As A Girl, Gloria Estefan Wore Out Carole King’s ‘Tapestry’ Album

BY RICK MASSIMO

Gloria Estefan comes to the MGM Grand at Foxwoods Resort Casino for three shows next weekend. Platinum-selling artist Carole King shares the bill and the two will perform a set together.

When Gloria Estefan returns to the MGM Grand at Foxwoods (the venue she helped open a year ago) for three shows starting Friday, she’ll have a special guest who means a lot to her: singer, songwriter and fellow platinum-selling artist Carole King.

“She’s probably been one of the most influential people in my career, as a writer and personally as a fan,” Estefan said in an interview.

She said that she and King had spoken on the phone, discussing what songs they would be doing, but that the real rehearsals would begin just a few days before the show. Estefan didn’t want to discuss the set list yet, but said that King would do a set of her own and the two singers would perform together as well.

Estefan remembers listening to King as a girl growing up in Miami.

“She struck a chord. As a teenager growing up, her songs were filled with angst. You could play them on your guitar, which I did, a lot, for my family and friends at school. She was very cool and very young and successful.

And she was one of the first big female icons, and I think that spoke a lot to young women, and I was one of them. I wore out her Tapestry album, for sure, and a lot of others.”

It may seem odd, given her Latin grooves and bilingual lyrics, but the Latin American tour Estefan just finished was her first. “It was my purpose to go back there and perform live,” she says, “and it was a lovefest.”

She describes three-hour shows where they wouldn’t let her leave — “I was able to really pull back and do stuff from 1976, from 1982” — and she “ended up singing a cappella because I ran out of stuff.”

Hey, wait a minute — didn’t she do a farewell tour of the United States in 2004?

“I’m still fare-welling,” Estefan says, “but luxuriously, in bits and pieces.” Her farewell American tour was just that, she adds, adding that her American performance schedule consists only of one-offs and charity shows in major cities. “[This is] still the one; I’m just doing it very slowly.”

Then as now, Estefan’s problem is fitting her career in with the desire to keep her daughter’s life as normal as possible. Her daughter starts high school in the fall, and “that’s going to be difficult,” Estefan acknowledges. “I definitely want to enjoy what’s left of her school career.”

So the touring will end sooner than later, Estefan says, but she’s adamant that she’s not retiring — she’ll continue recording, doing occasional shows and tending to her other business interests, including cookbooks, children’s books and the hospitality industry.

“My husband [Emilio Estefan] and I are both businesspeople, so that’s how we were from the get-go,” Estefan says. “And I always told him — for women in this industry, it’s never like The Stones. Someone like Tina Turner, that’s one in a million, but it’s not natural for [a woman] to survive into her fifties and sixties.”

Estefan is 51. As for music, she hopes to record another Christmas album, and a disc of standards in English, and to continue writing for other artists, as she has done for such as Shakira (“Whenever, Wherever”) and Jennifer Lopez (“Let’s Get Loud”). “At the core, I’m a writer. That’s what makes me the happiest.”

Estefan was one of the first fully bilingual artists, writing and recording in English and Spanish from the beginning of her career. She’s proud to point out that she can do a full show of hits in either language, though she tends to mix it up.

Writing in both languages “really is who I am,” she says; “it wasn’t just recording something in another language to get to a new audience.”

She says songs present themselves as English or Spanish early in the writing process, and she doesn’t write a song in one language and translate it later. “You would think a song like ‘Conga’ would work in Spanish, but to me it doesn’t.

It’s very percussive, and there are a lot of hard consonants in English, whereas in Spanish it’s kind of soft. It really was untranslatable for me. Songs like ‘Mi Tierra’ I wouldn’t do in English, because it’s on the other end of the spectrum. And the subject matter might not have the appeal as it does to people who are Latin who have left their homelands.

“Love songs will work in either language, but in English I have to make them more cerebral, because you get accused of being saccharine and sappy, and there’s no such thing as sappiness in Spanish; you can be as dramatic as you want,” she says with a laugh.

Estefan’s latest album, 2007’s 90 Millas, was a Spanish-language celebration of the music of her native Cuba (she and her family left for Miami in 1959), and she’s guardedly optimistic about the recent loosening of the rules against Cuban-Americans visiting and contributing to their relatives on the island.

