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Why Travel With Us: Help sustain traditions.
- We know the culture! This is our land! We are locally owned and operated.
- Eric Chavez Santiago is tri-lingual --Spanish, English, Zapotec.
- Eric was founding director of education, Museo Textil de Oaxaca + folk art expert
- Norma Schafer has lived in Oaxaca since 2005.
- Norma is a seasoned university educator.
- We have deep connections with artists and artisans.
- 63% of our travelers repeat -- high ratings, high satisfaction.
- Wide ranging expertise: textiles, folk art, pottery, cultural wisdom.
- We give you a deep immersion to best know Oaxaca and Mexico.
We organize private travel + tours for museums, arts, organizations, collectors + appreciators.
Creating Connection and Meaning between travelers and with indigenous artisans. Meet makers where they live and work. Join small groups of like-minded explorers. Go deep into remote villages. Gain insights. Support cultural heritage and sustainable traditions. Create value and memories. Enjoy hands-on experiences. Make a difference.
What is a Study Tour: Our programs are learning experiences, and as such we talk with makers about how and why they create, what is meaningful to them, the ancient history of patterning and design, use of color, tradition and innovation, values and cultural continuity, and the social context within which they work. First and foremost, we are educators. Norma worked in top US universities for over 35 years and Eric founded the education department at Oaxaca’s textile museum. We create connection.
OCN Creates Student Scholarship at Oaxaca Learning Center Giving back is a core value. Read about it here
Meet Makers. Make a Difference
Oaxaca Cultural Navigator LLC has offered programs in Mexico since 2006. We have over 30 years of university, textile and artisan development experience. See About Us.
Programs can be scheduled to meet your independent travel plans. Send us your available dates.
Arts organizations, museums, designers, retailers, wholesalers, curators, universities and others come to us to develop artisan relationships, customized itineraries, meetings and conferences. It's our pleasure to make arrangements.
Select Clients *Abeja Boutique, Houston *North Carolina Museum of Art *Selvedge Magazine-London, UK *Esprit Travel and Tours *Penland School of Crafts *North Carolina State University *WARP Weave a Real Peace *Methodist University *MINNA-Goods *Smockingbird Kids *University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Tell us how we can put a program together for you! Send an email norma.schafer@icloud.com
PRESS
- WEAVE Podcast: Oaxaca Coast Textiles & Tour
- NY Times, Weavers Embrace Natural Dye Alternatives
- NY Times, Open Thread–Style News
- NY Times, 36-Hours: Oaxaca, Mexico
Our Favorites
- Cooking Classes–El Sabor Zapoteco
- Currency Converter
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- Hoofing It In Oaxaca Hikes
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- Mexican Indigenous Textiles Project
- Museo Textil de Oaxaca
- Oaxaca Lending Library
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- Taller Teñido a Mano Natural Dyes
‘Weaving a Curve’ Movie Just Accepted to 100 Mile Film Series–Short Shorts
ChathamArts in Pittsboro, North Carolina, holds a series of documentary film screenings that are produced and directed by people who live within 100 miles of the “epicenter” — Big Culture in a Tiny Town! That would be: Pittsboro. I submitted our short film (just under 6 minutes) to the Short Shorts screening and we were accepted! The series coordinator is Linda Booker, a distinguished NC documentary filmmaker.
The screening is Tuesday, July 28, 2009, 7:30 p.m. at the Fearrington Barn, Fearrington Village, Pittsboro, NC. You can find out more on the ChathamArts website www.chathamarts.org This will be the first time the film will be shown on the big screen.
The film tells the story of Federico Chavez Sosa, master weaver of Teotitlan del Valle, how he learned to weave and perfect making the curve using the two-pedal, two harness tapestry loom introduced by the Spaniards in 1521. Federico talks about what it means to him to be a weaver, combining the aesthetic and spiritual, the past and the present. In Spanish with English subtitles.
I wrote, produced and directed the film with my friend Eric Chavez Santiago who shares billing with me. Eric is the director of education at the textile museum in Oaxaca, and took the documentary filmmaking workshop with me in his village of Teotitlan del Valle last February. We both thought it would be a useful skill to know, and this has proven correct. Eric has gone on to make short documentaries of aging weavers, dyers, and spinners in remote villages of Oaxaca. I am now making a documentary at the UNC Chapel Hill School of Nursing about an innovative nursing research project that is looking into hunger and fullness feeding cues that infants and toddlers give to their parents and caregivers. If the cues are not recognized or are ignored, it is believed that this can result in early childhood obesity which could then lead to childhood type 2 diabetes.
Erica Rothman, our workshop instructor, repeatedly said that the goal of our documentary filmmaking workshop was to provide the skills to enable people to go back to their own communities and tell their unique stories through film. For me and Eric, I think we achieved this goal.
The next Oaxaca Filmmaking Workshop: Visual Storytelling is scheduled for February 19-26, 2010. If you are interested in attending, see the blog post for all the details or write me at normahawthorne@mac.com
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