Inside Out - Fiber art for the human form

My piece, Mariachi,  will be showing at the Inside Out-fiber art for the human form Exhibition at the

Textile Center's Joan Mondale Gallery in Minneapolis, Minnesota, June 4 – July 10, 2010.

The exhibition is being held in conjunction with Textile Center's Artwear Symposium.

http://www.textilecentermn.org/

This piece, Mariachi, is part of my Folklorico Series.

Dance in any culture serves as a repository of a people’s way of life. Embedded in dance are a society’s spiritual beliefs, history, philosophies, and moral codes. Dance can be a powerful tool for teaching the younger generation the ways of their people. Dance can be a tool to demand and sustain social space in an increasingly pluralistic society. Dance can also be a tool to embrace the common links among various peoples. These truths I have known from my African heritage; however, these were reinforced when I discovered folkrorico in San Antonio


As a visual artist, my visceral reaction to folkrorico was to the brilliant visual display of the costumes. The movement of the dancers fused the costumes, and created a visual spectacle that kept flowing, dance after dance. The colors transported my mind back to my childhood in Kenya. The codes embedded in the total theater of the dance were no less important; but to an African woman visual artist, the link to universal humanism, was from that which I could see.