Monthly Archives: April 2023

Scott Roth on Rug Weaving Art History in Oaxaca, Mexico–Part 1

Scott Roth and I have been friends for about 15 years. I met him a few years after I first arrived in Teotitlan del Valle, Oaxaca, in 2005. Scott is a legend. He is one of the early adventurers who identified the weaving talent in the village, and intuited that blankets and rugs could be repurposed into beautiful floor rugs with just a few modifications. He began working with a few weavers on designs and dyes for export to the USA to meet the nascent interest in what became known as Southwest Style. I want to tell his story, because it is an important part of the history of what Oaxaca is today. I’ll be publishing his writing in segments along with his photos.

1970’s Transition from Wearable Serapes to Floor Rugs

These are Scott’s words!

I first visited the village in January 1974, and returned in August and November that year to continue investing in their two-piece blankets (serapes) and wall hangings. At the time, there was only one man, Ismael Gutierrez, making textiles we would consider rugs today, with the tightness of weave that we find suitable for heavy foot traffic.

Above: Blanket, Scott Roth Collection, era 1974

The big surge of popularity of these weavings was just around the bend, when the Southwest design trend came on strong in 1980. In 1974, there were only two other Americans regularly coming to Teotitlan as exporters, but shortly thereafter ten fellow hippy boomers discovered the village, and found a way, like myself, to fund a romantically adventurous lifestyle.

Above Left: Flor de Oaxaca. Above Right: Escher tapestry

As is now in Teotitlan del Valle, most households strived to become financially independent, creating for the marketplace a unique wool textile through design, size, function and color palette. There was a wide range of images displayed by Teotitecos at the weekly Sunday Tlacolula Market, and also at Saturday’s market in Oaxaca city, which was a block from the Zocalo, on the streets facing the Benito Juarez Market.

Above: Aztec Calendar, 1930’s

In 1974, some of the prominent themes depicted in the tapestry weaving were based on the 1910-1920 Mexican Revolution, during which time greater civil rights and land reforms uplifted indigenous groups. These themes included figures from pre-Hispanic carvings of anthropomorphic gods and the very popular rendering of the stone-carved Aztec Calendar. These themes originated in the 1930’s and remained well into the 1970’s. Weavers of this era learned from their grandfathers who were the serape makers during the mid-1800’s when colonial period Saltillo-style serapes were in vogue throughout Mexico. A pattern from that pre-Revolution era, named Flor de Oaxaca, was the singular most popular design for the 5′ x 6-1/2′ two-piece serapes in 1975. It was a simplified version which fit in with mid-century modernist aesthetic.

Above: Saltillo-style serape, Flor de Oaxaca design, Teotitlan del Valle

Early 20th century European modern art readily translated to tapestries, with many interpretations  of Miro, Picasso, M.C. Escher, and Matisse found alongside pre-Columbian figures.  Isaac Vasquez (who died in 2022) told me how he wove commissioned tapestries for Rufino Tamayo, at the time Mexico’s most famous living artist. In the early sixties, Tamayo brought along his good friend from Paris, Pablo Picasso.  Picasso drew for Isaac a simple design of fish stacked in opposing directions like canned sardines.   The design,  Pescados Modernas, became one of the village’s most enduring best sellers.  

Above: Picasso’s fish interpreted for Teotitlan del Valle tapestries

Above: Matisse tapestry, Teotitlan del Valle, 1970’s

Pre-Hispanic figures from two books by Mexican anthropologist/designer Jorge Enciso, called escaletos, were the subject of favored small wall hangings, in black and white wool. If you know the 1980’s New York City pop artist Keith Haring, you know the power of tightly balanced positive and negative figurative work. I suspect Haring was influenced by the pre-Hispanic figures in Teotitlán’s Escaleto tapestries.    

Above: Jose Enciso designs replicated in Teotitlan weaving

There was a remarkable contrast between the bare minimum of material goods in any household and the highly spirited social exchanges one observed on the street. Everyone slept on the dirt floor of their one-room adobe house, unrolling a petate every night.  There was only one car in town, no running water or plumbing, no paved streets, most women over age 50 went barefoot, and people over 40 had a very limited grasp of Spanish.  Electricity had arrived in 1965,  but was used minimally.  I enjoyed visiting two households in which one weaver would, unaccompanied, sing songs for hours while he and other family members continued working on their looms.  A lively and cheery work environment!  A few years later the Teotitecos could afford cassette stereos, and this tradition of singing disappeared.  

