Best of Oaxaca’s Biodiversity at Ejido Union Zapata: Day of Plenty
Oaxaca celebrates indigenous food and handmade at the annual Agro-biodiversity Fair in Ejido Union Zapata. This once a year event is building traction. The main street of several blocks, cordoned off for booths and foot traffic, was packed by noon. The natural food color was beyond belief. Billed as a seed exchange, farmers came from […]
Documentary Film: Zapotec in Oaxaca, Mexico, Dizhsa Nabani, A Living Language
All ten, five-minute episodes of the documentary film, Dizhasa Nabani/Lengua Viva/Living Language, premiered last night in San Jeronimo Tlacachahuaya. This is an ancient and important village in the Tlacolula Valley, center of the Catholic diocese. The film is in Zapotec, with Spanish and English subtitles. Just wonderful! Yet, the risk of indigenous Zapotec language loss […]
The Virgin of Guadalupe Photo Essay: From Primitive to Painterly
The Franz Mayer Museum in Mexico City is featuring a special exhibition about the Virgin of Guadalupe. The images include primitive figures in carved wood, elaborate paintings and wood carvings from church altars, woven and embroidered textiles, and contemporary 2016 photographs by Federico Gama taken at the Basilica de Guadalupe in Mexico City. Why am […]
Fancy Dancing: Video of Huajuapan de Leon Jarabe Mixteco
On Monday night, while the crowd of 11,000 was in the Auditorio Guelaguetza enjoying the main event, I joined friends Winn and Jacki in Santa Maria del Tule for their First Guelaguetza. There are other villages around Oaxaca, too, that produce smaller-scale guelaguetzas for a fraction of the cost, more accessible and affordable to a […]
Wear Your Apron: Photos From the Feria del Barro Rojo
First, the last day of this year’s (2018) Feria del Barro Rojo in San Marcos Tlapazola is tomorrow, Monday, July 16, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. If you go, wear your distinctive Tlapazola apron, like I did. It’s gingham trimmed in folded ribbon that ends up looking like frosting on a wedding cake. Too […]
Feria del Barro Rojo del San Marcos Tlapazola 2018: Red Clay Pottery Fair
Who wants to join me for lunch in San Marcos Tlapazola tomorrow, Saturday, July 14? I’ll be there by 11 a.m. in time to see Lila Downs, the madrina (patron) of the celebration, cut the ribbon for the official opening. This is the third year of the festival and each year it grows bigger. In […]
Tribute to Mothers: Feliz Dia de la Madre
First, a bouquet of red roses for all mothers, daughters and foster mothers. For the women in our lives who give us strength, courage and determination to stand up with shoulders back, head high. For the women who came before us to open the path and show us the way. Saludos y felicidades, siempre. Mother’s […]
Bonus–Yochib, Oxchuc, Chiapas: Portrait of Young Girl with Dog
Oaxaca and Chiapas have a lot in common. They are the two poorest states in Mexico, have the lowest literacy rates and in the rural areas there is little or no access to health care. Chiapas and Oaxaca have the highest percentage of indigenous people in Mexico, yet they are under-represented in politics and business, […]
Chiapas Textile Study Tour Snapshot: Thursday In and Around Tenejapa
On Thursday, we spent the day outside of San Cristobal de Las Casas, on the road to Tenejapa village, Romerillo Maya cemetery and then to the home of Maruch and her son Tesh in the Chamula district of Chiapas. Taking registrations now for 2019 Chiapas Textile Study Tour. Small doorways open from the street into […]
Sunset in Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca, Mexico
My internet connection is funky and while I wanted to publish a post today about our Oaxaca Textile Study Tour trip to the mountain village of San Juan Colorado, it may not happen. The photo download is not cooperating. So in lieu of hand-spun green, brown coyuche and creamy white native cotton, I’m going to […]
Christmas Posadas in Teotitlan del Valle, Nine Days of Awe
Teotitlan del Valle, Oaxaca, Mexico celebrates the winter holiday with a posada on nine nights before Christmas Day, starting on December 15. Starting yesterday afternoon and going into the night, I participated with a small group of visitors from the USA, Canada and Ireland interested in joining me to explore the history, culture and traditions […]
Roasting a Thanksgiving Turkey in Teotitlan del Valle, Oaxaca
I bet you thought I disappeared! This is my first post since returning to Teotitlan de Valle, Oaxaca, a week ago. Happy Thanksgiving, Everyone! I came back to my casita filled with aromas created by professional cook Kalisa Wells, who has been house sitting my two adopted street dogs. All kitchen surfaces were covered with […]
2018 Chiapas Textile Study Tour: Deep Into the Maya World
We have THREE spaces open for February 13-22, 2018. We have ONE space open for February 27-March 8, 2018 for a shared room at $2,495. Send me an email. Here is the program description: Chiapas Textiles + Folk Art Study Tour: Deep Into the Maya World — 2018 We are based in the historic Chiapas […]
Exvotos: Mexico’s Naive Folk Art Painting of Thanksgiving
In the third room of Casa Azul you will see a small sampling of a vast collection of exvotos amassed by Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. It is said they had one of the largest collections of these small tributes of thanks to a saint for a miracle, for saving a life, a favor received. […]
Follow Me Cultural + Photo Walking Tour, Christmas Posadas: One Day in Teotitlan del Valle
Christmas in Oaxaca is magical. In ancient villages throughout the central valleys, indigenous Zapotec people celebrate with a mix of pre-Hispanic mystical ritual blended with Spanish-European Catholic practice. They retrace the Census pilgrimage (Roman command to travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem for Cesar’s census) of Mary and Joseph on their way to Bethlehem. The posadas in […]
