Wednesday, January 26, 2011 — Good first day in the studio

Jean Pierre and Yael began the morning session with a review of the few rules and regs pertinent to our living, working and eating situation. Then the subject of tapestry and what we are here for was poetically discussed by Jean Pierre before he turned the group over to Sarah Swett.

After his philosophically inclined discussion, JP did a great job of previewing the various plans for the next eight days which include a Friday visit to a favorite Hacienda luncheon about six miles out of town. Always fun to go out there because you feel like you are out in the wilds and then you come upon this beautiful old ranch and hacienda with various old cottages nearby. There is also a formidable raicilla operation just down the hill. Lots to look at along with a bit of tasting. We also have plans to go to a beach one day, a visit to the opening and blessing of a cultural museum that is located just next door to Casa Tejedora and on the final day we'll do the grand opening in Puerto Vallarta of some of our tapestries at the Peter Gray Museum at the university. Some time during this schedule we'll manage to do some designing and hopefully some productive weaving.

Sarah did a bang-up job of getting us started with our subject of story telling at the loom. It promises to be a challenging and creative week. Sarah has a great sense of humor and a joyous way of describing what it is she would like us to take on in this session titled "The Luminous Ordinary." We discussed ways of finding our primary focus entity for a series of very small tapestry statements with some form of story inferred. Should be fun and interesting. We then progressed to dressing our looms with approximately four inch wide warps on which to weave these wondrous works.

Time will tell, but I have a hunch from looking around the room that there will be a broad field of approaches taken. Should be fun. Lots of designing in store for the next few days. Then a flurry of weaving to achieve a finished product. I'll keep you posted.

Dinner on the porch tonight featured a marinated fish with greens, quinoa, green papaya salad, steamed vegetables and finished with a yummy dessert of flan pudding laced with nuts and kahlua. JP offered raicilla to all. Yes, times are kind of tough at the moment.