Above: 1950’s-60’s Modernist home with Flor de Oaxaca rug on the floor

The next post will cover the decade of the 1980’s, when everything changed materially.   In retrospect, I observed in the 1970’s that much of the Zapotec lifestyle here had been as it was through the colonial period.  A good, but hard to find, anthropological study of the value system of the Oaxaca Valley Zapotecs was published in the late sixties titled Zapotec Deviance.  It contains insights as to what has helped maintain their cultural identity and sustainability this last half century.   

Here is a video interview with Scott you may enjoy!

Norma’s Note: I’ve lightly edited Scott’s narrative and photos, and inserted a few more details, like the recent death of Isaac Vasquez, innovative master weaver. Also of note, the colorful rugs shown here were made with churro sheep wool and chemical (synthetic) dyes, popular at the time, because they were cheap and easy to use. Before the industrial revolution in the mid-1800’s, serapes here were either made from the natural sheep wool (blacks, grays, beige, white, brown) or with natural dyes from local plant sources (cochineal, indigo, wild marigold, tree bark).

Above: This is master weaver Adrian Montaño from Teotitlan del Valle. He wove a vintage Covarrubias design in the 1960’s that I purchased in 2020. It hangs in my Teotitlan del Valle casita. Other examples from that era are included, and woven by him. The last photos is a traditional design created by Eric Chavez Santiago’s great grandfather Venustiano, popularized throughout the village. All in natural sheep wool.

Earth Day: Homage in Photos

Here on the Rio Grande Gorge Mesa the wind is scouring the earth. Spring cleaning, I think. Perhaps nature’s attempt at renewal. The cycle of life.

In Oaxaca, torrential rain, hail, remind us that the seasons are now topsy-turvy and we can no longer predict the patterns of nature.

Many of us know we are in peril and it is an underlying tug, push, fight, an imperative to make it right, make it whole again so our future as humans will avoid the dystopian image I have of glass cities where only purified air can sustain us. And, who will live there? I ask. Will the price of admission be so high, that only the wealthy and well-connected will find dwelling? And what happens to the rest of us? One can only imagine the unimaginable.

Heather Cox Richardson says it best today. I encourage you to read.

Here is a brief homage to our nurturing, stunningly magnificent Mexico in photos. Hope and action are our only defenses.

At Oaxaca Cultural Navigator, Eric and I put immense value on sustainability of the environment and indigenous culture. We work with weavers who grow their own cotton, use natural plants cultivated with organic materials and no chemicals to make native dyes, and commit to supporting women and families. We work with organizations like Weaving for Justice and Weave a Real Peace to help raise awareness and bring people up from poverty to be able to feed their families, provide health care and education, without worry. Thank you, as always, for your support for what we do.

And, here, in New Mexico, all appears as it should be, and we know it is not.

Think Spring! 13 San Juan Colorado, Oaxaca Huipiles by Brisaida for You

SOLD OUT! Thanks to all for your support.

Brisaida is one of my favorite weavers from San Juan Colorado, on Oaxaca’s Costa Chica, that stretch of land along the Pacific Coast extending from Puerto Escondido north to Acapulco. We visit her on our Oaxaca Coast Textile Study Tour. She contacted me last week to appeal for help. She has some amazing huipiles and blusas available for sale. I said, sure, I’ll help you! Finding buyers for extraordinary work is the biggest challenge that indigenous weavers face. Most speak only a native language and without Spanish, markets elude them and they depend on middlemen who often pay less than the value of a textile and the work women put into making them.

Whatever sells in the next 10 days, Brisaida will package up and ship to me. This takes about a week to arrive in Taos. I’ll then package up what you choose and mail to you. I’d like to receive all that sells in one bundle to minimize shipping cost. So, please make your selections by April 28. Thank you.

