Convergence 2010 Albuquerque

Tours of the Albuquerque Area

 

 

Sunday, July 18 - Wednesday, July 21

 

 

NEW tour!  See below

 

 

Here’s your chance to see some of New Mexico. These tours, custom designed for HGA’s Convergence, allow participants to view behind-the-scenes areas not available to the public. 

 

Here’s your chance to see some of the sights in New Mexico. Departure and return times are listed. All tours will depart from and return to the Albuquerque Convention Center. Tours are open to all and require a minimum number of participants and are subject to cancellation. Purchase tour tickets on the Convergence registration form. Some tour tickets may be available on site at Convergence 2010 Albuquerque.

Please note that the elevation of Ghost Ranch Abiquiu is 6,500 feet above sea level, Santa Fe is 7,000 feet and the Opera House is 7,500 feet. If you have pulmonary or cardiac problems, please check with your physician concerning the altitude and be sure to bring along any medications you may need. Drink plenty of water to combat any altitude illness.

 

 

Georgia O’Keeffe and the Ghost Ranch Landscape Tour:  Sunday, July 18 - Monday, July 19

 

Focus on Fiber Tour: Santa Fe Opera House and Artists’ Studios: Tuesday, July 20

 

FULL  Jan 6, 2010
Visiting the Textile Vaults: Santa Fe's Indian Arts Research Center (IARC) and the Museum of International Folk Art:  Wednesday, July 21

 

NEW  Feb 13, 2010

Sensational Santa Fe  Wednesday, July 21, 2010

 

T01

Georgia O’Keeffe and the Ghost Ranch Landscape Tour

Depart Albuquerque Convention

Center Sunday, July 18 1:00 pm and return Monday, July 19, 4:30 pm

 

Take an overnight trip to Northern New Mexico to experience the towering rock walls and vivid colors in the land of shifting light, boundless skies, and fused cultures, to see where Georgia O’Keeffe painted for fifty years. Tour the landscape of Ghost Ranch and see through your own eyes the scenes and actual locations of Georgia O’Keeffe’s painting. The shining red and yellow cliffs of the Piedra Lumbre, the black trails of waterfalls against canyon walls, and her beloved Pedernal Mountain are interwoven with stories of her fifty years at Ghost Ranch in Abiquiu.

 

Meet at the Albuquerque Convention Center to begin the 2.5 hour bus ride to Abiquiu, New Mexico. After arriving at Ghost Ranch, take some time to enjoy the Florence Hawley Ellis Museum of Anthropology and the Ruth Hall Museum of Paleontology, which are located on the grounds of Ghost Ranch. Also visit the library which contains more than 16,000 volumes and is open 24 hours a day for guests.

 

On Monday after breakfast, board a mini-bus to take a 1.5-hour tour of the landscape, with frequent stops for photo opportunities. Return to the ranch for lunch; after lunch, take the bus back to the Albuquerque Convention Center. Ghost Ranch Abiquiu is located in the high desert at 6,500 feet above sea level. There is a 5–10 minute walk from most rooms to the dining hall, library, and museums. There are no phones, TV or radios in the rooms. Bring sturdy walking shoes, a backpack for carrying water, sunscreen, flashlight, comfortable clothes that can be layered, and a jacket or sweatshirt for the evening. If you have pulmonary or cardiac problems, please check with your physician concerning the altitude and be sure to bring along any medications you may need. Drink plenty of water to combat any altitude illness.

Rooms are for double occupancy with private bathrooms. Dinner, breakfast and lunch are included and there are vegetarian and non-vegetarian meals available.

Price: $250 per person, double occupancy

Additional $50 for single supplement

 

 

From atop Chimney Rock. Photo courtesy of Ghost Ranch.

 

T02

Focus on Fiber Tour: Santa Fe Opera House and Artists’ Studios

Tuesday, July 20, 2010. Depart Albuquerque

Convention Center 8:30 am, return 5:00 pm

 

The Santa Fe Opera’s dramatic adobe theater blends harmoniously with the high desert landscape. It is this fusion of nature and art that leaves such an enduring impression on all who come. Take a tour of this world famous open air Opera House and experience a special behind-the-scene tour highlighted by a visit to the costume shop.

Continue this fiber tour by visiting the studios of Rebecca Bluestone, James Koehler, and Jennifer Moore.

Rebecca Bluestone is a contemporary abstract artist who uses traditional tapestry techniques, hand-dyed silks and metallic threads as her medium. Instead of applying paint to canvas, she dyes the fibers first and then, in essence, weaves her own canvas. In this way the work is done in a very painterly manner. Each of her one-of-a-kind pieces contains hundreds of different colors created by Rebecca.

James Koehler designs and weaves tapestries in his spacious, contemporary studio. His work is influenced by the extraordinary landscapes of New Mexico and by certain aspects of the monastic aesthetic of simplicity, purity, and seeking and portraying only what is essential. Several apprentices and students also work in the studio and weave on Cranbrook and Macomber looms. Visitors will see several tapestries in various stages of completion along with an extensive, vibrant display of the colorful wools and silks used in the weavings. All of the yarns are dyed on the premises and are available for sale to both students and visitors. Koehler tapestries can be found in museum, corporate and private collections and many of them are exhibited in the studio gallery.

Jennifer Moore is one of a handful of contemporary masters employing the ancient technique of doubleweave pick-up. The exacting process of exchanging threads between the two layers of cloth allows her to create precise designs, which play against her vibrant color harmonics. Jennifer Moore’s elegant scarves and stoles are handwoven using the highest quality silk yarns available, most of them hand-dyed. She works with intricate yet classic woven patterns and luminous color gradations that range from the subtle to the bold.

Lunch at the Opera House Cantina included.

