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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
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- NY Times, 36-Hours: Oaxaca, Mexico
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Folk Art Makers in Oaxaca Artisan Villages: Kinship, Work and Compensation
I subscribe to a website named academia.edu that recently published a paper by Alanna Cant, an academic from Kent University, United Kingdom. Dr. Cant spent almost a decade studying and writing about the relationship between the owners of a large, successful wood carving and painting workshop in San Martin Tilcajete and the people who are employed there making alebrijes.
The article is important because it expands understanding about how folk art gets made and marketed, who gets recognition for the work, and a different form of compensation. It emphasizes how the importance of family relationships and kinship take priority over economic independence and personal recognition for artisan work.
Read it here: ‘Making’ Labour in Mexican Artisanal Workshops
We learn from this that making a name for oneself and making money is not the primary driver for most people who live in community.
It’s very important for us not to judge by our own standards, but to observe and understand the differences and similarities between cultures.
In many small villages throughout Oaxaca, in fact throughout Mexico, safety, security and economic well-being depends on mutual support. These practices are ancient and deep, embedded in tribal relationships rooted in loyalty and commitment. It is far more important for many talented crafts-people to support strong family relationships than it is for them to break away and start their own enterprise.
I’m not a cultural anthropologist, yet I extrapolate that this may be the norm in many villages of weavers, potters and embroiderers. Cooperatives are usually extensions of family units of parents, children, aunts, uncles and cousins — a social organization that differs in practice from co-ops in the USA. Producing quantities of artisan-made work depends on more than a few pairs of hands.
If you are a collector or appreciator of Mexican craft, this article may interest you. It will give you insight into the making of Mexican folk art and how indigenous communities are able to survive and support each other over 8,000 years of existence.
Their experience is very different from ours. Entrepreneurship and commercial success, too, comes at a cost as television and the internet make the world of things more important than the world of people.
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