Prayer Flags

Prayer Flag: Woven Together

72” x 144” | December 2020 | Acrylic on canvas | Donated clothing and fabric, yarn, and found flag

In collaboration with Andrea Vargas, Jasmine Quinsier, and Chris Abeyta.

Installed at Santa Fe Art Institute and Vital Spaces, Re-Centering Santa Fe: Social Structures

Prayer Flag: Woven Together is a collaborative piece by four artists who thoughtfully assemble imagery from diverse cultures and artistic traditions to create a visual metaphor of the interconnectivity, empathy and care necessary for our collective wellbeing during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The underlying canvas panel depicts a wreath of cottonwood leaves painted in acrylic by Andrea Vargas, representing abundance, wholeness and rootedness. A tattered American flag, found in the Santa Fe river shortly before the presidential election, is restored and extended by Carol Schrader with fragments of fabric from the other artists, friends and family. The flag, which is woven throughout the larger composition, references the quilters’ tradition of making something valuable and beautiful out of that which would otherwise be discarded, and offers a gesture of care for our shared political future. Jasmine Quinsier adds layers of laser-cut sacred geometry designs, framing and holding the composition. This non-verbal unfolding of the mysteries of who we are is balanced by Chris Abeyta’s lyric poetry that engages in English and Spanish, along with his own geometric representations of the soul of Santa Fe community. The entire composition is stitched together with colored yarn that weaves lifelines between the various layers and conveys softness, domestic safety, and connection.

Post-Pandemic Portal

This temporary installation on the Santa Fe River trail invited people to “Pass through the Portal to envision the future you want to build now. Make a prayer flag for our post-pandemic lives.” Many people walked through the archway portal made of evergreen boughs and made fabric prayer flags, which were displayed along with pandemic poetry. On the one year anniversary of the pandemic, March 2021.