It was a good move, she says, but “the only people who can do anything for the Cuban people is the Cuban government. They need to lift their restrictions on the people. … They let tourists enjoy Cuba and they don’t let the Cubans enjoy Cuba.”

Gloria Estefan and Carole King are at MGM Grand at Foxwoods, in Mashantucket, Conn., Friday through Sunday. Each show starts at 8 p.m. Tickets range from $75 to $250; call (866) 646-0609 or go to www.mgmatfoxwoods.com.

rmassimo@projo.com

Taken From Projo.com

Tapestry-A Day for Women

FORT WAYNE, Ind.(WANE) - Tapestry-A Day for Women is designed to provide a day of renewal and self-growth for women of all ages through educational, motivational, and inspirational activities in an atmosphere of camaraderie.

Proceeds raised support the Tapestry Parkview Endowment Fund and provide IPFW scholarships to select women in the field of health sciences. Since its inception, Tapestry has raised more than $200,000 and seventeen women have received scholarships.

Indianapolis native Elliott Engel returned to Tapestry as the morning keynote speaker with his presentation on the lives of Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Using anecdotes, analysis, and large doses of humor, Engel recounted their story of engagement, marriage, and poetic contributions. Engel is an international lecturer and professor at North Carolina State University.

The luncheon keynote speaker was Clinton Kelly, co-host of TLCs What Not To Wear. His presentation, Seven Steps to Developing Healthy Style-Esteem, outlined how building a wardrobe for your outside can improve how you feel on the inside.

Kelly has served in numerous editorial positions at major fashion magazines. He received a bachelors degree in communications from Boston College and a masters degree in journalism from Northwestern University.

Parkview Health was recognized as Tapestrys founding partner and sponsor. Ruth Stone, Tapestry project manger, thanked all the other businesses and groups who have supported Tapestry with their funds, products, and/or services, and announced there will be 14 breakout sessions at this years event.

A highlight of the afternoon was the announcement of this years Dedication Award recipient. Each year, Tapestry is dedicated to a female role model whose positive activities have encompassed all aspects of her life.

The 2009 recipient is Patty Martone, who for decades has touched and enriched the lives of many as an educator and administrator with Fort Wayne Community Schools, as a writer and chronicler of Fort Wayne, and as a tireless volunteer who is passionate about whatever she commits to.

Martone and her husband, Tony, have been married for more than 54 years and have two grown children. "I awaken every morning with a purpose. My activity has been my salvation, said Martone." As she puts it, I may be rapidly approaching 80, but she hasnt slowed down a bit.

For more information on Tapestry-A Day for Women go to www.ipfw.edu/tapestry.

Taken From Wane.com

Her Tapestry Saga Is No Yarn

In a tiny apartment across from the Hard Rock Hotel, a 72-year-old nomadic artist who goes by the single name Sola has spent the past three years weaving a vibrant tapestry of Las Vegas that will blow your mind.

Embroidered and textured palm trees frame casino properties. Turquoise blue pools dot the landscape. MGM Grand, woven in metallic green, anchors the south end of the Strip. Golden beads mark streetlights that extend north toward the mountains.

Marquees announce Elton John, Danny Gans, Cher. Air-conditioning units sit atop the Sands Convention Center. Hotels, civic buildings, Hard Rock guitars, motel signs, office parks and side streets all clamor for attention.

She put more than 8,000 hours into the piece, working alone in her tidy, sparse apartment, sometimes measuring buildings and counting windows at night from the tops of parking ramps and Strip towers. If a hotel has 54 stories, she wove 54 stories from the ground up.

Holidays, birthdays, weekends, every day.

“I’ve reduced life to the simplest focus — my tapestry,” she says, glancing at the 11-by-7 1/2 foot work that leans against her living room wall.

Today, with the help of Marty Walsh, owner of Trifecta Gallery, the tapestry moves to Atlantic Aviation, the former Las Vegas Executive Air Terminal, where it will hang until it is sold. As she has with her other tapestries, she will donate the profit to arts and other organizations.

Sola has been weaving cities since the 1980s, when she wanted to create a portrait of Vancouver, British Columbia, for the 1986 World’s Fair, but didn’t know how to draw or paint. Textiles were her only sure terrain.

