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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Media Contact: Dina Horwedel, Public Education Director, 303-426-8900 Pendleton to Produce Student Designed Blanket as Fund Raiser for the American Indian College Fund
Jirón is a member of the Isleta Pueblo, the southernmost of the 19 pueblos in New Mexico, and a senior at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in Santa Fe. She says her design was conceived after she learned she was accepted at IAIA. “Going to art school was something I've always wanted to do. I worked at the phone company for 20 years before that. The [Three Corn Maidens] idea came from visions I have had. I wanted to tell a story from our own culture.” The Three Corn Maidens design tells the story of the Pueblo people's belief that just as the sun gives life to the corn, the Corn Maidens bring the power of life to the people. Jirón, who is also a single mother of two children, 24 and 8, also receives the Fund's General Mills scholarship. “I am so grateful to be a scholarship recipient. I travel 150 miles round-trip each day I attend school.” Jirón adds “I wouldn't have traded my education for anything, but it costs $32 a day to drive to school, and I often wondered how I would pay the bills.” Bob Christnacht, the Blanket/Home Division Manager of Pendleton Woolen Mills and selection committee member, says the selection criteria included how compelling the design and story was, how the pattern would translate onto a blanket, and the artist's background and intent. “Jirón's design was the first pictorial blanket chosen by the Fund, and represents ‘a new direction' for the College Fund blankets,” he says. Jirón is making the transition from student to professional artist. She is also studying business at Central New Mexico College. Her goal is to open a gallery in her own pueblo. “I have an attachment to my people. I want to stay here, establish myself as a painter and sculptor, and be a self-sustaining artist,” she says. She will exhibit her art during Santa Fe Indian Market August 18-19, where she will sign the blanket at her booth at the Institute of American Indian Arts museum. Jirón was juried to participate in the prestigious Eitlejorg Indian Market in Indiana earlier this summer. The Three Corn Maidens blanket will be available for purchase on the American Indian College Fund web site for $180 retail (www.collegefundstore.org), on the Pendleton Woolen Mills web site (www.pendleton-usa.com), and at select retailers nationwide. The blanket will be retired upon the selection of a winner for the 2008 blanket design contest. The contest is open to all tribal college students. Richard B. Williams, president and CEO of the Fund, says “To ask our students to share their artistic talents is to have our relationship with them come full circle. Our students are our future.”
About the American Indian College Fund About Pendleton Woolen Mills # # # |
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 ©2006 American Indian College Fund | Legal/Privacy | Donor Bill of Rights Last Modified: |
DENVER, Colorado (August 8, 2007) – The Three Corn Maidens Saddle Blanket, designed by Mary Beth Jirón, has been woven by Pendleton Woolen Mills as part of the American Indian College Fund's (the Fund) Series of Blankets. To be released August 17, 2007, the Three Corn Maidens is the second design in the Fund's series of student-designed blankets. The Three Corn Maidens design won first place in the student blanket contest. Proceeds from the sale of the blanket will benefit the Fund's scholarship programs. 