Through an ongoing collaboration with a family of weavers in Michoacan, Mexico, I have been designing tapestries using imagery from my artwork and having them produced at a small weaving facility. The tapestries were featured in an exhibit, Las Frutas del Mundo, which premiered in 2013 at the Centro Cultural Antiguo Colegio Jesuita in Patzcuaro, Michoacan, Mexico. The tapestry project represents a link between the history and culture of the Mexican agricultural heartland and life in rural East Tennessee.
What these master artistans have created are not reproductions of the images I drew, but interpretations of them in natural wool: grown, dyed and woven in Michoacan, Mexico. The project has created an ongoing link between two cultures, using the arts to cross a contested border and inject hope and economic possibility into a difficult time for Michoacan.
You can view some of the tapestries below as well as in the general “work” section of my website. If you are interested in purchasing a tapestry or learning more about them, please send an email to inquiries@andrewsaftel.com. Thank you.
To learn more about this project, check out the documentary film by Eduardo Bautista/Nemesys Films, Morelia, Michoacan.
Bees Work, 2013, tapestry, 65 x 70 in
Couple, 2013, tapestry, 38 x 47 in
Dual Portrait, 2013, tapestry, 82 x 49 in
King of Falling Fruit, 2013, tapestry, 33 x 102 in
Finger and Toe Fruit, tapestry, 87 x 49 in
Behind the Back Fruit, tapestry, 89 x 50 in
Giant Fruit, tapestry, 83 x 51 in
La Frontera, tapestry, 60 x 60 in
Long Road, tapestry, 27 x 139 in
My Island, tapestry, 118 x 90 in
Race, tapestry, 37 x 128 in
Pursuit of Fruit, tapestry