Francisco Fort Museum and Huajatolla Heritage Foundation are pleased to be able to bring a Fiber Festival (and more event) once again to the Cuchara Valley. This year’s event will be Saturday, June 25th from 10 to 5 PM on the Museum Grounds at 306 S. Main in La Veta Colorado.
Events start at 10:00 am
Music by Michael Rael 10 am to 12 pm
Kim McKee and Ken Wilson 12:00 pm and 2 pm,
Mickey Sinko 3 pm,
Also short talks by various artists throughout the day.
(It is an outdoor event, but please check out www.franciscofort.org and https://www.facebook.com/FranciscoFortMuseum in case of inclement weather for an alternate location).
The response by regional fiber artists has been so positive. We will have weaving, knitting, felting, dyeing, and embroidery demonstrations as well as many fiber and fiber art creations for sale. Our neighbors to the south, Taos Wools will be here with beautiful hand-dyed churro yarn as well as the Moro Valley Spinning Mill folk. The entire Moro Valley has been encircled by the recent devastating New Mexico Forest fires and their willingness to make the trek to La Veta is just one more example of their resilience.
The much loved and respected curandero, Teresa de Jesus Vigil will be coming from San Luis and sharing her extensive knowledge of plant medicine along with her wit and wisdom as an artist and a poet. Several of the Colcheras (those who do Colcha Embroidery) from the San Luis Colcha Embroidery Club will also be coming. Their work was recently featured in a gallery exhibition in Saguache Colorado.
A new concept to be explored is a Pop-Up Museum within the Museum! At this event, we are asking anyone that has a heritage handcraft to bring and share the story. You don’t need to leave it or donate it or do anything but share and we will do an audio visual recording starting an archive of local history—an adult version of show and tell. We already know there are some neat things coming like a civil war era quilt and a 120-year-old Pendleton Blanket. What do you have to share?
Performers on the stage include Michael Rael from Questa with traditional music of northern New Mexico and southern Colorado, our own local talented Kim and Ken McKee that have a worldwide following for their Celtic folk music along with Micky Sinko, a local poet with a guitar! We will have a booth with fiber-related kid activities as well as a face painter. What is a festival without good food? We will have that also! Plus, as always, free admission to the museum.