Yagul Archeological Site: Oaxaca’s Hidden Treasure
Yagul is one of those magical places in Oaxaca that not many people visit. When I first went there in 2005, it was mostly rubble, secreted away up a hill beyond Tlacolula, on the way to Mitla. Access was (and still is) a narrow, cracked, pot-holed macadam pavement. In those intervening years, there has been […]
Jumping for Joy at Oaxaca’s Jardin Etnobotanico — Ethnobotanical Garden
While I edit and process over 1,500 photos from last weekend’s WARP textile conference in Oaxaca, I thought I’d share with you the last set of photos from the May 2017 study abroad program with North Carolina State University Department of Horticultural Sciences from Oaxaca’s Ethnobotanical Garden. The garden was rescued from the hands of developers. […]
NCSU in Oaxaca: Saving Sea Turtles
Oaxaca is one of the most diverse states in Mexico. It’s Pacific coast is rugged, rocky, with swirling turquoise water, warmed by ocean currents. Our group from North Carolina State University Department of Horticultural Science has been based in Puerto Escondido, a favorite spot for world-class surfing, too. This is a global sea-turtle nesting area, […]
NCSU in Oaxaca: Monte Alban Archeological Site
Students and faculty from North Carolina State University Department of Horticultural Science are in Oaxaca for a study abroad course on Sustainability in Emerging Countries. Here’s what a few students say about our first day at Monte Alban. “We went to see Monte Alban first to give us background about Oaxaca and culture we are […]
Oaxaca Inspired Sweet-Savory Orange Chicken Recipe: Mango and Carrots
My first day back in Teotitlan del Valle, Oaxaca, after a six-week Durham, North Carolina hiatus. I had to drive La Tuga, my 2004 Honda Element to Tlacolula for clutch repair, so I handed 200 pesos (the equivalent of $11 USD) to Federico and asked him to pick up a few things for me at […]
Mexico City Architecture: Luis Barragan House Photo Essay
True Confession: In all the years I’ve been visiting Mexico City, I never made it to the Casa Luis Barragan in Colonia Condesa. One of the benefits of staying in this neighborhood is to make a pilgrimage to the home where this disciple of Corbusier lived. You MUST make a reservation in advance to visit. […]
Chiapas Notebook: Tenejapa Textiles and Thursday Market
Tenejapa, Chiapas is a regional center in the highlands of Chiapas about an hour- and-a-half beyond San Cristobal de las Casas. It’s a regional administrative center, about midway between the city and the remote village of Cancuc, past Romerillo. Most roads splay out from San Cristobal like spikes on a wheel hub, dead-ending down a canyon […]
Chiapas Notebook: Magdalena Aldama Weavers
Our recent textile study tour took place over nine days. We were based in San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico, with so much to see and do, and no time to write!. I’m going to start now with one highlight that happened in the middle: a visit to Magdalena Aldama, Chiapas. Some of us know […]
Being a Oaxaca Host: Lessons for People and Nations
My friend Debbie from North Carolina came to visit me in Oaxaca this week. It was a fast three nights and two-and-a-half days. We packed a lot in as the news of the world was (and continues to) unfolding, raging, tangling itself up around us. I wanted to show her my world here. Archeological sites. […]
How Oaxaca Got Her Name: Guaje Seed Pods
When the Spanish arrived in southern Mexico in 1521, they found a region called Huāxyacac, the Nahuatl word for the pod of the tree Leucaena Leucocephala. Of course, they couldn’t pronounce it easily, so they renamed it with the moniker, Oaxaca. Originally, Oaxaca was pronounced wa-shaka from a medieval Spanish root. Now, the X is silent, so […]
Women’s March Oaxaca: Just The Beginning!
One of the organizers told me the traffic police took a count and reported 2,000 people marching in Oaxaca, Mexico, on January 21. Whatever the number, it was an amazing demonstration of peaceful solidarity to support this worldwide movement. The Andador Turistica — Macadonio Alcala — the cobblestone walking street lined with restaurants and tourist […]
From Mexico City: Under the Cathedral, An Aztec Empire
Far below Mexico City’s Metropolitan Cathedral, the largest in the Americas, lies the archeological treasure trove that was once Tenochtitlan, the City of the Aztecs. It is known as Templo Mayor. First discovered and excavated in 1978, archeologists believe there are seven pyramid levels beneath what is now visible at the site next to the great […]
Happy New Year 2017 From Mexico City
The clock strikes 2017. Yet the Zocalo in Mexico City today is almost empty. All museums and most shops are closed, too. Most Mexican families celebrate the new year at home. On New Years’ Eve last night there were only a few strollers in the Historic Center as everything closed up by 4 p.m. and people […]
From Oaxaca, Mexico: Feliz Fiestas y Navidad, Merry Holidays, Chag Sameach
Wishing you all the blessings of peace, contentment, safety and good health at this joyous time of year when we think of renewal, looking beyond the Winter Solstice as the earth turns, the days grow longer and all is well in the land. We are dormant now. Slower. More thoughtful, perhaps. In ancient cultures our […]
India Journal: Textiles and My Family in Delhi
This is a tribute to family, dispersal and reconnection. It was a remarkable afternoon at my cousin Sharon Lowen‘s apartment in New Delhi, India. The city has been her home for the last 43 years. My 99-1/2 year-old Aunt Ethel lives with her youngest daughter Sharon who is her primary caregiver. It was a remarkable […]