There is always something exciting happening in the Museum of International Folk Art!
May 2021 Newsletter
"Tutto il Mondo è Paese – The Whole World is Hometown" This Italian proverb was a guiding principle for Alexander and Susan Girard's collecting of folk art.
From the Director,
As we begin May, I and all of your friends at the Museum of International Folk Art send greetings, best wishes, and hope that you are well. Please come and visit our museum and shops, which are now open every day from 10AM to 5PM. We still have on view Yōkai:Japanese Ghosts and Demons; Música Buena: Hispano Folk Music of New Mexico; and From Combat to Carpet: Afghan War Rugs. In the Alexander Girard Wing, we continue to upgrade the lighting to the latest LED technology.
We are excited to announce that we have two new exhibitions opening shortly. On May 31, we will open #Mask: Creative Responses to the Global Pandemic, in the Mark Naylor and Dale Gunn Gallery of Conscience. For a year, our curators have been collecting folk and traditional art made about the COVID-19 pandemic. There are many masks from all over the US and the world, as well as from New Mexico, and also many other works, such as sculptures by Hispanic New Mexicans. And in June we will open a survey of folk art glass from all of the curatorial departments, to be exhibited in Lloyd's Treasure Chest, our downstairs gallery.
If you want even more folk art, please consider joining the Friends of Folk Art!
Khristaan Villela
Executive Director
Museum of International Folk Art
IN THE SPOTLIGHT Nicolasa Chávez,inspiring and enriching our team with her creativity and dedication. Chávez, a fourteenth-generation New Mexican, is the Curator of Latino/Hispano/Spanish Colonial Collections at the Museum of International Folk Art (MOIFA). She received her Master’s degree in history with a concentration in Iberian Studies at the University of New Mexico. She is the co-curator of the recent exhibition Música Buena: Hispano Folk Music of New Mexico with maestro Cipriano Vigil. For the exhibition, she conducted research on several of New Mexico’s dramatic traditions and wrote articles for El Palacio magazine, including Proud Pageantry: How a Play on Horseback Traveled to the New WorldandNo Pueden Pasar! Explore the Christmas Traditions of Los Pastores and Las Posadas.She also curated Flamenco: From Spain to New Mexico, which was named by USA Today as one of the top 12 must-see exhibitions for the summer of 2016. The exhibition toured throughout New Mexico and is currently touring nationally under the name Flamenco: From Spain to the US. She is the author of the accompanying publication The Spirit of Flamenco: From Spain to New Mexico. Her interest in flamenco and classical Spanish dance began her early flamenco training with Vicente Romero of Santa Fe, Lili del Castillo of Albuquerque, at University of New Mexico with Eva Encinias-Sandoval and Pablo Rodarte, and with the legendary María Benítez. She is a singer and conducts lecture/demonstrations combining flamenco song and dance with its history. Her research into the different song forms and genres within the flamenco family has also led to an interest in the history of the Saeta, which is performed during Holy Week in Andalucía, Spain, and the Alabado, performed during Holy Week in New Mexico. Her interest in Semana Santa traditions was sparked when she experienced Semana Santa in Sevilla, Spain, while living abroad. Most recently she conducted research on Semana Santa and the singing of the Pabasa in the Philippines. At the Museum of International Folk Art, she was a co-curator of The Red that Colored the World and was a contributing author to the publication A Red Like No Other (Skira Rizzoli), which was named by Vogue as one of the top 25 Valentine gifts of 2016. She served as guest curator at the Museum of 21st Century Contemporary Art in Kanazawa, Japan for the 2nd Triennial of Kogei: Possibility of the Craft, which highlighted the living artistic traditions of New Mexico. Previously she curated New World Cuisine: The Histories of Chocolate, Mate y Más. In conjunction with the exhibition, she attended chocolate and wine tasting events, presenting the rich history of the Columbian exchange and how both chocolate and mate were used spiritually, nutritionally, and for pleasure. Prior to this she curated A Century of Masters: The NEA National Heritage Fellows of New Mexico, for which her accompanying publication won a New Mexico Book Award. She currently lives in Santa Fe where, up until the COVID-19 pandemic, she continued to make special guest appearances in flamenco shows at various local venues.
