Creative Tourism Activity: Museum of Spanish Colonial Art
Museum of Spanish Colonial Art
www.spanishcolonial.org
Thursday, October 2nd
3 Hour Workshop from 1:30-4:45pm
(with a 15-minute break)
Location: Museum of Spanish Colonial Art
Participants-20 maximum
Straw Appliqué Workshop
Imagine a 1920’s pueblo revival style home designed by Santa Fe’s premier architect of the time, John Gaw Meem, that is perfectly preserved as he designed it. Then, imagine it filled with the art treasures of 400 years of Hispanic New Mexico’s heritage and you have the Museum of Spanish Colonial Art. Dating from the Middle Ages to the New Millennium, the collections span centuries in art, place and time. Among the various media featured are santos, textiles, tinwork, silverwork, goldwork, ironwork, straw appliqué, ceramics, furniture, books and more. A host of comparative objects from Spain and Latin America as well as Asia, Bulgaria and France and other worldly locales further illustrate the faraway influences that converged during the colonial era to inspire artists and art forms.
Participate in a straw appliqué workshop led by Lenise Martinez, award-winning Spanish Market artist, as she teaches you the basics of the art form. Straw Appliqué is the traditional Spanish colonial art of applying wheat straw or cornhusk to painted wood in intricate designs. When artisans in early 19th century Spanish New Mexico tried to imitate the elaborate marquetry of Spain and Mexico, they had to improvise because gold was a rare commodity. The early settlers used the straw as "poor man’s gold" to create geometric and floral patterns on dark painted wooden crosses, boxes and furniture.
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