Hands-on Dye Workshops + Textile Experiences
We offer textile experiences in our studio where we weave and work only in natural dyes.You can see the process during our textile tours, dye workshops or customized weaving experiences. Ask us for more information about these experiences, customized scheduling, and prices.
Oaxaca Natural Dye Workshops: Choose 1, 2 or 3 Days Set your own dates. Just added: One-Day Indigo Dye Workshop click link for details
Special One-Day Folk Art Tour on October 31, 2022, Day of the Dead.
Oaxaca has the largest and most diverse textile culture in Mexico! Learn about it.
1-Day Oaxaca City Collectors Textile Tour. Exclusive Access! We take you into the homes and workshops of Oaxaca State's prize-winning weavers. They come from the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, the Mixteca, Mixe, Amuzgos and Triqui areas and represent their weaving families and cooperatives here. For collectors, retailers, buyers, wholesalers, fashionistas.
1-Day Ocotlan Highway Folk Art Study Tour. Visit woodcarvers, back-strap loom weavers, museums and markets. Transportation to/from the city. Ask us to take you.
1-Day Tlacolula Valley Folk Art Study Tour. Visit weavers, potters, an antique dealer, apron-making cooperative, archeological sites.
1-Day Oaxaca Textile Walking Tour When you visit Oaxaca immerse yourself in our textile culture: How is indigenous clothing made, what is the best value, most economical, finest available. Suitable for adults only. Set your own dates.
2022 Going Deep, Not Wide--Extended Tours
February 5-13, 2023: Bucket List Tour: Monarch Butterflies + Michoacan. Spiritual, mystical connection to nature. Go deep into weaving, pottery, mask-making and more! We haven't offered this tour since 2019 and we anticipate it will sell out quickly. TWO SPACES OPEN
February 21-March 1, 2023: Chiapas Textile Study Tour--Deep Into the Maya World Based in San Cristobal de las Casas, we travel to distant pueblos to meet extraordinary weavers --Best of the Best! Just a handful of spaces open.
Stay Healthy. Stay Safe. In Oaxaca, wear your mask. Questions? Want more info or to register? Send an email to Norma Schafer.
We require 48-hour advance notice for map orders to be processed. We send a printable map via email PDF after order received. Please be sure to send your email address. Where to see natural dyed rugs in Teotitlan del Valle and layout of the Sunday Tlacolula Market, with favorite eating, shopping, ATMs. Click Here to Buy Map After you click, be sure to check PayPal to ensure your email address isn't hidden from us. We fulfill each map order personally. It is not automatic.
Chatino Textiles from Oaxaca at Santa Fe Trunk Show
The Santa Fe International Folk Art Market runs from Friday night to Sunday afternoon the second weekend of July each year. Festivities start days in advance with galleries and retail shops all over town featuring artisan trunk shows from various parts of the world. (Mark your 2017 calendar for July 14, 15, 16)
La Chatina! Vintage blouses, embroidered + crocheted. Photo from Barbara Cleaver.
Barbara Cleaver brought a collection of vintage Chatino blouses to La Boheme clothing gallery on Canyon Road, and anyone with a connection to Oaxaca showed up to see what was in store.
Cross-stitch Chatina blouse detail. Photo from Barbara Cleaver.
Barbara, with her husband Robin, run the Hotel Santa Fe in Puerto Escondido, and are long-time residents of both Santa Fe and Oaxaca. The coffee farm they manage is not far from the Chatino villages near the famed pilgrimage site of Juquila.
Chatino people have close language and cultural ties to the Zapotec villages of the Oaxaca valley. Their mountain region is rich in natural resources and many work on the organic coffee farms that are an economic mainstay. About 45,000 people speak Chatino. Hundreds of indigenous languages and dialects are still spoken in Oaxaca, which make it culturally rich and diverse. This is reflected in the textiles!
Barbara has personal relationships with the women embroiderers of the region and what she brought to show was the real deal!
Chatina woman wears extraordinary embroidered blouse. Photo from Barbara Cleaver.
The blouses are densely embroidered with crocheted trim. The older pieces are fashioned with cotton threads and the needlework is very fine. Newer pieces reflect changing times and tastes, and include polyester yarns that often have shiny, gold, silver and colored tinsel thread.
We see this trend in other parts of Mexico, too, including the more traditional villages of Chiapas where conservative women love to wear flash!
The shoulder bag — called a morral — is hand-woven and hand-tied (like macrame), and equally as stunning.
Fine example of Chatino bag from Barbara Cleaver
UPDATED INFORMATION
A follow-up note from Barbara Cleaver about the bag:
Underside of knotted and embroidered Chatino bag, from Barbara Cleaver
To enquire about purchasing any of Barbara Cleaver’s Chatino clothing and accessories, please contact her at Mexantique@aol.com
Chatino shoulder bag, called a morral. Photo by Karen Elwell.
Karen Elwell, whose Flickr site documents Oaxaca textiles, says that the flowers and birds border (above) are machine stitched and the parrots and flowers (below) are hand-knotted from the warp threads of the woven bags. (See Barbara Cleaver’s more exact explanation above.)
Barbara has many examples of these. I was just too busy looking to take good photos!
Invitation to La Boheme trunk show, pre-Folk Art Market.
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Posted in Clothing Design, Cultural Commentary, Oaxaca Mexico art and culture, Textiles, Tapestries & Weaving
Tagged Barbara Cleaver, blouses, Chatino, clothing, design, Embroidery, folk art, handwoven, International Folk Art Market, La Boheme, Mexico, Oaxaca, Santa Fe, shoulder bags, textiles, weaving