For hands-on fun, escape winter and come to Oaxaca from February 2 until February 9, 2013. Together, during this one-week workshop, we will be immersed in the textile culture of Oaxaca to create naturally-dyed felted fabric combining wool, silk and cotton that can be hand or machine stitched into an indigenous clothing design of your choice. Our experts, textile and fiber artist-clothing designer Jessica de Haas, from Vancouver, B.C., Canada and Eric Chavez Santiago from Oaxaca, Mexico, will show you how!
About Your Instructors
Jessica owns the clothing design company Funk-Shui and is an award-winning, internationally known fiber artist and teacher. She recently completed an Arquetopia artist residency in Oaxaca, and taught and exhibited at the Museo Textil de Oaxaca. See her website for bio and designs.
Eric Chavez Santiago, founding director of education at the Museo Textil de Oaxaca, is a weaver and natural dye expert. He has taught natural dyeing techniques in Oaxaca and at U.S. universities and museums since 2006.
Our Itinerary
First, working with Eric in his family’s home studio in Teotitlan del Valle, we will dye and over-dye wool roving with natural materials: cochineal, indigo, wild marigold, pomegranates, nuts and other plants to achieve the colors you will use in your piece(s). We will learn about mordant processes to fix the dye and dye extraction to create over 10 different colors. Wool and dye recipes are included!
Then, working with Jessica in the courtyard of our B&B, we will felt our naturally dyed wool fiber on silk or loosely woven cotton or muslin, making a durable and beautiful fabric. After your fabric is dry, you will have the option to cut and sew it into one of several indigenous Oaxaca styles: the huipil (tunic), the blusa (blouse), rebozo (shawl), boufanda (scarf) or quechequemitl (cape). Here is a piece from Jessica’s collection that you might like!
We give you a pattern book to choose your design! Below is a sample pattern for a quechquemitl.
This workshop is for all levels of experience! You do not have to be an artist to attend. We welcome beginners who have never worked in hand felting and more advanced fiber artists. This is a perfect residency for students, teachers and artists who may want to explore a different medium, too.
We will provide you with patterns for the basic indigenous designs that can be adjusted to fit. If you want to contemporize them, we can help you tweak and make minor adjustments. If you have sewing or pattern drafting experience and want to experiment on your own, you are welcome to work on an independent design project after your fabric is made.
We will be based in the weaving village of Teotitlan del Valle where for generations families have been creating wool textiles. During our time together, we will go on local field trips to meet and talk with weavers who work with natural dyes and weave fabric for wearable art as well as sturdier floor and wall tapestries. We will see examples of the types of garments that can be created from the felted fabric we make.
Materials to bring (preliminary):
- silk, loosely woven cotton, and/or muslin—3-4 meters (4.37 yards) minimum
- beads, sequins, buttons, ribbons, embroidery thread and other embellishments (we will also have a supply on hand that you can use, too)
Note: The materials listed are sufficient to make one garment. If you wish to prepare more than one piece of dyed felted fabric, you are welcome to bring more materials to dye. However, it is likely you will only be able to complete one finished piece during the time allotted.
Oaxaca Cultural Navigator LLC will provide, included in your registration fee:
- all instruction
- 7 nights lodging
- 7 breakfasts
- 7 dinners
- all dye materials
- merino wool roving for one garment
- pattern booklet
- dye recipes
- sewing machine to share, needles, thread
- selected embellishments
Workshop is limited to 8 participants.
Daily Workshop Schedule:
Arrive Saturday, February 2, Depart Saturday, February 9 — 7 nights, 8 days
- Day 1, Saturday, February 2, arrive and settle into your bed and breakfast posada in Teotitlan del Valle (we send directions)
- Day 2, Sunday, February 3, natural dye workshop to prepare wool roving
- Days 3-5, Monday-Wednesday, February 4-6, make the felted fabric on silk, cotton or muslin
- Days 6-7, Thursday-Friday, February 7-8, create your pattern, sew and embellish the garment
- Day 7, Friday, February 8, evening fashion show and reception
- Day 8, Saturday, February 9, depart
Workshop Fee: $1,365 per person shared room and bath, double occupancy. Single occupancy with private bath, add $300. Most travel programs of this type and length cost more than twice as much!
