Canelo Dispatches


Denver Art Museum News
This weekend begins our program at the Denver Art Museum and their summer program “Marvelous Mud – Clay around the world.”  Our participation in this summer program is entitled “Clayground.”  The museum has advertised us as providing an opportunity for “families to join us in sculpting, molding and creating a giant eartthen playground.”  As usual, our plan is loose, we’ll have the materials on site and let it evolve from there.  Here’s the museum’s link for our event:

//www.denverartmuseum.org/utility/calendar/eventDetails/eventId–206409

Grupo Danza Xunutzi Update
A large part of our winter months was devoted to helping the high school folkloric dance group from the Rio Sonora Valley that is known as “Grupo Danza Xunutzi.”  The word “help” isn’t exactly accurate in that much of what we did was a desire to make it easier for us to watch them perform both here in the United States and Mexico.  Our initial effort raised funds to purchase a 15 passenger van for their travel, while the second phase secured funds for those in the group who didn’t have United States visas and needed to apply.  To apply for a visa is not cheap, $150+ with no guarantee of the applicant being granted a visa.  After much dialogue and communication with U.S. Consulate in Hermosillo, letters of support and invitation, etc., 12 kids went the last week of June for their visa interviews.  Miraculously, only one was turned down, the others all were successful.  However, he will be able to reapply and more than likely be successful the next time round.  Athena and I would like to thank all those donors who were gracious enough to essentially adopt one of these kids and make this possible.

iPhone Artistry Course
It won’t be until the end of July before we launch our new website with an announcement about the iPhone Photographic Artistry course I mentioned recently in a post to this blog.  In the meantime, I put up a slideshow on Youtube that I think nicely captures the spirit of the course and gives additional detail about it.  I have to admit, I’m completely amazed by the response and enthusiasm I’ve gotten about the course.  I’m sure it will be a whole lot of fun. Here’s a link:
Monsoon News
Finally it has rained, a substantial amount. It has been a great start to what hopefully will be an incredible monsoon season of abundant rain.  The humidity is up, the air is marvelous, the temperatures down.  For now, all is good.

New Mexico Magazine – Athena’s Mother’s Adobe
The issue containing the article on Rina Swentzell’s house is on the newstands.  Not as many photos as we had thought, but well written, makes a good story.

And with that I’ll conclude, see you all from Denver.
Prev Monsoon News and a Little Bit More
Next Monday Morning - Denver

One Comment

  1. We're off to the Cities today to pick up some Kaolin Clay. Don't know yet what the best pigment for it is. They mine this clay right here in Minnesota. We are planning on finishing all the mud this summer, and then add a bedroom/bathroom to our little strawbale.

    Wish we could come the Denver mud gig. How long is it?

Leave a comment