Memorial Service for Mary Kahlenberg

Throughout the process of bringing the Neutrogena Collection to Santa Fe, building the new wing, from design, construction, exhibition installation, and the grand opening, there was always Mary. The front and back covers of her book, The Extraordinary in the Ordinary, features the doors that lead from the Atrium, at the heart of the Museum, to the Neutrogena Wing. So it is fitting for friends and family of Mary Kahlenberg to gather at the Museum of International Folk Art, to share, to remember and honor her. 

Mary's passion for textiles, and world cultures are revealed in her writing. These excerpts from the Extraordinary in the Ordinary illuminate her ability to identify and appreciate art in the ordinary, bringing folk art, and folk artists, into the new century. 

"Around the world, nourishing the needs of the body and the needs of the spirit have been integrated into a culture's artifacts. This unification of life and art explains why in many languages there is not a separate word for art. A culture's aesthetic is embodied in the tools and necessities of daily life."

"As travelers, we often find things that fascinate us, that are different from anything we have seen before, things that we think are wonderful. The traveler's eye values and selects material that are perhaps taken for granted by those more familiar with them."

"The modern American and Western European practice of placing material from outside our cultural realm into a lower class of art indicates just how awkward and ill-formed our cultural perceptions can be."

"I have always thought of collecting as a gathering of friends. Not all together, in one place, but over a lifetime, a constant coming and going. An exchange of ideas that shifts my viewpoint."