Tag Archives: handwoven

Chatino Textiles from Oaxaca at Santa Fe Trunk Show

The Santa Fe International Folk Art Market runs from Friday night to Sunday afternoon the second weekend of July each year. Festivities start days in advance with galleries and retail shops all over town featuring artisan trunk shows from various parts of the world. (Mark your 2017 calendar for July 14, 15, 16)

La Chatina! Vintage blouses. Photo from Barbara Cleaver.

La Chatina! Vintage blouses, embroidered + crocheted. Photo from Barbara Cleaver.

Barbara Cleaver brought a collection of vintage Chatino blouses to La Boheme clothing gallery on Canyon Road, and anyone with a connection to Oaxaca showed up to see what was in store.

Chatina blouse detail. Photo from Barbara Cleaver.

Cross-stitch Chatina blouse detail. Photo from Barbara Cleaver.

Barbara, with her husband Robin, run the Hotel Santa Fe in Puerto Escondido, and are long-time residents of both Santa Fe and Oaxaca. The coffee farm they manage is not far from the Chatino villages near the famed pilgrimage site of Juquila.

Chatino people have close language and cultural ties to the Zapotec villages of the Oaxaca valley. Their mountain region is rich in natural resources and many work on the organic coffee farms that are an economic mainstay. About 45,000 people speak Chatino. Hundreds of indigenous languages and dialects are still spoken in Oaxaca, which make it culturally rich and diverse. This is reflected in the textiles!

Barbara has personal relationships with the women embroiderers of the region and what she brought to show was the real deal!

Chatina woman wears extraordinary embroidered blouse. Photo from Barbara Cleaver.

Chatina woman wears extraordinary embroidered blouse. Photo from Barbara Cleaver.

The blouses are densely embroidered with crocheted trim.  The older pieces are fashioned with cotton threads and the needlework is very fine. Newer pieces reflect changing times and tastes, and include polyester yarns that often have shiny, gold, silver and colored tinsel thread.

We see this trend in other parts of Mexico, too, including the more traditional villages of Chiapas where conservative women love to wear flash!

The shoulder bag — called a morral — is hand-woven and hand-tied (like macrame), and equally as stunning.

Fine example of Chatino bag from Barbara Cleaver

Fine example of Chatino bag from Barbara Cleaver

UPDATED INFORMATION

A follow-up note from Barbara Cleaver about the bag:

The Chatino bags have a proper name in Spanish, which is "arganita."

Morral is also correct, in the sense that all Mexican bags are

generically called that. Also, the knotted part ( where they stop weaving and start 

knotting the woven part), is then often embroidered. In Karen Elwell's photo,

the birds in the knotting are embroidered over the knotting, rather

than being created by the knotting.
Underside of knotted and embroidered Chatino bag, from Barbara Cleaver

Underside of knotted and embroidered Chatino bag, from Barbara Cleaver

To enquire about purchasing any of Barbara Cleaver’s Chatino clothing and accessories, please contact her at  Mexantique@aol.com

Chatino shoulder bag, called a morral. Photo by Karen Elwell.

Chatino shoulder bag, called a morral. Photo by Karen Elwell.

Karen Elwell, whose Flickr site documents Oaxaca textiles, says that the flowers and birds border (above) are machine stitched and the parrots and flowers (below) are hand-knotted from the warp threads of the woven bags. (See Barbara Cleaver’s more exact explanation above.)

Barbara has many examples of these. I was just too busy looking to take good photos!

Invitation to La Boheme trunk show, pre-Folk Art Market.

Invitation to La Boheme trunk show, pre-Folk Art Market.

Clothing Matters: Dress and Identity in Oaxaca

In planning for a visit to India in November 2016 and on the recommendation of a friend, I ordered a copy of Emma Tarlo’s book, Clothing Matters: Dress and Identity in India. What strikes me are the similarities between Mexico and India and the politics of cloth as a statement of belonging, assimilation and independence.

Emma Tarlo is a British cultural anthropologist and the book is based on research for her doctoral degree. Identity is tied to the quality of cloth, where it’s made, how it’s made and by whom, style (is it westernized or indigenous) and how a person feels about him/herself in their chosen attire.

Clothes are symbols for who we are, where we come from and who we aspire to be. They are also symbols for keeping people in their place by banning attire or requiring that people maintain a dress code based on their ethnic identity.