She mostly weaves Olympic cities, traveling to different countries, then moving on. She plans to be in London for the 2012 Olympics. She’ll know in October where she’ll be for the 2016 Olympics — Tokyo, Madrid, Rio de Janeiro or Chicago. She hopes it’s Rio.

She came to Las Vegas after reading about Strip implosions and felt an urge to document the city before the buildings were gone. Already, her piece is outdated — the Stardust (imploded March 2007) is on the Strip in her tapestry, and the Tropicana marquee lists “Folies Bergere” (closed last month after 49 years).

Recycling yarn from thrift store sweaters, Sola literally wove Las Vegas from the fabric of the community. Stretching a swatch of a coal gray Gap sweater, she says, “See, that’s parking lots.”

She’s friendly, chatty. Maybe that’s what happens when you spend all of your time alone, creating and building a city from yarn and string — you feel like talking again.

She has no valuables, aside from what will fit into a rolling suitcase, and buys furnishings at thrift stores and gives them back when she leaves. She wants to own nothing: “I wear the same clothes every day. I just wash them. It frees up income and imagination if you don’t have a lot to take care of.”

Fleeing is her history. As a child during World War II, she was sent away from her family in London during the blitz. She stayed with a host family in a village in Wales, roaming the hills and picking wool off fences, then returned to London after the war. In the ’60s, she settled in Toronto and opened coffee shops and other venues for folk singers and rock stars passing through.

Her daughter lives in Vancouver. Her mother, 96, lives in London. Friends are spread across the globe. Her income comes from knitting hats that sell for about $40 in Vancouver. “Thank you, Gap, for using such incredibly beautiful materials,” she says, stretching a stylish hat, one of hundreds stacked in her bedroom.

Sola shows no sign of fatigue. Trim and fit, she talks about wanting to live to 100.

“If I can touch yarn for 10 hours a day then I am in absolute heaven and I want to do it for as long as I live.”

She heads soon to Vancouver, where she’ll stay through the 2010 Winter Olympics. A cartoon map of Vancouver is taped to a door. When she leaves her apartment for the last time, she will peel it off, fold it up and tuck it into her suitcase. It will be the last item removed.

Taken From LasVegasSun.com

Temple's $1m Tapestry Helps Save Costs

by DARYLL NANAYAKARA

A TAPESTRY - sewn with threads made of gold - was on display at Ngee Ann City Civic Plaza as part of a thanksgiving and prayer ceremony by the Singapore Seu Teck Sean Tong Yiang Sin Sia temple.

The session for the Taoist temple at Bedok North, which ran from last Friday to yesterday, saw close to 240 devotees chanting prayers for three days and drew a crowd of more than 10,000.

The tapestry, which is about 5 by 10 metres, adorns altars at the temple's religious ceremonies and costs more than $1 million.

But could the money have gone to better use in the current economic climate?

Not necessarily.

Mr Joe Lim, the temple's spokesman, told my paper that the temple already donates more than $200,000 a year to various charities and the new tapestry is more durable.

This means the temple need not spend more to replace or maintain it in future.

The money for the tapestry came from the temple's sponsors, devotees and donations collected at the temple's seven branches in Singapore and Malaysia.

Mr Lim added: "In the past we used regular fabric, but it was damaged very easily due to wear and tear over the years.

"With this gold-threaded embroidery, we believe we can use it for the next 50 years without having to replace or repair it."

The temple had commissioned the tapestry in the early 1990's to "preserve the reputation and image" of the temple.

It would be inappropriate "if the temple holds religious ceremonies using cloths that are torn and dirty", Mr Lim said.

In 1992, temple devotees came up with $600,000 from their own pockets and arranged for a group of villagers in Shantou, China, to sew the gold-threaded tapestry by hand.

The finished product was completed in 2000 and bears motifs of mythical creatures and other symbols of worship.

Mr Lim added that donors were aware of the temple's decision to invest in the embroidery.

Devotee Jeffrey Eng, 49, said: "The temple announced its plans to members. Such a project is good because the art of putting together such a tapestry is rare."

This is because very few craftsmen now know how to sew it. "This is a dying trade. If we tried to get this done again, chances are it would be almost impossible because it would be hard to find people who are still doing this by hand."

