Weaving a legacy Copyright © 2008 RAMAH From hand painted silk scarves to sheep
shearing conversations, the Fifth Annual Fiber Arts Festival featured
a little bit of everything. The festival, sponsored by El Morro Area Arts Council,
was at the Old School Gallery on N.M. Highway 53 on Saturday. The
free event was part of the final weekend of the Ancient Way Fall
Festival in the Zuni Mountains. The small, rural art gallery was filled with a large
and friendly crowd of mostly local people from the Ramah, Pine Hill,
and El Morro communities. A number of participants knitted, crocheted,
quilted, and spun wool while they talked with each other and visitors.
Kate Wilson offered a hands-on felting demonstration
for festival-goers. With a table set up with tubs of hot, soapy
water, Wilson let visitors try their hand at carding wool on her
drum carder and felting wool into a variety of shapes in the tubs
of water. Wilson, who said she has experimented with felting for
about 10 years, also exhibited a number of felted items she has
made. Carol Rodda also had a table of knit and felted hats
on display. Rodda explained that the felting process requires 100
percent wool fibers. She knits the hats twice their normal size
and then shrinks them down to the correct size through the use of
the hot water felting process. Its very relaxing, she said, and
its very creative. A number of hand knit items were available for sale
by a couple of different vendors. Karin Brunner, who is originally
from Germany, was selling hand knit hats, scarves, mittens, and
socks. Fellow Europeans Urs and Monika Gauderon, who formerly operated
Ramahs Enchanted Swiss Bakery, were selling hand knit sweaters,
hats, and mittens, along with their daughters woven bracelets
and Monikas sisters hand painted silk scarves. Beverly Moody, who said she is a descendant of the
Abenaki tribe of New England, was selling her handcrafted baskets,
woven from ash trees. Moody, a social studies teacher in Pine Hill,
was accompanied by one of her students, Levada Johnson, a high school
junior who is learning the basket weaving technique. Nora Henio, another Pine Hill resident, was selling
her handmade quilts for the first time at the Fiber Arts Festival.
The liveliest group at the festival was made up of
those trying to learn how to spin wool on wooden thigh and drop
spindles made by Eden Gloria. Daniel Boyle and Jackie Rossignol
were spinning on thigh spindles, and Carol Rodda was using a drop
spindle. Their teacher was Tony Osborn, who admitted he was just
learning to spin his own wool with a Navajo thigh spindle. Osborn said he and Gloria are raising Navajo churro
and East Fresian sheep on their property in the Ramah area. Mountain
Meadow Wool Mill in Buffalo, Wyo., currently processes their wool,
he said, and he had several skeins of wool on display that Mountain
Meadow had produced using his wool. In addition to the vendor booths and fiber arts displays,
a number of sign-up sheets were being passed around the gallery.
Because the Old School Gallery is at the center of a very close
arts community in the Zuni Mountains, it is frequently the site
of instructional classes as well as art and entertainment events.
The community gets together and does a lot of
skills classes, explained Boyle. He and Rossignol said classes
in spinning wool, quilting, canning, and cooking were planned. The festival also featured community support of a
local family that was injured in a house fire on Sept. 12. Chris
Loeffler manned a booth for the Mayne Family Burn Recovery Fund.
The gallery is collecting financial donations for the family, community
members have donated prizes for two fund-raising raffles, and others
are organizing take-out Thanksgiving meals for $10 per person. According
to Loeffler, all the fund-raising tickets are available at the gallery,
the Inscription Rock Trading & Coffee Company, the Tinaja Restaurant,
and Loeffler Guns Etc. in Grants. EMAACs Old School Gallery is located one mile east of El Morro National Monument. Gallery hours are 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Friday through Monday. Information: (505) 783-4710. |
Monday Weaving a legacy Grants Food pantry seeking donations Mock disaster has agencies on the same frequency Native America Section |
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