Options:
Option 1: Arrive a day early, on Friday, February 1, and take a Zapotec cooking class on Saturday, February 2 with Reyna Mendoza Ruiz. Includes one night lodging, breakfast, lunch, cooking class and recipes. $110 USD each.
Option 2: Saturday, February 9, guided visit to Yagul and Mitla archeological sites, noted flying shuttle weaver who only works with natural dyes, boutique Mezcal palenque in Matatlan. Excursion includes transportation, lunch, supper, admissions, and overnight lodging February 9. $125 per person.
Option 3: Sunday, February 10, all day excursion guided visit to Tlacolula Market, including apron and rebozo avenues! Includes transportation, lunch, supper and overnight lodging. $75 per person.
Option 4: Saturday and Sunday Nights in Oaxaca City. We will arrange your stay at a lovely Bed and Breakfast in the city where you can explore the shops and dine in great restaurants. We will provide you with a list of our favorites. $125 per night per person.
About Our Workshops, Retreats and Programs. We offer educational programs that are hands-on, fun, culturally sensitive, and offer you an immersion experience. Our workshop leaders are experts in their field, knowledgeable, have teaching experience and guide you in the learning process. Our goal is to enhance your knowledge while giving you time to explore and discover.
About Lodging and Accommodations. To keep this trip affordable and accessible, we stay in a local posada operated by three generations of women — grandmother, mother, daughter — all great cooks! The food is all housemade (including the tortillas), safe to eat and delicious. Vegetarian options are available.
Accommodations are clean and basic. Shared baths are across the courtyard. (Bring flip-flops and flashlight.) The base price of the trip includes shared room and bath; single supplement with private bath is available (add $300). Please indicate your preference.
Your registration fee does NOT include airfare, taxes, admissions to museums and archeological sites, gratuities, liquor/alcoholic beverages, some meals and some transportation.
Deposits, Reservations and Cancellations. A 50% deposit ($683) is required to guarantee your spot. The final payment for the balance due (including any supplemental costs) shall be paid by December 15, 2012. We prefer Payment with PayPal. We will be happy to send you an invoice.
If cancellation is necessary, please notify us in writing by email. After December 15, 2012, no refunds are possible; however, we will make every possible effort to fill your reserved space. Your registration is transferable to a substitute. If you cancel before December 15, we will refund 50% of your deposit. We strongly recommend that you take out trip cancellation, baggage, emergency evacuation and medical insurance before you begin your trip, since unforeseen circumstances are possible.
To register or for questions, contact: normahawthorne@mac.com I am happy to set up a Skype call with you, too. Skype name: Oaxacaculture
The Funeral of Arnulfo Mendoza
In the Oaxaca village of Teotitlan del Valle, there are hundreds of excellent weavers. Few have gained the international recognition of Arnulfo Mendozo, owner of La Mano Magica gallery, and renown for his tapestry weaving skills and talent as a painter. Arnulfo died from a sudden heart attack a few days ago, leaving behind a young wife and child. He was fifty-nine.
The hundred or so pews are filled with family and friends, distant relations, collectors from Puebla, Mexico City, Oaxaca, the U.S.A., and Canada, onlookers, paparazzi. Some straggle in just before the mass ends. Before me are red pony tails, black braids woven with dark blue ribbon, lowered heads covered in shawls with their intricately woven fringes swaying in rhythm to the a capella ring of bells. The priest performs mass, sends Arnulfo’s spirit soaring. For a moment, I go with him and then come back to here, now. This prayer is for Suzie, too, as tears come. The man I sit with, another fine weaver I know, embraces me. The mass ends. We reach out and hold each person around us, moving from one to another in benediction.
Four men each carry a stanchion topped with a circle of encrusted white roses four feet in diameter. As they leave the church altar, twelve pallbearers, six on each side, follow shouldering the ornate mahogany-colored wood casket decorated with etched copper where Arnulfo rests. Behind them are four more men bearing another four stanchions of rose circles. Family members spill into the aisle with lit candles, armloads of fresh flowers, heads downcast. I see that the village grandmothers carry flowers, too.