Taken From AsiaOne.com

Tapestry Of Picasso's Guernica Marks Whitechapel Gallery Reopening

The Whitechapel Gallery in London's East End has marked a £13.5 million expansion by welcoming a version of Picasso's anti-war work Guernica, 70 years after the original was shown there.

Turner Prize-nominated artist Goshka Macuga helped convince Margaretta Rockefeller to lend the Whitechapel the 20ft long tapestry for a year, which has been on long-term loan in the United Nations building in New York since 1985.

It was commissioned by tycoon Nelson Rockefeller, Margaretta's late husband, in 1955.

Seventy years ago Picasso's monumental painting, which depicts the 1937 Nazi bombing of the Basque town of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War, was shown at the Whitechapel for two weeks, attracting 15,000 people.

Polish-born Macuga, 42, said she was inspired to revive the spirit of that event.

Knowing that the Museo de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid would not agree to let the painting travel, the Whitechapel approached the Rockefeller family.

Macuga said the tapestry had been given extra significance as an anti-war symbol since Colin Powell delivered his flawed evidence on the apparent existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq in the run-up to the invasion in early 2003.

Then the Guernica tapestry, which normally hangs outside the UN Security Council chamber, was covered by a blue cloth - apparently to make television pictures of Powell clearer.

The excuse fooled no one.

Macuga said: "If you are starting a war you are not going to do it in front of an anti-war symbol."

To accompany the tapestry, Macuga created a hollow round-table for people to hire for discussions, filled with war and anti-war propaganda. She commissioned a bronze cubist-style bust of Powell, which she said represented "a figure who is falling apart morally". In 2004 Powell admitted the evidence he submitted to the UN on WMDs could have been wrong.

The commission, sponsored by Bloomberg, marks the gallery's reopening after its £13.5 million Heritage Lottery Fund-sponsored refit, which has almost doubled its exhibition space.

Iwona Blazwick, the Whitechapel's director, said: "The expansion enables us to be open all year round so there will always be something for free to see."

It reopens to the public on April 5.

Taken From Telegraph.co.uk

A Stitch In Time As Work Continues Ahead Of Ros Tapestry Exhibition

THE DEDICATION of the Ros Tapestry voluntary embroiderers is currently being put to the test as they eagerly focus on finishing the tapestry panel 'ExVoto Tintern Abbey' on time for the opening of Ros Expo on April 3.

Ros Expo, a permanent exhibition of the Ros Tapestry, is a dedicated exhibition centre at Priory Court on the quay in New Ross, opposite the Dunbrody Famine Ship.

The 14 tapestries will have taken a decade to reach completion, a remarkable achievement realised by an extraordinary group of people from all over the county and beyond.

Over 100 voluntary embroiderers – some of whom have been dedicated to this mammoth task since 1999 – and their expert tutor, Alexis Bernstorff have never been anything other than committed and positive to the task in hand.

Ros Expo will be open all year round to visitors after its opening on April 3.

Taken From NewRossStandard.ie

The Guernica Tapestry, Whitechapel Gallery, London

Picasso's fury screams out still

Reviewed by Michael Glover

Welcome back! Picasso's Guernica, that supremely sombre evocation of the destructive powers of war, first went on show at the Whitechapel Gallery in 1939, after it had been exhibited in Paris.

The painting, a commemoration of the destruction of the village of Guernica by Franco's forces, had been made by Picasso in his Paris studio in 1937, in a furious outpouring of pity and anger.

Now, a version of Guernica is back at the Whitechapel, as part of an installation by Goshka Macuga, to mark the gallery's reopening after refurbish-ment. This is not the painting you'd have seen in 1939; that one is permanently installed at Madrid's Reina Sofia Museum, too fragile to travel.

In some respects, the installation at the Whitechapel is more impressive than what can be seen in Madrid. In London you approach it face-on, and you can get up really close. In Madrid, you come at it side-on, like a listing ship. There is no way you can walk directly back a pace or two to take in the enormity of the terrible message.

The other advantage is that this version is not so colourful. It is woven in tones of brown, cream and black, which adds a strange intensity. Look at the original, and you experience a near-riot of movement and agitation. Nothing stops.

