Street Festival Shines Spotlight on Artwork by Migrants

Asylum Seekers Create Devotional, Personal Embroideries

A one-day street festival featuring food, music and children’s activities will highlight a folk-art exhibition of colorful embroidery works created by Mexicans and Central Americans at the U.S. border seeking asylum 

Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church, 2151 Dorset Rd., will hold the outdoor festival from noon to 4 p.m. Saturday, May 21, to accompany an indoor display of 75 devotional embroideries which tell the story, and demonstrate the faith, of women and families forced to flee their homes.

Admission to the street festival and exhibition are free; donations will be accepted.

“Embroidering Hope,” the exhibition, was created by Friends of Artisans Beyond Borders, based in Tucson, AZ. The embroideries with devotional and personal themes evolved from traditional servilletas, cotton cloths used to wrap foods such as tortillas. James and others were discovering the cloths in southern Arizona, dropped there by people crossing the harsh Sonoran Desert.

Don’t miss the gallery talk at 2 pm.

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