Please note that Santa Fe’s elevation is about 7,000 feet above sea level and the Opera House is at 7,500 feet. There are 135 stairs to be navigated during this tour. If you have pulmonary or cardiac problems, please check with your physician concerning the altitude and be sure to bring along any medications you may need. Drink plenty of water to combat possible altitude illness.

 

Price: $110

 

 

Rebecca Bluestone Studio Rebecca Bluestone is a contemporary abstract artist who uses traditional tapestry techniques, hand-dyed silks and metallic threads as her medium.

 

James Koehler Studio Influenced by the extraordinary landscapes of New Mexico and the monastic aesthetic of simplicity, James Koehler designs and weaves tapestries in his spacious, contemporary studio.

 

Jennifer Moore Studio Jennifer Moore is one of a handful of contemporary masters employing the ancient technique of doubleweave pick-up.  Her precise designs play against her vibrant color harmonics.

 

T03    FULL  Jan 6, 2010

Visiting the Textile Vaults: Santa Fe's Indian Arts Research Center (IARC) and the Museum of International Folk Art.

 

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Depart Albuquerque Convention Center 8:30 am, return 5:00 pm.

 

The Indian Arts Research Center (IARC), located in Santa Fe, is a division of the School for Advanced Research working laboratory where approximately 12,000 pieces of pottery, textiles, clothing, jewelry, silverwork, paintings, baskets, kachinas and other ethnographic items are housed. Take a docent-led tour into the vaults of this wonderful research center.

Also visit the Museum of International Folk Art, whose holdings represent diverse cultures and constitute the largest collection of international folk art in the world. The core collection is over 130,000 objects from more than 100 countries. Visit the storage area, not normally opened to the public, to see the second largest collection of Swedish flat textiles woven during the first half of the 19th Century. Learn about storage and care of textiles. Two exhibits of interest will also be on view at the Museum, A Century of Masters, and Material World: Textiles & Dress from the Collection. The Museum of International Folk Art holds examples of the works of all the National Endowment for the Arts’ National Heritage Fellows from New Mexico in its collections, from weavings, to pottery, tinwork, straw appliqué, retablos, and woodcarving. Rio Grande weaver Irvin Truijillo’s work is included in A Century of Masters. Material World: Textiles & Dress from the Collection presents a tantalizing glimpse of the 138 rarely-seen items which highlight the remarkable breadth and depth of 20,000 objects ranging from everyday household articles to elaborately detailed ceremonial wear in the Museum’s textile collection.

Admission to the Research Center and the Museum and lunch included.

Hand-held magnifiers allowed.

Price: $150

 

T04    NEW  Feb 13, 2010

 

Sensational Santa Fe

 

Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Depart Albuquerque Convention Center 8:30 am, return 5:00 pm

 

The Museum of Indian Arts and Culture in Santa Fe, New Mexico, is one of four museums in the Museum of New Mexico system, a premier repository of Native art and material culture which tells the stories of the people of the Southwest from pre-history through contemporary art. Joyce Begay-Foss, Director of Education, will lead a tour into the storage vaults at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture about traditional textiles and clothing. Joyce is an accomplished Navajo weaver for over twenty-five years and is also an expert in the use of natural dyes and techniques common to both Native American and Hispanic traditional cultures.

 

Also at the Museum is Here, Now, and Always, a major exhibition based on eight years of collaboration among Native American elders, artists, scholars, teachers, writers and museum professionals. Voices of fifty Native Americans guide visitors through the Southwest's indigenous communities and their challenging landscapes. See more than 1,300 artifacts from the Museum's collections accompanied by poetry, story, song and scholarly discussion.

 

The William Siegal Gallery in Santa Fe exhibits a distinguished collection of ancient art and artifacts alongside contemporary works of art. For over thirty-five years, William Siegal has assembled the world’s largest collection of Andean textiles dating from 750 BC to the 19th Century. Ceremonial objects and artifacts from Meso and South American cultures, in addition to museum-quality ancient Chinese, Southeast Asian, African, and Indonesian pieces, are represented. Listen to Mr. Siegal as he talks about the wonderful collections in the Gallery.

 

 Tunic.  Camelid wool/natural dyes
Nasca Culture, South Coast of Peru, 200 - 600 A.D.
41.25 h x 52.75 w inches

Photo courtesy of William Siegal Gallery

 

TAI Gallery/Textile Arts, located in Santa Fe, is one of the world's finest galleries featuring the art of traditional textiles and Japanese bamboo art. Since 1978, owners Mary Hunt Kahlenberg and Robert T. Coffland have combined Kahlenberg’s renowned knowledge of the field with Coffland’s contemporary art sensibility to offer visually dazzling, museum-quality textiles and bamboo art from around the world. In 2006 TAI added the field of contemporary Japanese photography to its collections.

 

Fujinuma Noboru, born 1945
"Refined Spirit", 2006;  Madake bamboo and rattan
14" x 13 1/2" x 10" high

Photo courtesy of TAI Gallery/Textile Arts

 

 

Continue this fiber tour by visiting the studio of Polly Barton. Beginning with her apprenticeship to traditional Japanese master Sensei Tomohiko Inoue, Polly Barton, for over twenty-five years, has used the medium and tools of classical ikat-dyeing and weaving to create luminous abstract and representational textile art. As a weaver, Polly works in a very painterly manner, building layers of color to create stunning designs that convey highly emotional messages - at times, bold; at other times, extremely subtle. She also uses the Japanese technique of E-kasuri or pictorial ikat to create more representational images.

 

 Cleave Blue, 10" x 10", Double silk ikat

Photo by Wendy McEahern, courtesy of Polly Barton

 

 

Lunch in the Railyard District is included.

 

Price: $150