Return to Oaxaca Brings Bristol Collection Full-Circle

 Eight Beloit College students journeyed to this culturally rich region to collect contemporary pieces that complement the Bristol collection. Students on the trip, co-led by Nicolette Meister, the Logan’s curator of collections, and Carolyn Jenkinson, project coordinator for the Bristol Collection, met Oaxacan artists, craftspeople, and museum curators, and learned about weaving and dye-making processes. They returned to Beloit with 12 contemporary textiles that students later catalogued and added to the Logan’s collection.

Meister says students were able to witness the impact a museum archive can have on the present when they shared photos from Bristol’s archives with families of the artists she had collected from between 1952 and 1994. The photo archive, along with Bristol’s meticulous record keeping of artist’s names, regions, and processes, document her collecting experiences over more than 40 years.

For more about the Bristol Collection, which came to the Logan between 2006 and 2014, see the winter 2018 edition of Beloit College Magazine.