Everybody's Bolos in the news

I have been so pleased at the reception of this exhibition which I co-curated with Brian Fleetwood and Hannah Toussaint. Ashley Callahan wrote a lovely article about the Everybody’s Bolos exhibition that made the cover of Ornament magazine. I also had the pleasure of working with Veronika Muráriková who created a colorful overview of the show for Current Obsession. We even got picked as ‘Required Reading’ for Hyperallergic! The show is up through May 10th at UNT. After that, you will have to wait until January 2025 to see it at the Fuller Craft Museum in Brockton, Massachusetts or July 2025 where the work will be for sale at Hecho a Mano in Santa Fe, New Mexico..

Photograph by Dasha Wright

Everybody's Bolos

In the fall of 2021, post-baccalaureate student Hannah Reynoso Toussaint approached me about making a series of bolo ties. They were the objects that her non-binary partner most enjoyed wearing. I suggested she do some research and when she was unable to locate much information, I went looking myself. I was surprised to find very little information on the subject. The best resource by far is an exhibition catalog by the Heard Museum written by Diana Pardue and Norman Sandfield entitled “Native American Bolo Ties: Vintage and Contemporary Artistry.”

But there was nothing out there about its adoption by the queer and non-binary communities. Respected museums with established fashion and jewelry collections had few bolo ties if they were located outside the southwestern United States. The field of art jewelry has put out books on chatelaines and tiaras, but no bolo ties.

This bothered me and bothered me until I decided that this gap needed to be addressed. I reached back out to Hannah and asked if she would be interested in working on a bolo tie project. She said she would. Then I reached out to Brian Fleetwood who teaches at the Institute for American Indian Arts and with whom I served on a committee for SNAG. He was interested. So the three of us got together on a video conference and formulated a plan to have an exhibition of bolo ties with accompanying catalog. We each invited ten artists and contributed bolo ties as well. The three of us provided essays on different aspects of the bolo tie.

I was fortunate to receive a University of North Texas (UNT) Institute for the Advancement of the Arts Fellowship which gave me a semester to focus on this project as well as funds for professional photography of the bolos and publication of a catalog. Additional funding has been supplied through the generosity of the UNT Libraries, The Bohlin Company and Deedie Rose. The UNT Art Gallery had an unanticipated availability this spring, which we were able to secure. We wanted the show to leave the Southwest and were able to make an agreement with the Fuller Craft Museum to have the show travel there in 2025. To help the participants sell their work, the final exhibtion will be at a commercial gallery, Hecho a Mano, in Santa Fe, New Mexico in the summer of 2025.

With an exhibition and catalog, the next step in my mind was a symposium. This would provide an opportunity to bring in more voices and perspectives. I was able to secure a College of Visual Arts and Design Flagship Grant to support a one day symposium. Brian, Hannah and I brainstormed about speakers and put together a very diverse and interesting lineup. Eventually, the recordings will be loaded into the UNT Library Digital Collection.

This is the speaker lineup:

• Ana M. Lopez: Welcome and Introduction

• Norman Sandfield: Bola to Bolo

• Brian Fleetwood: Meaning Making

• Hannah Toussaint: Reimagining the Bolo

• Jessica Metcalfe: More than Just a Trend

• Sulo Bee: Coloring Outside the Lines: Queer Fashion and the Genderless Bolo

• Annette Becker: West Dressed - Fashion Inspired by the American Frontier

You can register for the symposium here.

Ana M. Lopez, 2023, Pneumatic Trailer Bolo with Seedpod Plumb Bobs

sterling silver, napa leather, 18 x 3.5 x .75”

photo credit: Dasha Wright

Circling Back: An Exhibition

The event of a move often brings re-discoveries. When the Metalsmithing and Jewelry program at the University of North Texas moved into new facilities last summer, we found all kinds of things hiding in obscure storage areas. Among them was a box of my work from my years as an undergraduate student. I was simultaneously delighted by the find, confounded by what now seems like poor craftsmanship, and led to compare that work to what I have been doing lately. While my skills have changed, much of of the imagery and formal language that I am drawn to has not.

This prompted my interest in inviting a group of mid-career makers to exhibit one newer work paired with something they had made more than ten years previously. I hoped to provide them with an opportunity for the same moment of  reflection that I had in being reunited with a box of dubious treasures from the past.

I would like to thank all the artists who agreed to participate in the exhibition. Mounting of the physical exhibition was supported with a UNT Small Grant and my travel to the conference received assistance from the College of Visual Arts and Design at the University of North Texas. I would particularly like to thank my Chair, Lauren Lake, for looking under all the couch cushions.

Circling Back was organized in response to the Society of North American Goldsmith's call for proposals for the Adorned Spaces segment of the 2019 conference. It will be taking place in Chicago, Illinois from May 23rd through the 24th at the Palmer House Hilton with a reception from 5-8pm on Friday the 24th. The theme of the conference is "The Loop: Coming Full Circle. 50 Years of SNAG."

The website for this exhibition will remain active through April 2020.