Oaxaca's khadi cloth, with native coyuchi and handspun, naturally dyed cotton

Oaxaca’s khadi cloth, with native coyuchi and handspun, naturally dyed cotton

Indigenous dress can convey a strong sense of pride or shame. Handmade cloth is more costly than machine woven textiles and often unaffordable to most.Handmade can be code for poverty, class and rough quality. In Chiapas, metallic, synthetic thread is all the rage by Chamula women. It is difficult to find natural dyes there now.

The first section of the book addresses the politics of cloth, India’s M.K. Ghandi social movement to eradicate manufactured and imported cloth and reinstate khadi cotton as part of a national independence movement.

It was curious to me to read this because Khadi is also the name of a Oaxaca cooperative that hand-spins and hand weaves native cotton using the type of spinning wheel used in India. The textile is soft,  airy, comfortable and easy to wear in Oaxaca’s climate. Yet, I had no idea until reading Tarlo’s book how closely tied this identity of cloth is between the two countries.

I’ll be writing more about as I re-enter Oaxaca. It’s important to look at indigenous clothing not only as beautiful textiles but as significant for supporting local economic development. Cloth has value. It is a root of identity.

 

 

24-Hour Oaxaca Textile Web Event: Tuxtepec Huipiles Sale

Buy before 2 p.m. Central Daylight Time (tomorrow) November 4.  I will bring your purchase(s) to the U.S.A. when I travel on Thursday morning and ship from California to anywhere in the U.S.A. early next week. Shipping included in price. I’m making this unexpected trip to help care for our mom.  Must be prepaid with PayPal for me to pack and bring. I will send you an invoice. Tell me which one you want.

These are the ones you see in the Guelaguetza! All huipiles/dresses measure about 42″ long from shoulder to hem, and about 28″ wide.  They can fit size L-XXL body and drape very nicely. From my collection and purchased directly from the women who made them. New.

Two Huipiles from San Felipe Usila, Oaxaca

Huipiles

SFU1: San Felipe Usila Huipil

SFU1: Above. hand-woven on back strap loom in traditional red and black San Felipe Usila style with extravagant supplementary weft and hand embroidered. $295.

Huipiles-3

SFU1: Bodice detail

SFU1: Bodice detail

SFU2:  Above. hand-woven on back strap loom in traditional red and black San Felipe Usila style with supplementary weft, a simpler version of SFU1. $250.

Two Huipiles from the Island of Soyaltepec

SOY1: Soyaltepec huipil, fuchsia with black

SOY1: Soyaltepec huipil, fuchsia with black

SOY1 bodice detail

SOY1 bodice detail

SOY1: stitching detail

SOY1: stitching detail

SOY1: Hand embroidered in the village of Soyaltepec, an island in the Miguel Aleman Dam in the remote Chinantla region of Oaxaca about 8 hours from Oaxaca city. Fuchsia and black flowers and birds on finest quality, soft muslin cotton — what the locals wear. $235.

SOY2: Variegated fuchsia and green Soyaltepec huipil

SOY2: Variegated fuchsia and green Soyaltepec huipil

SOY2: embroidery detail

SOY2: embroidery detail

SOY2: Hand embroidered in the village of Soyaltepec. Variations of green and fuchsia on muslin cotton. $275.

One Huipil from Valle Nacional

VALLE1: Valle Nacional huipil

VALLE1: Valle Nacional huipil

Valle Nacional bodice detail

Valle Nacional bodice detail

VALLE1: Handwoven cotton on a back strap loom with hand embroidered cross stitch bodice from the town of Valle Nacional in the Tuxtepec region of Oaxaca. A knock-out and very comfortable. $155.

International Surface Design Association Conference Features Oaxaca Weaver Tito Mendoza

Tito Mendoza Ruiz uses a traditional Saltillo-style tapestry weaving technique that employs 22 threads per inch to create his very intricate and detailed work.  He is one of the weavers, along with Federico Chavez Sosa, featured in Carolyn Kallenborn’s documentary film, “Woven Lives.”  Tito’s work and Carolyn’s film are showing at the 2011 International Surface Design Association Conference in Minneapolis-St. Paul.  See the invitation letter from Tito below.

Click here for a link to the Conference Brochure.

An Invitation from Oaxaca weaver Tito Mendoza

 

 

 

Tito Mendoza's Art Rug Mural selected for special exhibition in Mexico City

The figure of an indigenous Zapotec moves out of the traditional “Eye of God” design on the left side of the tapestry into the cornfields, through wind, sky and ocean.  The allegorical piece is a tribute to the power of nature and the place that humans hold in it.  The cotton hand-woven fringes were tied off by Alejandrina Rios, the wife of Tito Mendoza.