workshop: june 5.

Undocumented Border Flowers
image from consuelojunderwood.com

If you're in the DC area, and interested in the fiber arts, here's an interesting workshop for you.

The James Renwick Alliance have organised a fiber workshop by Consuelo Jimenez Underwood this coming Saturday, June 5. The Renwick Alliance are offering a reduced rate for fiber artists interested in taking the workshop. Details follow below.

There will also be a related lecture [free] by the artist on Sunday, June 6, 3pm, in the Grand Salon of the Smithsonian Renwick Museum. Artist Talk is titled "Political Threads/Hilos Politicos—A Contemporary Perspective on Issues Regarding Spirit, Land and Art” Fiber artist Consuelo Jiménez Underwood has been producing artworks expressing her memories of the indigenous peoples of the Americas for more than thirty years. Join the artist as she discusses the historical, societal, and personal references in her work.


Consuelo Jimenez Underwood, Virgen de los Caminos, 1994
Image from craftinamerica.org

More about the Workshop, from the James Renwick Alliance:
Consuelo J. Underwood has exhibited and lectured and given workshops nationally and internationally for more than twenty five years. She was born in Sacramento, California, and received her BA and her MA from the San Diego State University. She developed the Fiber/Textile program in the School of Arts and Design at San Jose State University after receiving her MFA there in 1987. Her contributions to the contemporary Chicano and Fiber Art movements have been referenced in multiple critical publications and her work is in several museums, including our own Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Shifting from brushes and paint to needle and thread early in her career, she has infused her woven and embroidered textiles with historical and political images from her personal and familial past. She has said she has felt empowered by the voices of her maternal ancestors to cross the intellectual borders that separated the hand and the mind from the “fine” art spirit, and that her “work reflects the quiet rage that has permeated the Americas for more than five hundred years.”

This hands-on workshop will be an interactive journey with Consuelo, revealing how threads have context, meaning and power. Participants, using miniature flags, needles and thread, will learn how to transform basic sewing materials and process into powerful statements that deal with contemporary social and political events.

Date: Saturday, June 5, 10am–3pm
Location: The Art League School
305 Madison Street, Alexandria, VA 22315
Fee: This workshop is being offered to visual and fiber artists at the discounted price of $45.
To register: Call Sarah Frey at the JRA Office at 301.907.3888
or email at admin@jra.org.