We have 13 amazing pieces to offer you. They are all hand-woven on the back-strap loom, created from naturally dyed cotton. Dyes include Brazilwood, mahogany bark, raw and fermented indigo, guava, iron oxide, and wild marigold. Much of the cotton threads are hand-spun on the malacate (drop spindle) from locally sourced native cotton, grown since pre-Hispanic times. What you are purchasing is a piece of art! In doing so, you support a woman from a small indigenous community who has little opportunity to sell her work. Women here struggle to support their families with cash income when the men in their families are subsistence farmers who have no commercial outlet for their produce — everyone here grows corn, beans, and squash to feed their kin — when men stay! Most have left for employment in larger Mexican cities or risk their lives to go to El Norte with a coyote ($3-4,000 USD cost) to enter the USA as undocumented labor. It’s not an easy life. We have an opportunity to help!

How to Buy: Send an email to norma.schafer@icloud.com and tell me the item(s) you want to purchase by number, your email, your mailing address, your phone number, and which payment method you prefer: 1) Zelle bank transfer with no service fee; 2) Venmo or 3) PayPal each with a 3.3% service fee. Please send me your account name or number! I will send you a request for funds and then add on a $14 mailing fee. Happy to combine shipping if you buy more than one piece. These are one-of-a-kind. Note: Thank you for understanding that all sales are final. Please measure carefully.

SOLD. #1. Mahogany and raw indigo. Raw indigo has not been fermented. The leaves are rubbed on the cotton to give us a lovely fresh green color. 42″ long x 28″ wide. $345 plus mailing.

SOLD 2. Rainbow of natural colors with indigo and wild marigold brocade* embellished with hearts. 42″ long x 31″ wide. $345 plus mailing.

SOLD #3. Mahogany bark, guava, iron oxide and Brazilwood. 38″ long x 31″ wide. $345 plus mailing.

SOLD. #4. Pinole seeds and bark with indigo. 43″ long x 30″ wide. $345 plus mailing.

SOLD. #5. Mahogany, indigo, and natural white cotton. 34″ long x 30″ wide. $345 plus mailing.

SOLD. 6. Mahogany, iron oxide, and natural white. 34″ long x 30″ wide. $345 plus mailing.

SOLD. #7 Guava, Brazilwood, and natural white. 35″ long x 28″ wide. $298 plus mailing.

SOLD. #8. Subtle rainbow base cloth with indigo, mahogany, and white brocade. 34″ long x 29″ wide. $298 plus mailing.

SOLD. #9. Raw indigo and multi-color base cloth with multi-colored bordado. 32″ long x 29″ wide. $298 plus mailing.

SOLD. #10. Wild marigold, indigo, and mahogany. 29″ long x 26″ wide. $275 plus mailing.

SOLD. 11. Brazilwood, indigo and natural white. 26″ long x 29″ wide. $255 plus mailing.

SOLD. 12. Rainbow Rayas. 26″ long x 25″ wide. $245 plus mailing.

SOLD. #13. Brazilwood. 30″ long x 25″ wide. $245 plus mailing.

Care Instructions: Hand wash with a mild soap (Fels Naptha or Zote — do not use Woolite) and hang to dry. Press with a warm iron, if desired.

*About the Cloth: The cotton threads may have been grown locally, cleaned, beaten to smooth the fibers, and then hand-spun using the malacate (drop spindle). Weavers also use top quality, fine Omega thread sourced from the last cotton mill in Puebla, Mexico, and then dyed at home with local plants. The designs and patterns embellished in the cloth are made with the brocade (bordado) technique of adding threads into the woven cloth using the supplementary weft technique. These garments are perfect for spring, summer and fall, or layer them over an insulated T-shirt for winter dressing to add color to your life during the dark days. The pieces range from medium weight to gauze weave, giving us cloth that is breathable and luxurious for warm and hot weather.

Meet Brisaida. She is in her 30’s. I’m with her in San Juan Colorado in late January. Yes, she wove what I’m wearing and of course, it’s now part of my collection! Brisaida embodies the heritage of many Mexican women along the coast whose heritage stems from indigenous Mixtec roots mixed with the Afro-Mexican slave experience and their quest for freedom beyond the mines, sugar cane fields of Veracruz, and entrapment.

Coming Soon! What we are doing and thinking about.

