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We were honored to be a part of the Gallery of Conscience at the Museum of International Folk Art.  It was a large investment of time spent with a cadre of New Mexican and international artists, over  the space of several months.  It has been difficult to communicate what we were doing during that time, but the Museum’s website explains.  “The Gallery of Conscience is an experimental gallery in the Museum of International Folk Art where the public is invited to help shape the content and form of the exhibition in real time. Visitors notice the Gallery of Conscience looks...

  Always Greener came out of my developing awareness of how the two sides of tapestry weaving, pictorial and geometric, relate to each other.  It always seems like there’s just a shade of jealousy about “the other side” having it easier, either making or selling their work, or just getting respect for it.  And I really am uncomfortable with any kind of “us versus them” mentality. This piece was about taking naturalistic shapes and making them geometric.  It’s about how they relate to each other.  So I revisited this body shape that I’d done in a handful of pieces before. ...

This is from a transcript of an old oral history interview with Irvin Trujillo’s father Jake. It’s a nice thing to have run into today, on Veteran’s Day. When we went to go find a picture of Jake in the Navy we found this picture, which is dated (at the bottom of the picture) November 11, 1944. A lot of Veteran’s Day coincidence. “In 1942, I was called into the army, I was inducted.  Well when I got my induction papers, I went over to Santa Fe.  At that time my oldest brother was working in Santa Fe.  He was...

Every fall I struggle with the onset of cold weather. I don’t know if we work harder to keep warm than other people do, but it really is a long hard slog through the long winter months. And as the temperatures drop, the anticipation of that effort distracts me from the beauty that the season brings. In an effort to keep myself in the present, I can go out and take pictures of the glories of the season.   Apricot tree at the watergate. From the garden up to the tree across the ditch. In the corral, where there are...

The  “Prototypical Chimayo” represents the type of weaving seen in New Mexico during the initial years of the Chimayo weaving industry, which was roughly 1895 to 1905. Irvin’s Grandmother and Grandfather, Francisquita and Isidoro Trujillo, wove this type of design for Santa Fe dealers who sold Chimayo Blankets.  Jake Gold, who owned Gold’s Free Museum and Old Curiosity Shop in Santa Fe, was the first to term the weavings from Chimayo “Chimayo Indian Blankets”. The weavers from Chimayo were not Indian at all, but Hispanic families who had been weaving for many generations on Spanish floor looms.  Jake Gold, and...

  Irvin Trujillo in front of the Denver Art Museum on the night of the opening. Once upon a time I taught about our weaving tradition to a group of weavers who were all tapestry weavers from a guild in a distant part of the country.  I totally enjoyed the experience, but one thing about it stands out in my memory more than all the joys of that teaching experience.  We all were at the old Victorian-era home of one of the students for dinner.  The hostess was very gracious, but made the statement that what I was teaching, and...