Planned Events of the International Hajji Baba Society *Salons/home visits marked with an * are open only to Hajji members and require pre-registration two weeks in advance of the event. Information on how to register will be forthcoming. DATE: May 19, 2013 TIME: 2:00-4:00pm LOCATION: Myers Room, The Textile Museum, 2320 S Street NW SPEAKER: Yolanda Alcorta and Sheba Velasco SUBJECT: Continuous Threads of the Maya Weaver During the 20th and 21st centuries Maya textiles have changed, influenced by increased outside contact such as tourist tastes, politics such as the 30-year civil war, economics marked by the prohibitive cost of threads and lack of time to weave, fashion trends influenced by increased media penetration, access to new materials such as Mylar and dyes and a rebirth of the Maya Identity. Using The Friends of the Ixchel Museum (FOIM) Collection and personal FOIM Board collections coupled with your Maya textiles we will construct a timeline of Continuous Threads. In this process we will identify your textiles, discuss and demonstrate weaving techniques, and examine the dynamics of style, continuity and change through time. Sheba Velasco, a master Maya-Ixil weaver and long-time consultant to the National Museum of the American Indian will be with us to discuss her weaving through time and place. For the collectors from the audience, you are encouraged to bring one of the best textiles you have collected to add to the timeline to learn more about your collection. For the teachers in the audience, we will have activities that may be incorporated into your curriculum and classroom as you explore your student’s cultural diversity, identity and relationship to time. Yolanda Alcorta is a longtime Board member of the FIOM, has been collecting textiles for thirty-five years and she has curated Maya textile exhibits at Longwood Gardens and the Morris Arboretum and Maya programs at the National Museum of the American Indian and University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archeology and Anthropology. She has a Master of Arts in Teaching in Museum Education from George Washington University. She began her work as a museum educator at the Mexican Museum in San Francisco where she established the Education Department when the museum opened in 1975. In 1992 in Philadelphia she co-founded Raíces Culturales Latinoamericanas—Latin American Cultural Roots, now a respected Latino cultural center in Philadelphia. As Executive Director of Raíces she worked closely for 16 years with the Latino community in Philadelphia and developed numerous educational centered programs on Maya textiles and traditions. Currently a resident of Washington, DC she works closely with the Guatemalan/Maya community to produce and persent annual Guatemalan community festivals and cultural programs. As President of Alcorta Connections, she is a bilingual consultant to museums and the non-profit community. She has also worked on various interpretive projects at the National Museum of American History, the National Museum of Natural History and the National Museum of the American Indian. Currently she is developing a new project, UnLocking Race, which will promote conversations about RACE in communities in metropolitan Washington, DC. She is Board Secretary of the Humanities Council of Washington DC and serves on the board of the Guatemalan Human Rights Commission. Sheba Velasco is a master back strap loom weaver from Nebaj, Guatemala. Sheba learned to weave from her grandmother at age 7 and has continued to keep the tradition as an interpreter with the National Museum of the American Indian in both New York City and Washington, DC. She has participated in workshops at Maya Weekend at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archeology and Anthropology and the National Museum of American History. She has also traveled around the world teaching people about Mayan culture. A resident of Virginia she continues to keep her culture alive by speaking Ixil, her native language and weaving and wearing her traje or traditional dress. This program is presented as a partnership between the International Hajji Baba Society and The Textile Museum. NOTE new date and time DATE: June 16, 2013 TIME: 3:30-5:00pm LOCATION: Arlington Central Library Second Floor Meeting Room 1015 N Quincy St Arlington, VA SPEAKER: Yiyou (Daisy) Wang, Freer Gallery of Art SUBJECT: Rediscovering the Chinese Textile Collection in the Freer Gallery of Art Charles L. Freer (1854-1919), the Detroit industrialist and founder of the Freer Gallery of Art, is well recognized for his role in building the gallery’s