Photographer unknown, collection of Nicolasa Chávez.
TOP CLICK Last month, MOIFA screened the premiere of "And Those Who Dance it Surrender Their Hearts to Each Other," a documentary produced and directed by Cody Edison. The film features the New Mexican string band Lone Piñon, whose music celebrates the integrity of the region's cultural roots.
On May 3rd, we recognize National Textiles Day!
Thank you, textiles -- for protecting us from the elements. Thank you for being both sturdy and delicate depending on our needs. Whether from natural fibers or synthetic materials, for fashion or for necessity, you have made our lives more beautiful, more comfortable, and more enjoyable.
Express yourself today with the textiles that cover your life and enjoy this blanket fragment from Greece, (ca 1900); it’s in our exhibition, Multiple Visions by Alexander Girard. Do you have a favorite textile?
Let us know and use #NationalTextilesDay when sharing with social media today.
EVENTS HAPPENING NOW! VIRTUAL FAMILY MORNINGS AT FOLK ART
Join us on Sunday, May 16th at 10 AMMST for our free Virtual Family Mornings at Folk Art, featuring Grab-and-Go Art Kits and a Zoom program. Our theme this month is “All Together.” The Zoom program will include Story Time and ‘Show-and-Tell’ Time for the children to share their art.
RegisterHEREfor the Grab-and-Go Kits and/or the Family Morning Zoom meeting.
Grab-and-Go Kits will be available for pick up Friday, May 14th, 12 noon - 4:00 PM MST, prior to the Zoom meeting on Sunday. Please register in advance for kits, by Friday at 10 am, to receive the art kit, which will include instructions and supplies for the project. Supplies are limited, and kits are only available as they last.
For more information and other events click HERE
LECTURES AND TALKS
Harmony at Hemisfair '68?: Girard's The Magic of a People, a free Zoom Talk with Monica Obniski, PhD.
Join us May 19, from 2:00 PM to 3:00 PM MST for a talk on Alexander Girard with Monica Obniski, Curator of Decorative Arts and Design at the High Museum of Art.
Photo: Alexander Girard at Hemisfair Pavilion El Encanto de un Pueblo, San Antonio, Texas, 1968. Photographer unknown. Bartlett Library & Archives. MOIFA.
Advance RegistrationHERE For more information and other events clickHERE
TOURS
Join us for MOIFA’s virtual tour roll-out. Register your group now for a free virtual tour by emailingdawn.kaufmann@state.nm.us Our dedicated MOIFA docents are pleased to share a live virtual docent-led tour of Multiple Visions: A Common Bond, the permanent exhibition in MOIFA’s Girard Wing. The five “stop” tour lasts about 45 minutes. Registration is required.
HANDS-ON STUDIO Folk Art To Go! Art Kits by Patricia Sigala On the Go . . . Did you know? Sparked by the invitation in mid-March of 2020 to supplement learning in the Santa Fe Public School District, MOIFA’s flagship Folk Art To Go! (FATG) school program of 27 years pivoted from an in-person outreach, hands-on art making and gallery experience to a DIY project-based Folk Art Kit. K-12 students and families facing gaps in the digital divide received FATG Art Kits to support and enrich formal and informal learning during COVID-19. Each kit comes complete with bilingual step-by-step lesson plans, art materials for one project, plus colorful images to inspire creative and imaginative self-directed hands-on learning.
Photos by Patricia Sigala.
Under the direction and guidance of MOIFA educators, FATG Art Kits were tirelessly assembled by MOIFA Security staff through mid-November when the new shelter-in-place orders halted Art Kit distribution just before the holidays.