In recent weeks, I’ve been in conversation with Scott Roth, one of the early entrepreneurs who came to Oaxaca and Teotitlan del Valle in the mid-70’s as a young Californian, an unencumbered explorer of culture and artisanry. He discovered the serapes and blankets of Teotitlan and imagined them to be repurposed as floor rugs for the growing US Southwest Style home decor and design field. This was the beginning of the making and exporting of handwoven rugs to the American southwest. Scott has written a personal history of rug development, weaving culture, and what it was like in Oaxaca during those years along with photos. I’ll be publishing his writing and photographs in the next weeks.

Before leaving Oaxaca, I packed up textiles to ship back to Taos, New Mexico, where I landed about a week ago. I have a wide-ranging assortment of hand-woven goods from Chiapas and Oaxaca. These include ponchos, huipiles, blusas, rebozos, bufandas, pillow covers, jewelry, and assorted miscellaneous items. I’ll be photographing and listing these in the next week. Please keep your eyes tuned to blog posts coming to your inbox!

In exciting news, I’ve been talking with a San Juan Chamula, Chiapas, weaving family who we’ve known for several years. We visit them during our Chiapas Textile Study Tour in their remote highlands village of Chilinjoveltik, where Maruch and Micaela employ traditional back-strap loom weaving techniques to make those traditional furry Churro wool wrap around skirts and ponchos worn by women and men. They felt the wool textile with their feet, dancing on the wool, massaging it with pressure and water, until the fibers knit together and the result looks like a sheep pelt. I bought a couple of these and now use them as floor mats in the bath, bedroom and by the kitchen sink. They are making four small rugs for me in various shades of natural wool: creamy white, brown, grey and black. They will be ready in a month and I’ll be posting them for sale.

Brisaida is one of my favorite weavers from San Juan Colorado, on Oaxaca’s Costa Chica, that stretch of land along the Pacific Coast extending from Puerto Escondido north to Acapulco. We visit her on our Oaxaca Coast Textile Study Tour. She contacted me this week to appeal for help. She has some amazing huipiles and blusas available for sale. I said, sure, I’ll help you! Finding buyers for extraordinary work is the biggest challenge that indigenous weavers face. Most speak only a native language and without Spanish, markets elude them and they depend on middlemen who often pay less than the value of a textile and the work women put into making them . You have always been to generous with your support for these extraordinary artisans. Stay tuned for these pieces that I hope to post early next week!

Weave a Real Peace (WARP) is an international textile organization that I have belonged to for many years (we organized their 2017 international conference in Oaxaca). We admire what they do to support and promote indigenous artisans worldwide. Their annual conference is in Kent, Ohio, from July 13-16. We have been invited to make the closing presentation on July 16. Perhaps you will consider attending!

Come travel with us to explore and discover the weaving culture of Oaxaca and Chiapas. Space open in most of our 2024 tours. A $500 deposit will hold your reservation for our multi-day excursions and a 25% deposit will reserve your space on our day tours. Scroll down the right column to see what you might enjoy! Saludos.

Traditional Cooks: Eating in Tlacolula de Matamoros, Oaxaca

We know the Sunday market (tianguis) in Tlacolula is amazing. When you visit Oaxaca, this is a don’t miss it moment! (Order a map from us to find your way around.) And, if you want the real deal in Oaxaca food, you want to try out one of the off-the-beaten-path traditional cocina de humo comedors operated by one of Oaxaca’s traditional cooks in this market town. A cocina de humo is a complex sensory experience with humble roots in outdoor, wood-fired, comal-based cooking. You don’t have to be a foodie to appreciate what comes off a cal coated clay comal, the essential cooking platter of every traditional Mexican home. This large, round griddle platter can be as big as sixteen or eighteen inches in diameter. It sits atop a fogon made from adobe that is usually thirty-six inches high and fueled with wood. Comales are made wherever clay is found and in Oaxaca they come from San Marcos Tlapazola and in Santa Maria Atzompa.

Cocineras Tradicionales are what they are called. These are women who were born and raised in the culture of home cooking and organic corn, learning from mothers, grandmothers and great-grandmothers. They buy or grow their own organic produce, take the corn their families cultivate to the local mill (molina), and make their own masa using a traditional metate or grinding stone. The corn here is real food, grainy, nutty, crunchy to the taste, filled with flavor and energy. Their salsas are all scratch made in the molcajete. Their menus change based on seasonal ingredients.

