In June, I finally had a chance to meet fiber artist, Carolyn Smythe Kallenborn. In 2012, I’d been captivated by and wrote a small blog post about her “Tormentos y Sueños” exhibition at the Museo Textil de Oaxaca. So, I was thrilled to meet her at the Weave a Real Peace (WARP) annual meeting held this year in Oaxaca. We chatted a couple of times during the conference, but it was the final evening, as many of us were standing in the lobby of the hotel waiting for the business meeting to begin, that Carolyn provided us with a real treat — renown weaver Erasto “Tito” Mendoza, from Teotitlán del Valle, delivered a tapete that was to be used in a collaborative work with Carolyn.
We were all in awe as he unrolled his creation for us to behold. ¡Espectacular! was the response from all. Then Carolyn began describing how she would use mixed media to embellish this woven illustration of the balance of Mother Earth. However, aside from a hazy picture in my mind, I really had no idea what the finished work would look like. Then synchronicity came to pass… an announcement that the fruit of their collaboration, Equilibrio/Balance, had won the Surface Design Association, Award of Excellence at the International Fiber Arts VIII exhibition at the San Francisco Bay Area’s Sebastopol Center for the Arts. And, best of all for me, the show coincided with my Bay Area visit. Without much difficulty, I managed to persuade B (of Week in Oaxaca fame), who had fallen in love with the tapetes of Teotitlán AND lives in Sebastopol, to accompany me to the exhibition a few days ago.
Equilibrio/Balance traces cycles of nature: water through earth and sky; elements of previous life, feeding new growth; and the conversation between the mountains and the universe above. — object label
This is one of seventy pieces in this International Fiber Arts show. Like Equilibrio/Balance, most of the works are not only visually stunning, but also have much to say about our world and contemporary life. If you are in the Bay Area and love textiles, I highly recommend making your way to the Sebastopol Arts Center by September 3, when the show closes.
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