Over those long, ever-changing eight months, MOIFA outreach increased our geographic reach by distributing approximately 5,015 kits in Santa Fe, Pecos, Las Vegas, Española, Embudo, and to Tribal Libraries and Pueblos in Northern New Mexico, including Picuris, Nambé, Santa Ana, San Ildefonso, and Kha’p’o Community School in Santa Clara Pueblo. FATG Art Kits also became an integral part of the monthly Virtual Family Mornings program, Gerard’s House and the Southside Public Library outreach, which continue today.
According to Debra Garcia y Griego, DCA Cabinet Secretary, in 2020 the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs divisions “delivered more than 9,000 hands-on activity kits to New Mexican children and families.” This includes MOIFA Art Kits, thusaffirming the substantial impact of On the Go . . . Folk Art To Go! Art Kits in communities around the state.
Additionally, the DCA Activity Kit virtual working group, comprised of primarily of division educators, notably MOIFA's Kemely Gomez and Patricia Sigala (co-chairs), submitted a Best Practices & Recommendations document to the Cabinet Secretary for inclusion and consideration of ongoing support for department-wide collaborations this summer for DCA division Activity Kits. At present, MOIFA anticipates ongoing FATG Art Kit creation and distribution for most of our outreach programs and partners this summer.
Visit our website to download DIY & Lesson Plans to create at home with your family and friendsHERE
Photo by Patricia Sigala.
EXHIBITIONS
#Mask: Creative Responses to the Global Pandemic will open to the public on Memorial Day Weekend 2021. Photo credit: Mask Cover, Ýr Jóhannsdóttir (Ýrúrarí), 2020, Reykjavik, Iceland, wool, cotton, elastic. Museum of International Folk Art, IFAF Collection, FA.2020.56.1. Photo courtesy of the artist
In 2020 the new strain of the novel coronavirus, which causes COVID-19, shocked and consumed our world. Masks became part of our daily attire. Concepts such as social distancing and quarantine became part of our routine.
Historically, masks have been used for ritual, ceremony, community identity, and also for protection. Face coverings as a protective device emerged in European society between 1347 and 1351 as the bubonic plague spread. Although face masks are not new to humanity, their joint use as protective and expressive devices has never been seen on such a large scale. In this recent pandemic, masks represent self-expression, politics, fashion, and humanity’s hope and care for one another. This exhibition is an ode to the mask, and to the artists and everyday citizens forging their way through the COVID-19 crisis.
This Gallery of Conscience exhibition will feature about forty masks and other artworks created in response to the 2020 pandemic. Works on view from near and far will range from those made in Iceland, to locally made masks from Centinela Weavers in Chimayó to a mask made in the Al Am’ari Refugee Camp in Palestine’s West Bank. Video projections and film footage will also showcase masks from New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham’s “Mask Madness” challenge and First American Art Magazine’s mask images featuring “The COVID-19 Pandemic from an Indigenous Perspective.” Objects from the museum’s permanent collection include a traditional plague doctor costume fromItaly and the recently acquired Altar Vision 2020, a contemporary carved-wood altar created in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, by award-winning santero Arthur López.
ACQUISITIONS The Nyana Face Mask Nyanachiek Padiet (for ROOTS of South Sudan); 2020. Juba, South Sudan.
Cotton, glass beads, elastic. 7 1/2 in. x 9 in.
*This mask was made as an art challenge for a fundraising auction; 100% of the proceeds went directly to the non-profit organization.
This recent acquisition for the upcoming Gallery of Conscience exhibition #Mask: Creative Responses to the Global Pandemic, is from South Sudan. The artist, Nyanachiek (Nyana) Padiet, is a mother of two and a member of ROOTS of South Sudan, a non-profit organization that works to empower women and youth through the preservation of traditional arts and crafts. Inspired by Dinka dress, Nyana created this face mask with a beaded-loop design, a traditional beadwork style in Juba. Purchased with funds from the Museum of New Mexico Foundation.
