Monthly Archives: May 2011

What’s a Quechquemitl? Find out at the Museo Textil de Oaxaca lecture.

Posted on Tuesday, May 10, 2011 | 2 comments

Say: ketch-kem-mee.


Indigenous Mexican clothing is traditionally handwoven on a backstrap loom. Sometimes, it is cut and sewn together so that it can be pulled down over the head as a shoulder cover-up that looks like a short shawl.   The head opening is a virtual square that is formed by the joining of two lengths of cloth. Carla Fernandez in her book, Taller Flora (out of print), talks about this and shows clear diagrams of traditional indigenous clothing construction.
I love quechquemitls.  They are fun and easy to wear.  A wonderful cotton drape over the shoulder to keep the sun off or a snuggy wool covering for chillier winter days and evenings.  I buy my wool quechquemitls in Teotitlan del Valle from Arte y Seda and my cotton ones from Sheri Brautigam.
Exhibit and Lecture at the Museo Textil de Oaxaca, Wednesday, May 11, 6:00 p.m., corner Hidalgo and Fiallo, Centro Historico


That’s why I am excited to tell you about a Museo Textile de Oaxaca lecture on Quechquemitls Today by Sheri Brautigam.  Sheri is a textile designer and researcher who spends time in remote Mexican villages documenting traditional textile use and production. The lecture will present the quechquemitls of the Mazahua community of Santa Rosa de Lima, in the State of Mexico and the Nahua community of Cuetzalan, Puebla.
Currently on exhibit at the museo is an extensive collection of antique quechquemitls from the general area of central Mexico where they were worn in many villages until recently. It’s worth a visit, since these garments are exquisite.
For more information, contact:
Sheri Brautigam
Mexico Cell – (951) 151-1557
Santa Fe – NM  cell (505) 603-1278
SKYPE – lalucitaverde
 

Living Textiles of Mexico
See Collector Textiles at my ETSY store:

 

 

 

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Posted in Clothing Design, Cultural Commentary, Oaxaca Mexico art and culture, Textiles, Tapestries & Weaving, Travel & Tourism

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Food and Poetry: Writing About Eating, Ingredients and the Kitchen

Posted on Sunday, May 8, 2011 | Comments Off on Food and Poetry: Writing About Eating, Ingredients and the Kitchen

After our cooking class with Reyna Mendoza Ruiz, Robin Greene, MFA, led us in a writing about food discussion.  She referred us to Poet Laureate Mark Strand’s poem, “Pot Roast.”  He uses words masterfully:  gaze, sit, spoon, “I bend, I raise my fork in praise.”  We come to a place where we are ‘eating poetry.’  To understand the interrelationship between food and poetry, we must write it out, memorize it, hear the sound repetitions, embed it in our bodies.  This is the way to eat poetry.

So I go back to the image of Reyna bending over the metate, grinding the roasted peppers into the paste that will become the base for the mole roja.  I take notes and write.  Then, I try my hand at the metate and write some more.

Reyna at the Metate

“My fingers are stained red from the grinding of the peppers on the metate, ancient instrument of women’s work.  The peppers become paste.  My wrists turn “la mano de metate” — the hand of the metate.  The stone in my hand grinds against the stone platform that sits on the ground. My back bends, I wipe brow sweat with the edge of my apron.  I have hardly just begun.  An electric machine would be easier I whisper under my breath.  Kneel, Reyna says.

Tapete (rug) at the metate

“My knees are on a hand-woven square rug that sits on the raw earth. My back is an arch, my hands outstretched gripping the edges of the stone cylinder that looks like a rolling pin without handles. Come closer to the metate, she coaches.  Use small, close strokes.  Add water to make the paste until it is smooth and supple, like the skin of a young woman I imagine. Faster, press against the stone, grind as fine as possible.  The stone is granite hewn from the mountainside from the labor of man.  Muy fina, back and forth, a reverence to the rhythm of work to fill bellies and remember when time began.”

We offer an optional cooking class with Reyna for those who wish during the women’s creative writing and yoga retreat.  It is a great way to stretch your creative cooking and writing skills.

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Posted in Cultural Commentary, Food & Recipes, Teotitlan del Valle, Travel & Tourism, Workshops and Retreats

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Creative Writing Workshop in Oaxaca: Soft and Hard Sounds of Language

Posted on Sunday, May 8, 2011 | Comments Off on Creative Writing Workshop in Oaxaca: Soft and Hard Sounds of Language

“Writers pay attention to the emotional quality of the sounds,” says our workshop leader Robin Greene, MFA. Think of the word “mother,” she continues and the comforting “mmmmm” sound.  The quality of the sounds are the tools to create an emotion.  The hard sounds of “t” and “k” convey the harshness of an emotion as we use language for expression.  Think of how “Don’t do that” sounds with all those “t’s.”  In writing, we also favor repetitions, humor, color, opposites.  She pulls out the example: “ecstatic trees the color of Easter” and “a time when women kept secrets and wore pearls.”

