Quilting for their Lives

In a remote village in the Thar desert of Pakistan, the women are primarily Hindu in a Muslim country. Not only that, but they are from the bottom of the untouchable caste system. They have very few options in life for what they can do to earn a living. Most of the women are illiterate and are forbidden to travel without their husbands or a male relative. The men dye cotton and the women take that cotton and stitch together brightly patterned Ralli quilts. They embroider, appliqué, and adorn their creations with bits of mirror, sequins, shells and beads. The patterns are based on ancient textile traditions dating back thousands of years.

WPA-Style Posters Reflect Mesa Verde Style from Arts Perspective Magazine

It was Doug Leen who created the Square Tower image for Mesa Verde National Park in 2006, a poster done in the WPA style, but an original Leen design. Leen visited Square Tower, which has been closed to guests since about 1940. Square Tower is the tallest Ancient Puebloan structure and what the park wanted to emulate on their poster.

Libby Lumpkin Picks Urbane and Quirky Art for New Mexorado from adobeairstream.com

This kind of juried exhibition provides the opportunity to better know some of your scattered neighbors—to learn more about all those loners, hippies, socialites, cowpokes, scientists, and retired generals living at the end of some dirt road, some of whom are developing as artists, and a couple of whom might actually be waiting for that space ship, Lumpkin said.

Enrique Chagoya Controversy in Loveland

I wrote this piece for the Huffington Post about the controversy over Enrique Chagoya’s “The Misadventures of Romantic Cannibals” at the Loveland Museum. The truck driver from Montana, Kathleen Folden pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor and received 18 months probation. Colorado Councilman May Want To Explore Why Art “Turned Him On.” Also on Huffington Post,…