The summer art festival season began mid-week in Santa Fe with the International Folk Art Market on Museum Hill.  It will be followed on July 28-29 by the traditional Spanish Market in its 67th year on the Plaza, and the Southwestern Association for Indian Arts (SWAIA) Indian Market August 18-19, also on the Plaza.  We attended our first Indian Market on the 27th of August 1972, in the pouring rain, while on our honeymoon.  We spent the next night sharing a sleeping bag on top of a concrete picnic table in Hyde Park on the way to the Santa Fe Ski Basin.  But that is a story for another day.

Fred will be participating in another art event, by entering the AGAATI Foundation Global Eco Artisans Award competition.  The "AGAATI Foundation is committed to celebrate and conserve handmade creativity, elevate visibility and the value of artisan made, leading to the socio-economic development of the global artisan communities."  The word AGAATI is from the Sanskrit word Agati meaning arriving or arising.  As with all competitions, a certain amount of preparation is required, including writing and photography.  So the local photography department enjoyed the challenge of shooting photographs of Fred's latest work, Rug 370, for his application.

The rug is made of Navajo-Churro wool, the black/blue/silver field of which is from Andrea Harrell's flock we visited in north Albuquerque in May. It has a lot of lanolin in it and is quite lustrous.  For the AGAATI Foundation, "work in progress" images were needed.  Here is a shot of the middle of a Celtic knot in "chile Colorado" and with a beautiful gold through line of "Tierra Amarilla" from Tierra Wools. The blue is from the mill in Mora, New Mexico.  The knot is pure math/geometry and beyond my comprehension.   

Here is an image of the completed knot, and below it, the finished rug.

Rug 370 detail

Rug 370 product picture 3

Fred uses several methods for finishing the edges of the warp or skeleton of the rug, resulting in the fringe at the bottom.  Here is a traditional Rio Grande treatment.  It is made by gathering four strands of warp together in a single knot, finished with a maritime cabling and one more knot.  It keeps the rug from unraveling.

On Rug 370 for the AGAATI competition, he used what is called a Damascus edge, a continuous series of square knots, again finished with maritime cabling.

Thanks to Fred and to everyone involved in the farm-to-finished piece process including, Andrea Harrell, Molly and Antonio Manzanares and Nathan and Toni at Tierra Wools, Connie Taylor, and the folks at the mills in Wyoming and in Mora.  

And thanks to everyone for reading last week's blog, including Ingrid, Barbara, Larry and Carol M., Kay, Catherine, Jean & Sam, Wayne, and Steve.

until next Monday,

DB

a passion for the image©