Everything seems to be decomposing before our eyes. Arms reach out. Hands claw at nothing. A disembodied head floats. Mouths yawn in inaudible screams. The heads of mythic beasts skew violently.

And we – the merest we – approach this monumental distillation of human suffering like petty-minded voyeurs. We are suddenly plunged into the midst of it, all this jaggedness, all this laceration, all this falling apart. And the colour seems to add a horrible decorative gaiety to the scene. Strip it of most of that colour, as here, and you have scarified it to the bone.

At the Whitechapel, you approach it along a blue carpet. It's close to the blue of the UN, where the tapestry usually hangs. It is here to remind us of that moment in 2003 when some goon ordered that it be covered up because Colin Powell was about to deliver a speech in support of the invasion of Iraq. Did Picasso's minotaur rage back in the muffled dark? Or did Powell just dream that later?

5 to 18 April 2010 (020-7522 7888; www.whitechapelgallery.org )

Taken From Independent.co.uk

Tapestry Exhibition in Sancti Spiritus, Cuba

By Manuel Echevarría Gómez

A tapestry exhibition by Luisa María Serrano (Lichi) was opened in the central Cuban province of Sancti Spiritus to mark the 40-year-old artistic career of this outstanding artist.

After a long absence, the artist is back to settle a debt that transcended her life-work, the use of colors in her creations.

The recent work of this autodidact artistic, which was considered a turning point in this city’s plastic arts concepts in the 80s, resembles her previous intimate freedom.

Lichi joined Sancti Spiritus’s plastic arts free workshop in 1965, where she learned painting. She presented her first exhibition in 1968.

She has presented her work in local and international expositions and has been awarded several prizes in local salons.

Taken From Escambray.cu

St John’s: 2 More Tapestries Ready

Restoration of the second set of tapestries from the St John’s Co-Cathedral collection is now complete and the Belgian Embassy in Malta is investigating how to bring them back to Malta – although it is still not clear where they will be displayed.

The Cathedral Foundation recently dropped unpopular plans to create an underground museum beneath St John’s Square which would enable all 29 tapestries to be displayed at the same time. However, no other plans have been put forward yet.

The Cathedral Chapter, which is represented on the Foundation board, was unanimously against the project and has recommended that an extra floor be built on top of the annex.

The tapestries are being restored by the King Baudouin Foundation at the Royal Manufacturers De Wit, a company of weavers and restorers founded in 1889. Today, it is the leading tapestry restorer in the world for museums and one of the leading laboratories for private customers.

The first 2, depicting Grandmaster Perellos and the Triumph of the Catholic Church, were sent to Belgium in November 2006 but the delicate restoration process took less than the 2 years expected and they were returned to Malta in December 2007.

The embassy in Malta got involved to sort out a tricky logistical problem: Getting them to Belgium, no easy task given their size and weight.

Current ambassador Jean-Francois Delahaut explained that his predecessor, Thomas Baekeland, managed to get help from the Ministry of Defence to use a military plane, which stopped off in Malta on its way back from an overseas assignment.

They were then taken from the military airport to Brussels and then back the same way to Malta.

Mr Delahaut confirmed that the next 2, Triumph of Faith and The Institution of the Feast of Corpus Christi, were sent to Belgium in December 2007 and are now ready.

“The whole collection of 29 needs to be restored. The long-term intention is to go on with the restoration of the whole set so there is quite a few years’ work. Each of the tapestries has its own particular problems. Time has not treated all of them equally,” he told www.di-ve.com.

The budget for the first 2 alone ran into 6 figures. The set, considered to be priceless and unique, was ordered from the Brussels atelier of Judecos de Vos for the sum of 40,000 scudi and was based on cartoons of the same subjects by Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640), except for the panel representing the Last Supper that was woven on the cartoon of Nicholas Poussin and a panel with the portrait of Grand Master Perellos, probably based on a drawing by Mattia Preti.

Mr Delahaut expressed confidence that the right solution would be found for the tapestries’ display.

“The tapestries survived the centuries in good condition, which shows that they were cared for, for over 400 years, by very competent people,” he said.

