act as general ambassadors and friendly helpers, in addition to our Peruvian tour guide and his assistant. Naturally I hoped to be asked to serve in that role one day. That opportunity came last year, when I was asked to…
Off to Peru, 2017
Several months after teaching doubleweave at the 2013 Tinkuy conference I was contacted by Marilyn Murphy and asked if we could chat on the phone so that she could interview me about my experience and write an article for the Andean Textile Arts newsletter. I described in detail my process in preparing for the workshop, as well as how everything went in the class itself. I told her that it was one of the highlights…
Off to Peru, 2013
Summer in Santa Fe is usually a time of nonstop events, and my favorite of all of these is the International Folk Art Market. Since it began 16 years ago I have worked as a volunteer each July to help out in booths of artisans from all over the world. After going to Peru in 2010 to attend the first Tinkuy and go on the Andean Textile Arts tour, I decided to specify each year…
Off to Peru, 2010
I don’t remember when I first became fascinated with the notion of visiting Peru, but sometime early in my weaving life I learned about the unparalleled doubleweave pickup textiles that had been woven in pre-Columbian Peru, as well as masterpieces in many other techniques. Then in the early 1990’s I took a seminar with Ed Franquemont in which he talked about the quipus, the knotted cords that functioned as record keeping devices for the Incan…