Wood River Valley resident Leslie Rego is regarded as an internationally renowned fiber artist who is known in particular for her vibrant, award-winning quilt designs. From living and visiting Guatemala, her interest in rare and priceless Mayan-Indian textiles inspired her to collect and study these ancient cultural artifacts and incorporate them in her own art.
On Thursday, Feb.1, at the Community Library in Ketchum at 6 p.m., Rego will present a multi-media presentation on the Mayan-Indian textile tradition as well as reveal the history behind the process of creating the fiber art that she enjoys.
Rego has captured the beauty of this Guatemalan heritage through her own fiber art and has also enjoyed educating other fiber artists and enthusiasts about these textiles.
"They are 200-year-old Guatemalan Myan-Indian textiles," Rego said. "They are still worn in some of the villages."
Rego met and married her husband in Guatemala and spent the first eight years of their marriage in Guatemala. Rego's husband was born in a colonial town in Guatemala. It is a very visual and beautiful town where the colonial buildings and ancient ruins are inspiring, she said.
"The main thing is that the colors surround you," she said. "I use a lot of color in my work."
Rego explained she studies the old traditions in order to create new pieces. She likes to concentrate on the use of color as well as textures.
"The lectures focus a lot on Guatemala, and I go into the dye techniques of the old dyes," Rego said. "There are three dyes. A mollusk dye, which is a seashell, gives a beautiful lavender color and is used quite frequently. The cochineal insect that lives on a cactus plant is very popular and varies in red anywhere from a soft pink to a scarlet red."
In addition, there is the better known indigo dye that comes from a very large plant.
"Textiles are part of a tradition and one of the longest living art forms and have survived for thousands of years," Rego said.
Although these textiles may not have been viewed as an art form, there was a lot of time, love and effort spent on them.
"Everybody worked on these things because they were your daily clothing, and they had to weave. It was a family industry," Rego said. "One household did every step of the process: gather the thread, do the dying and weave."
Rego gives her talks to quilt guilds, universities and high schools, and her husband, Alfredo, has done all the photography.
"I just got back from the Sea Ranch for a talk I gave for a quilting guild in California," Rego said. "I have always loved to give talks and enjoy them much more than teaching. It's probably my ice skating background."
?Summer Hues? by Leslie Rego reflects the vibrant colors of Guatemala dyes.
