Bosque Redondo Memorial Fiber Fair

Experience Fort Sumner’s history, activities, and food at the annual Bosque Redondo Memorial Fiber Fair. Learn about Navajo Churro Sheep and their importance to the Diné (Navajo) people. This interactive event includes live demonstrations and hands-on wool working activities using sheared wool from the site’s flock of Navajo Churro Sheep and led by by Las Arañas Spinners and Weavers Guild. Activities throughout the day will include demonstrations about shearing, skirting, washing, carding, and spinning wool. The Wonders on Wheels mobile museum and the New Mexico Office of Archaeological Services will offer activities as well.

Artist Bios:

Carla Wackenheim has been involved with fiber since she was taught to knit at the age of four by her granny in Scotland. Knitting was her entry point and now she is a knitter, spinner, weaver, and dyer. She is a member of the Las Arañas Spinners and Weavers Guild of Albuquerque. The piece she is bringing for the show is a table runner made from hand-dyed and handspun churro fleece (over a commercial warp) from last Fiber Day.   

Myra Chang Thompson has been weaving for 50 years and is professionally trained teacher locally, regionally and nationally. Her home studio is in Belen where she pursues her interests of natural and chemical dyeing, weaving, sewing, spinning, and teaching. She is the current president of both Las Arañas Spinners and Weavers Guild and Fiber 2 Finish Fiber Arts Guild of Valencia County.  She has deep interest in the Spanish Colonial New Mexican textiles, and this led to researching the humble Jerga, a multipurpose utility cloth that can a blanket, a rug, a tarp, a tent and even clothing. Her jerga is woven from natural colored Churro wool, grown in Algodones, that was processed in Mora. It has a "twin," the Jerga fina, a finer woven textile (generally woven in a bird’s eye twill) and would have been a decorative covering for a bed, other furniture, or worn as a shawl. 

Savannah Hodges is a multi-faceted artist with artwork ranging from paintings, weavings, and sculptures in private collections throughout the world. Hodges has been exhibited in galleries in Sacramento, CA; Oakland, CA; Clovis, NM; and Portales, NM. She is a dual citizen in the USA and Australia and grew up mainly in Northern California where she was deeply inspired by visiting Redwood forests and beaches. Currently, she is finishing a self-portrait series and meditative and interactive light installation sculpture that will be displayed at the Runnels Gallery at Eastern New Mexico University (ENMU) on May 8, 2026, at 6 p.m. Lastly, she is expected to complete a Fine Art BFA in May 2026 at ENMU, Portales. More detailed descriptions of her work can be found on her website: SavannahHodges.com.  

From the panhandle of Texas, Linda Anderle never dreamed of the life she had before her.  As a youth, Anderle was inspired and encouraged by her skilled seamstress and needlework mother, who gave Anderle the freedom to stitch undisciplined. Her 50+ years of floral artistry background transitioned into unconventional fiber stitchery.  Her designs embrace and experiment the challenge of “painting” with threads as pure line, form, color and texture. Her stitched figures/art dolls, fish, and various felt stitched items have been juried into more than 35 exhibitions in Australia, California, Colorado, Florida, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, Washington and Washington, D.C. 

Admission is $7 per adult and free to children 16 years and younger, and includes access to the Memorial exhibition, “Bosque Redondo…A Place of Suffering…A Place of Survival,” as well as access to all the wool-working stations and demonstrations. Admission is free for the Friends of the Bosque Redondo Memorial, Indigenous People, and Museum of New Mexico Foundation members.

Check back for more details on the day’s activities.