When an experience or an event is difficult to talk about and the writer goes back and forth between the concrete and the abstract, the image can do the work, Robin advises.  She continues that memory is interesting when you reference it with the present.  The present can provide incredible authority.  “I am sitting in the courtyard where it all began and ended” could be a jumping off phrase for going into the past and bringing it to the present to draw the reader in.

Writing needs to be physically grounded.  When writers get stuck, it may be because there is not enough of the personal in the writing.  We must challenge ourselves to push the emotional connection with the material on the page. Honesty, rawness, and expressed fear can give a piece substance, voice and complexity.

We found that the writing and yoga and retreat gave us the tools to break out from the constraints to breakthrough.  Our next workshop/retreat is set for December 28, 2011 to January 2, 2012.  Spend New Years with us in Oaxaca to celebrate and recommit to your own creativity.

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Posted in Oaxaca Mexico art and culture, Travel & Tourism, Workshops and Retreats

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Benediction to Silence: Writer’s Meditation

Posted on Thursday, May 5, 2011 | Comments Off on Benediction to Silence: Writer’s Meditation

As I mentioned in my last post, during our writing and yoga retreat, we observed periods of silence in order to explore the feelings this would evoke that could be translated to our writing.  This was my experience.

Benediction to Silence

The silence is stunning, solitary, others do not know,  I must tell them by not speaking.  The geraniums burst a profusion of hot pink variegated leaves as big as fists, blooms the size of grapefruit.

Grapefruit on trees the size of soccer balls.  A basket hangs in solitary silence on the golden wall bathed in sunlight.  Each step is a second or an hour or a lifetime.  Each beat of my heart is the same.

Each sound is an explosion, intense, startling.  Each whisper is a balm, a whistle, a cloud forest, a cactus spine, a lick of frozen sugary ice flavored with the fruit of cactus, the flesh of coconut, the ripeness of berries, the crunch of nuts, the earthy loam of chocolate.

Silence so pure my heart breaks, yearns, opens, notices, sees the sunlight, the swirl of cloud trail.  Silence so magnificent that I am able to climb inside myself and offer a tender embrace that opens me to the world.

Silence is my mantra now, repeated in my heart like an ohm, a prayer to lovingkindness, a gentle breath, I feel the hunger in my belly and soul.

Silence is my fulfillment.

I notice the beauty of these women, their uniqueness, our similarities, the drape of a shawl, footsteps on the path, the blue, green, brown, black eyes, diversity of height, breadth, width, skin color, length of torso and limb, resonance of voice, deep throated, pitched like a bell, pitched like a chime.

Each of us holy, kindred spirits, the quest for identity, self-expression and creativity is our common language.

Do I like this silence?  Is it uncomfortable?  Yes.

I think of the nuns cloistered in silence, self-flagellation, sleeping on thorns to feel, to feel pain, to connect with life and afterlife, spiritual redemption.  This is different.  I taste the hot salsa chile roja in my mouth and it speaks fire.  I notice the seeds, feel the crunch of the tortillas between my teeth, examine the zig-zag of cilantro leaves, the tiny rings of white onions that adorn the chilequiles, the blue sweep of paint. Those are brush strokes created by human hand on the plate I eat from.

Every morsel is a benediction.

The next Women’s Creative Writing and Yoga Retreat: Lifting Your Creative Voice is set for December 28-January 2 — just in time for new year’s resolutions!

 

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Posted in Travel & Tourism, Workshops and Retreats

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Oaxaca is perfect for creative renewal.

Posted on Wednesday, May 4, 2011 | Comments Off on Oaxaca is perfect for creative renewal.

Many of you are already engaged in learning, doing, and expanding your creative lives through writing, yoga, painting, photography and more.  Some of you are exploring your creativity independently and others are taking courses or workshops locally or attending regional or national conferences or pursuing your creative lives professionally.

Why would someone consider coming to Oaxaca to pursue what  can be done at home?

We talked about this during the women’s writing and yoga retreat.  There was overwhelming agreement that the travel experience feeds the mind and soul and is as important as having the quiet writing time.  While the writing work needs to be alone and solitary, the richness of cultural immersion feeds the creative process.  So, for example, our writing program is not a “retreat” in the traditional sense of the word where one goes away in the woods in isolation to write without interruption.  It is more of a ground-breaking exploration to gain support, specific feedback and inspiration.  The sense of place is always an important aspect as we stretch to discover what we are capable of achieving.

In Oaxaca, water is scarce.  Drink water: the earth and I are thirsty.

Each moment is a new beginning.  I am a beginner of everything.

Fireworks punctuate every ceremony in Teotitlan del Valle.  The blue sky is infected with fireworks.

The village water source, a dam in the foothills at the end of the hiking trail, was also an inspiration.  The water held sunlight and gave it back.

On the second day, we moved from yoga to silence through breakfast almost as a cleansing to begin the writing day fresh.

 

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Posted in Workshops and Retreats

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