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Ada Colocho
As my awareness carries me back, immersing me once again in my childhood, I smell the fresh grass and hear the sounds of the rushing river just beyond the edge of our garden as my mother sits on her old wooden bench working on her embroidery. As if blowing the dust from the top of a box of beloved keepsakes, I treasure these gratifying memories every time I revisit them. My youth was suffused with emotional and spiritual richness, a wealth which paved the way for my mind and spirit to awaken while nurturing within me a particular fondness for the colors, shapes, textures, sounds, music, flavors, and aromas that shape my life. Only now do I appreciate how intimately these early experiences are tied to my artistic work, my compositions and processes. While I have enjoyed conventional embroidery since I was a girl of only 12 or so, it is just within the last decade that I have studied and explored modern and advanced hand-embroidery techniques. My curiosity and dedication to innovation drove me to develop a novel technique which I term “Apis Ferrugo” involving directly applying iron implements to natural-fiber canvases. An oxidized canvas emerges from the melding of these two elements, which I then embellish using a mix of traditional and modern hand-embroidery teqniques. I also utilize the oxidized canvas in compositional processes or in textile collages. Since the beginning of humanity, the creation of textiles and the use of embroidery hold an important place in almost every aspect of our lives from birth to burial. I am so dedicated to reviving this piece of our shared heritage, almost forgotten by recent generations. It is my joy and honor to present this art to the public through my vision, my perception, and my artist’s spirit.
Ada Colocho 1968 Textile and embroidery artist. Born in the city of Jutiapa, Guatemala, in 1968, her artistic work began in the quiet of her home and, later, through her volunteer work teaching traditional embroidery classes for low-income women in her community. She has practiced basic hand-embroidery techniques since childhood. Inquisitive and research-oriented by nature, her independent study and experimentation with novel techniques led her to develop her own canvas oxidation technique in 2013, an artistic technical process which she has named Apis Ferrugo. She complements this technique with hand-embroidery directly on the oxidized canvases, or uses treated canvas as key piecework for her textile collage compositions. Her unique, intimate, and personal body of work unifies diverse techniques and processes. Since 2018, Ada Colocho has participated in various national and international group exhibitions in galleries within Guatemala (Fundación Rozas Botrán, Museum of Modern Art, Santo Domingo Church Gallery, Casa Noj, etc.). She won third place at Juannio Auction, Guatemala, in 2021. Currently, she continues to develop her Apis Ferrugo technique (phases II and III), experimenting with new textures, brocades, and multiple patterns stamped with rust on a single canvas, as well as continues to push the boundaries of textile art in developing new artistic pieces. Apis Ferrugo Apis Ferrugo is a technique of printing on textiles which I have been developing for over twelve years. I named it Apis Ferrugo (from the Latin, apis = honeybee ferrugo = rust) because a swarm of bees passed in front of me at the specific moment that I, having paused to reflect on my work, realized that not all irons rust or react the same. I realized that, depending on its level of acidity, any given iron would either tear the fabric apart, destroying it for use – or would leave a unique oxidization mark, printing the fabric beautifully. This observation allowed me to begin to understand the qualities of the irons, from there I began the journey of learning to work with them accordingly, a journey that continues to evolve.
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Ada Colocho Art
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