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Lecture in La:  Saturday, October 26, 2019: "Sacred Surfaces: Carpets, Coverings and Mesas in the Colonial Andes" with Elena Phipps, Former Textile Conservator, Curator and Educator, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New  ...
Lecture in La:  Saturday, October 26, 2019: "Sacred Surfaces: Carpets, Coverings and Mesas in the Colonial Andes" with Elena Phipps, Former Textile Conservator, Curator and Educator, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New  ...
Lecture in La: Saturday, October 26, 2019: "Sacred Surfaces: Carpets, Coverings and Mesas in the Colonial Andes" with Elena Phipps, Former Textile Conservator, Curator and Educator, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Author, and Teacher at Ucla. Sponsored by Textile Museum Associates of Southern California, Inc. Textiles formed the surfaces of Colonial life in the Andes, and especially those associated with ritual and faith relating to the sacred realms of Christian as well as indigenous religious contexts. Carpets—woven of knotted pile or flat-woven tapestry-- were not in themselves a form used in the region prior to the Spanish arrival. But these were introduced very early on in the 16th century by the Spanish who brought with them examples produced and influenced by Hispano-moresque and Middle Eastern traditions. Andean weavers adapted to the form and techniques of their production, creating remarkable examples that manifest the complex interchange of the period. From Colonial documents we also know that other forms of textiles, especially traditional warp-patterned cloth- were used in ritual contexts—covering the sacred stones—huacas— of Inca religion and wrapping the sacred ancestral mummies that were honored for generations until they were destroyed by the campaigns to extirpate idolatry waged by Spanish clerics. They were also used to form the ritual surface, mesa [literally ‘table’] for ceremonial events and for offerings. Dr. Elena Phipps, past President of the Textile Society of America (2011-2014) a non-profit organization for the dissemination of knowledge about textiles, and Metropolitan Museum of Art Senior Museum Scholar, has a PhD from Columbia University in Pre-Columbian Art History (1989) and has worked as a textile conservator, curator and educator for over forty years. Her roles at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (1977-2010) included textile conservator working on a range of projects including a focus on dyes and textile analysis, as well as co-curator of the 2004 exhibition, "Colonial Andes: Tapestries and Silverwork, 1530-1830," and co-author of the catalogue, awarded the Mitchell Prize and the Alfred Barr Jr. Award in 2005. In 2013, after her retirement from the Met Museum, she served as a co-curator for "The Interwoven Globe: Worldwide Textiles and Trade 1600-1800," and as author of two essays "The Iberian Globe” and “Coloring the Globe”, in the accompanying exhibition catalogue. She was concurrently guest curator of "The Four-Selvaged Peruvian Cloth: Ancient Roots/New Directions" at the Fowler Museum, Ucla (2013) and author of the catalogue. She has published widely on the subject of textile materials, technique and culture, including "Cochineal Red: the art history of a color" (Mma and Yale Univ. Press, 2010,) "Looking at Textiles" (Getty Publications, 2010). Elena is currently teaching the cultural history of textiles and their techniques in the Department of World Arts and Cultures, Ucla. Saturday, October 26, 2019: Refreshments 9:30 / Program 10 a.m. Luther Hall, St. Bede's Episcopal Church, 3590 Grand View Blvd. Los Angeles, Ca 90066-1904 (Just south of the 10 freeway, and west of the 405, near the intersection of Centinela and Palms.) Free parking. *Admission: Tma/Sc Members Gratis . . . . . Guests $10. *No Reservations required