world-class collection of Chinese paintings, ceramics, ancient jades, and Buddhist sculptures. However, little is known about him as an avid collector of Chinese textiles. Between 1902 and 1919 Freer collected and later bequeathed to the Freer Gallery 180 Chinese pieces of many types and periods, including a Tang dynasty 8thcentury Chinese brocade he purchased for 45 dollars in Japan, and the exquisite silk tapestry depicting the phoenix in the garden scene purchased from China. (See the image below.) As the first quantitative case study of Chinese textile collecting in America between 1902 and 1919, this presentation looks at the complex factors that shaped Freer’s collection, including his taste and the market conditions. Freer’s personal story will be considered along with international relations and textile scholarship of his time. Dr. Wang’s research will be published March/April 2013 issue of Arts of Asia. Daisy Yiyou Wang is the Chinese Art Specialist at the Smithsonian’s Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery. Wang has published extensively, and contributed to a number of innovative exhibitions, including Echoes of the Past: The Buddhist Cave Temples of Xiangtangshan at the Smithsonian. Wang has received a Smithsonian Valuing World Cultures Award, a Smithsonian Post-Doctoral fellowship, and a Getty Museum Leadership Fellowship. Wang holds a Ph.D. in Art History from Ohio University. DATE: October 6, 2013 TIME: TBA LOCATION: Private Home* SUBJECT: 19th Century Workshop Rugs from the Eastern Caucasus DATE: November 3, 2013 TIME: TBA LOCATION: TBA SUBJECT: Exploring The Little Known: Textiles of the South Balkans SPEAKER: Tim & Penny Hayes DATE: November 10, 2013 TIME: TBA LOCATION: TBA SUBJECT: Chinese and Tibetan Saddle Rugs SPEAKER: Koos de Jong DATE: December 1, 2013 TIME: 3:00 p.m. LOCATION: Private Home* SUBJECT: Turkmen Topics SPEAKER: Richard Isaacson Some Other Upcoming Textile Events and Other Events of Interest DATE: November 5-9, 2013 LOCATION: The Queen Sirikit Museum of Textiles (QSMT) on the grounds of the Grand Palace, Bangkok, Thailand SUBJECT: Symposium on the textile heritage of Thailand and Her Majesty’s couture wardrobe The Queen Sirikit Museum of Textiles (QSMT) on the grounds of the Grand Palace, Bangkok, Thailand will host this international and multi-disciplinary symposium. The museum, which opened to the public on May 9, 2012, collects, displays, and preserves textiles from Southeast, East and South Asia, with a special emphasis on the textile heritage of Thailand and Her Majesty’s couture wardrobe. In addition to pre- and post-conference tours, the program will offer special opportunities to see behind the scenes at the new museum and visit private collections of Southeast Asian textiles not accessible to the general public. Papers will cover such topics as Indian, Chinese, and Cambodian textiles for the Thai court; a late 19th c. royal collection of Indonesian batik from the Inner Court; Thai influence on Burmese royal dress; 19th c. tribute dress and textiles at the Chinese, Siamese, Burmese, Shan and Lan Na courts; preserving royal collections; and dressing modern royalty. Confirmed speakers include Julia Brennan and Sylvia Fraser-Lu. For further information please email: info@qsmtthailand.org with “Symposium information” in the subject line. The museum will inform the program and registration fee when the symposium website is live. DATE: October 23 – November 4, 2013 (During Diwali Festival) & March 6 – 18, 2014 (during the Holi festival) EVENT: “Story of Travel" is offering textile tours to India led by textile expert, Judy Frater. Judy has been a curator at the Textile Museum of Washington D.C. and also received a Fulbright and Ford Foundation fellowship to study suf embroidery in India. While in India, she formed a local textile artisans trust. Participants will join Judy Frater at her trust where they will learn embroidery, weaving, and printing. In addition, Judy will travel with participants to explore the ancient textile culture in India. These tours depart in October 2013 and March 2014. Contact sara@storyoftravel.com for more details. DATE: May and November, 2013 EVENT: Vedat Karadag of Istanbul, who has spoken at the ICOC – Stockholm 2012 on "New, Technically Sophisticated, and Deceptive Reproductions of Early Anatolian Weavings ," is organizing special textile-oriented tours for this year, one in Turkey, and two in Iran. Textile Tour of Turkey: May 25 - June 08, 2013; Information here Textile Tours of Iran: Nov. 4 - 18, 2013 and Nov. 24 - Dec 8, 2013; Information here return to home page