Taken From Di-Ve.com

The Mystery of History: Arrow Ross Debuts His Photo Journal Of Peruvian Weavers

By: Lauren Hodges

PERUVIAN CELEBRATION:Arrow Ross showcases an ode to the ancient people, places and things of Peru, as inspired by textile artist Maximo Laura.

So many trends have come and gone in the art world. Some went on to the Modern Museum of Art, while others were doomed to be stapled to wood paneling (ahem, velvet paintings). The true test of quality art seems to be staying power. Is it a mere chapter in the book of creative history, or does it still influence modern-day artists?

When local photographer Arrow Ross visited Peru last April, he was introduced to one of the oldest and most influential art forms in the world. “It is amazing how old the techniques of weaving are,” he says. “The people in Peru, they just keep the tradition going.”

Ross’ discovery began at No Boundaries, a local painters’ retreat arranged by Dick Roberts, Gayle Tustin and Pam Toll, with whom Ross shares space at Acme Art Studios. It was there that he met Maximo Laura, a Peruvian artist who had come to the Carolina coast to paint.

“He was a good painter, but he kept talking about his tapestries,” Ross says. “I was just amazed at how detailed they were. Later, someone bought one of his tapestries, and when I heard how much he sold it for, I said, ‘Oh my God, that’s all it was? I would have bought it for 10 times that price!’ So, I had to learn more.”

Ross, originally from Denmark, has quite a few stamps on his passport. His next trip would be to Lima, Peru, to visit his new friend and learn about the craft that went into Laura’s tapestries. “When we got there, he and his wife welcomed us into their home.

It was a large blue house that had started out as one room many years ago. They kept adding rooms and then floors. Now it is five floors.” The first two floors of the house consist of Laura’s weaving rooms, staffed with 20 trained crafters.

Most of Laura’s employees are family members. “He supports them all,” Ross says. “He is a very generous man.” “He was a good painter, but he kept talking about his tapestries,” Ross says. “I was just amazed at how detailed they were...

Each of the staff has been personally trained by Laura himself, who has work hanging in the Smithsonian and several other museums around the world. Each work is handmade in his home by the people he trusts. As Ross scans his photo album from the trip, he stops at a shot of what he calls “the butterfly room.”

“These are the butterflies,” he says, pointing to a pile of yarn bunches. “They are pre-made threads created by twisting yarn into the color scheme needed for the design of the tapestry. It’s a mathematical process.”

The precise colors are determined after a sketch of the design is produced by Laura and his helpers. “He sketches it all out on paper, and then they draw it into the loom,” Ross notes, pointing to another series of photos.

Once he had his photo album organized, Ross decided to add something extra to a few of them. “While I was in Peru, I took a lot of photos of the landscape,” he says. “This one here is of Machu Picchu. I was in awe of these ancient cities and the art that came out of them. People like Maximo are carrying on those ancient traditions.”

He used his skill with Photoshop to superimpose Incan icons into the landscapes and a few into the images of Laura’s tapestries. “I just wanted to put some things together,” he says. In one of his most poignant pieces, Laura’s face is translucent over one of his most intricate tapestries.

In another an Incan sculpture floats unattached against a background of Peruvian ruins and hillside. “I wanted to give the pictures some depth and put the people into the creations.”

Ultimately, Ross wanted to pay tribute to the deep past and people, recreating the strong connections he felt while visiting Peru. “There was such a mystery there,” he says. “I loved that mystery. I was so drawn to the history of these people and what their lives was like back then.

We see here, in their pictures, so many clues to their past.” He is mostly fascinated with the Incans’ ability to preserve their culture, even after their civilizations died out and the Spaniards invaded South America.

“They were all forced to convert to Roman Catholicism, but the people found secret ways to pass on their beliefs,” he points out. “Because they were so artistic, the Spaniards had many of these people painting, weaving and sculpting for them.

Even though the icons they represented were Christian, they snuck in images of the moon and stars, which is what they worshipped.” He points to an ancient image of the Virgin Mary. “

You can see here that they painted her like a mountain, even though it just looks like her dress is shaped like that. This was to symbolize Machu Picchu, the great city that the Spaniards never found.”

To this day people like Maximo Laura are responsible for carrying on those traditions for which his ancestors fought so hard.

Taken From EncorePub.com