We assemble in the church courtyard. I hug Arnulfo’s cousins and nieces, offer murmurs of condolence, and join the procession through the village streets to the cemetery. The band is out front. The tubas, clarinets, trombones, saxophones, drums alternate between dirge and dance. I walk slowly, lagging, matching steps with Magdalena, half my height now, who buried a husband and son years before during the same year. Every several blocks, we stop, pray, give the pallbearers rest. The sky darkens heavy with clouds on this late Sunday afternoon in southern Mexico.
Across from the cemetery entrance is the woman who usually sells snacks at the health clinic. The ice cream vendor scoops, fills cones with burnt vanilla, angel kisses, hot pink nopal fruit. A woman silently offers bottled water for sale. Inside, fresh flowers fill almost every urn. The grandmothers peel away from the procession as it enters sacred space and scatter to family graves. They begin to sweep away the leaves and debris, remove dried flowers and replace them with the fresh bundles they carry. The pallbearers stop under an ancient tree where the earth is soft and ready. Copal incense wafts smoky and pungent. If you get too close you will begin to cry.
The band forms a circle under the permanent awning. There is a press of people around the gravesite. I hang back to leave space for the family. An ex-pat moves away from the edge of the grave, approaches me, asks me why they dig up the bones of Arnulfo’s father to place Arnulfo there. I explain about the ten-year cycle of using the same family plot, then ask how she knows Arnulfo. “Oh, I read about it. I took a group to the Tlacolula Market today and we decided to stop here, too.” she says. “It’s time I find them and go.”
Someone is in the tree beside Arnulfo’s grave, taking photos, high above the rest of us, another ex-pat I recognize but don’t know. He is hovering at the perfect vantage point, wears white. The band plays a waltz. The ex-pat lowers himself from the tree, passes inches from me with no eye-contact, takes a few more steps, then pivots as the father-in-law of the deceased moves past me going in the other direction toward the grave. They criss-cross in front of me. The father-in-law is from another country across the Pacific Ocean. They are both now steps away. The ex-pat stops the older man, asks, “What will happen to all the things in the gallery?” I say, “That’s not a question for today.” The father-in-law’s face scrunches up, his brows almost touch, he stares, then shrugs, doesn’t answer, turns, continues on. The man in white, says, You interrupted me, that was rude. He didn’t understand you, I say. I did, he says. That’s perfect, I say. He moves to another side of the cemetery, takes photos of people huddled on tombstones.
There is clapping. Testimonials. A thunderclap answers. Human hands clap again. He was so young, I hear someone say. He was so talented, says another. That’s life, says a man I know who stops to greet me as I walk slowly away.
I think of Arnulfo. He looked so young, even at fifty-nine. Smooth, chestnut skin, a few laugh lines, a shock of slightly receding pitch hair drawn into a ponytail at the nape of his neck, the contentment of fatherhood. I remember him standing at the gallery doorway on Macedonio Alcala, he waves and smiles, I do the same, stop in, buy artist-imprinted T-shirts for my husband and son. His new wife packages them in tissue with gentleness.
I remember years ago when I first came here, in search of his fine tapestries, the shoulder bag with strands of gold and silver, woven into wool the color of nightfall, wet earth, blood, garnet, magic, climbing the hill to Casa Sagrada to find the kitchen where the family taught the secrets of Zapotec mole negro.
I think of Suzie, thirty-five, still in a coma. Why did she get into this particular taxi that crashes into a concrete barrier at sixty miles per hour? Yesterday, Kathryn and I talk about Suzie. We remember her giddy filled-with-life laugh, how people light up when she enters a room. Is it all about when our time comes, Kathryn asks? You mean, is it predetermined, how and when?, I ask. Yes, she says. No, I say. I think it is random, like when my son was held up at gun-point, averted his eyes, lived. Life happens in a moment. This is life, and to know and accept is all that matters.
After the funeral, I pick up Robin, whose daughter-in-law is scheduled for an emergency cesarean to deliver an early, underweight baby. The risks are high. The baby is in stress. We drink white wine, wait for news. The phone rings. She begins to sob, then says to her husband on the other end, thank you, Grandpa.
Like this:
18 Comments
Posted in Cultural Commentary, Oaxaca Mexico art and culture, Teotitlan del Valle
Tagged Arnulfo Mendoza, artist, burial, cemetery, culture, custom, death, funeral, Mexico, Oaxaca, painter, weaver