Their restaurants are simple outdoor kitchens or ones tucked into the corner of their small establishments that might seat ten or fifteen people comfortably. If you know anything about fine French cuisine, you know that the Great Chefs of France — Paul Bocuse, Alain Chapel, Georges Blanc — all started in Lyon, learning from mothers, grandmothers and great-grandmothers, too. The similarities are strong. And, it’s about time that the great traditional cooks of Oaxaca villages are coming into their own.

Here are our recommendations for delicious, real Oaxaca village food in order of our preferences:

Mo-Kalli. Cocinera Tradicional Catalina Chavez Lopez opened a small comedor three years ago in the Tres Piedras neighborhood of Tlacolula up a dirt road on the east side of MEX 190. I went there four times in the month that I discovered it. I took my Zapotec family there and they raved about the moles. The meal is about 250-300 pesos per person and includes an appetizer, entree, dessert and fruit water. Beer and mezcal are an additional cost.

What I love about Mo-Kalli is the selection of moles. Catalina has at least seven ollas (cooking pots) bubbling away on top of her traditional cooktop, filled with (usually all of) Oaxaca’s famous moles: negro, rojo, coloradito, segueza (cracked corn kernels), verde or pipian (green), amarillo (yellow), chichilo (a somewhat bitter taste, served at funerals), and manchemanteles (tablecloth stainer, sweet with raisins and nuts). There is no menu. She brings a sampler of moles to the table that you taste with a crispy tortilla piece. Then, you decide which you want. Catalina recommends which meat (chicken, beef, pork) will go best with each sauce.

I’ve had the mole negro, the segueza and the amarillo, and coloradito. All are superb. The hospitality is out of this world. All the meats are succulent and easy to chew. If you get there, please tell her I sent you!

Nana Vira. Evangelina Aquino Luis, Cocinera Tradicional, does her cooking magic about six blocks south of the Tlacolula Market and is open Tuesday through Sunday. There is an upstairs dining terrace, and a couple of tables and benches on the ground floor next to the outdoor kitchen. We ate there after spending a couple of hours meandering the Tlacolula Market. Parking can be challenging (we do have a car), so the easiest way to get there is to hail at moto-taxi (tuk-tuk) at the corner where the Banamex is located. Eva will call you a moto to get you back to Centro. I had barbecue ribs slathered in a milder mole rojo. The fare here is a bit simpler and the prices are a la carte (no comida corrida). They make and bottle their own mezcal brand, too.

Criollito. Liliana Palma Santos was born and raised in Santa Monica, California, and returned to her family’s native Tlacolula de Matamoros about ten years ago. She and her husband opened this comedor to replicate family recipes passed through generations. They are known for their rainbow (arco iris) tortillas that incorporate three or more types of native corn, including yellow, blue, and red. Only open on Saturday and Sunday, this outdoor kitchen has three tables and can seat about twelve people at a time. I made a reservation, but it wasn’t really needed on the day we went. While Criollito is not technically considered an official Cocina Tradicional, it has all the elements to be included in this category. The three of us were feeling green vegetable deprived, so in additional to ordering tlayuda and mole negro, we started off with a comal stir-fry of broccoli, squash, and nopal cactus paddles! Price was about the same as Mo-Kalli, however did not include an appetizer or dessert.

Many of us love to eat at the market on Sunday and my favorite spot is either Comedor Mary on Avenida Galeana (side street of the church) or to belly up to one of the barbacoa tables inside the market where you can get a goat taco or consume. However, I encourage you to stretch your discovery wings and go find one of these comedors. Start with Mo-Kalli!

What does it mean to be designated a Cocina Tradicional? A Cocina Tradicional, or traditional kitchen, is a Oaxaca government designation from the Secretary of Oaxaca Culture and Art [Secretaría de las Culturas y Artes de Oaxaca (Seculta)], to honor the cocineras who are keeping the ancestral food traditions alive. Most come from pueblos, the villages, located some distances from the city where regional foods and local cooking styles are ingrained in indigenous culture.

In Teotitlan del Valle, the Cocinera Tradicional is Carina Santiago who runs Tierra Antigua Restaurant. It is through her and caterer friend Kalisa Wells, that I learned about the two cocineras in Tlacolula, because they are all invited to participate in foodie events throughout Mexico and the USA to represent Oaxaca at official culinary programs.