Cooks even got in on the action at the Silver City Clay Festival in a Mud Pie Contest at the Farmers' Market. No the main ingredient was not mud from the backyard, but chocolate, and no one can resist a chocolate concoction. Three judgestuyj worked their way through five dessert delicacies and came up with the winners of the event.
Judges were attorney TomStewart, Town Councilor Polly Cook, and David DelJunco, co-owner of Syzygy Tileworks, with his wife Lee Gruber, who came up with the idea for the clay festival and organized it.
Kids had the option of building things with clay, not only in front of Art and Conversation, but also at the Murray Hotel, where demonstrations and vendors had set up for the festival.
In addition to everything else that was going on, two juried clay exhibitions were also featured. One for art tiles was on display at galleries throughout downtown Silver City. The second, a Neo-Mimbreño exhibition was shown at the Western New Mexico University Museum.
A popular event were the hour-long lectures by Texas A&M University Professor Harry Shafer, who, as the archaeologist in charge of the NAN excavation in the Mimbres for more than 30 years, gave an overview of the history of Mimbres pottery. The NAN Ranch Collection is now housed at the WNMU museum, where it will be available for viewing and research by credentialed scientists.
Photos by Mary Alice Murphy
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