Thanks to Your Vote: New Logo
Thanks to all the 85 people who responded to our request to help us choose a logo for Oaxaca Cultural Navigator LLC. Your opinion matters and we listened! In my graduate school statistics study at The University of Notre Dame, I learned that any survey response of N30+ is valid. We are secure in our […]
Chiapas, Too: Round Two
We are mid-way through our second Chiapas tour. I always say, The right people always show up! and they do. We saw the same things, made the same stops, met the same people and each tour is different based on interests, questions, experience and personalities. We have four weavers and two three textile designers on […]
Oaxaca Style, Indigenous Beauty and Design
This morning I received a link to this article from Vogue Mexico that features Oaxaca clothing designers modeled by Oaxaca indigenous woman Karen Vega. This grabbed my attention for many reasons. Just as there is a movement in the United States to recognize non-traditional beauty, i.e. a departure from a fashion industry defined by tall, […]
Announcing Mano del Sur by Shuko Clouse — Curated Goods
Shuko Clouse just opened her online shop Mano del Sur. She is a friend and I want to help give her a boost. Shuko is from Japan. She loves Mexico and particularly Oaxaca. She combines her aesthetic for quality and simplicity with all unique, one-of-a-kind pieces she finds along the way during her travels south-of-the-border. […]
Cultural Meaning in Magdalenas Aldama: Chiapas Textile Study Tour
Magdalenas Aldama is an hour-and-a-half from San Cristobal de Las Casas, Chiapas, on a winding road deep into the mountains beyond San Juan Chamula. Its isolation is protection from the forces of modernization. The Spanish had difficulty getting there to evangelize. Traditions run deep and strong. Being remote is a double-edge sword. It guarantees lack […]
India Journal: Fill in the Blanks, Stencil Art
Remember when you were a child and got a set of crayons and coloring book? The book was printed with figures and designs. It was your job fill in the color between the lines. Be careful, a parent or teacher would say. Be neat. Don’t go outside the lines. There were no blank pages on […]
A Day in Xochistlan de Vicente Suarez, Puebla with Merry Foss and Friends
Xochitl is the Nahuatl word for flower and Tlan de Totonaco is the literal meaning for beautiful place. Xochistlan is the beautiful place between the flowers. (You can tell if a word has a Nahuatl origin if it ends in tl.) Here in the Sierra Norte of Puebla state, a lush landscape of rugged mountains, […]
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) Barbara Cleaver […]
Oaxaca-Santa Fe Connection and the International Folk Art Market
The 2016 Santa Fe International Folk Art Market is over. Hard to believe it’s been ten days since I last wrote a blog post. This is the second year I’ve come to Santa Fe, New Mexico, to volunteer for this amazing, often overwhelming experience of meeting hundreds of artisans from around the world. They come […]
Chiapas Textiles + Folk Art Study Tour: Deep Into the Maya World
We are based in the historic Chiapas mountain town of San Cristobal de las Casas, the center of the Maya world in Mexico. Here we will explore the textile traditions of ancient people who weave on back strap looms. Women made cloth on simple looms here long before the Spanish conquest in 1521 and their techniques […]
Arte Walk Oaxaca: Graphic Arts + Painting Studios
Thursday nights are Arte Walk Oaxaca. There’s a nice little black and white map that pinpoints the independent art spaces and workshops. My favorites (plus one not listed on the map) are clustered in the neighborhood just a few blocks from the Zocalo, bounded by Hidalgo, Doblado, Xicotencatl and Colon. It’s becoming Oaxaca’s SOHO (south […]
Color Culture: Oaxaca at the Santa Fe International Folk Art Market
Oaxaca and Mexico is well-represented at the Santa Fe International Folk Art Market, a knock-your-socks-off bazaar of many of the world’s best artisans. Interspersed among the over 150 exhibitors are some of Oaxaca’s best artisans, too. Selection to participate is very competitive. Preference seems to be given to collectives and cooperatives that further the economic, […]
Mexican Impressions: Oaxaca Printmaking Workshop
Sunday to Friday, January 10-15, 2016, 6 workshop days. Starts Sunday morning and ends Friday evening with a gallery show and reception. Anyone with an interest, including beginners as well as emerging and established artists who want to build their portfolio and add a gallery show to their resume, is welcome. $995 per person. Oaxaca […]
Textile Felt Fashion Designer Teaches Oaxaca Workshop
Maddalena Forcella is an Italian fashion designer who has lived in Mexico most of her adult life. She works in felt and creates beautiful, comfortable clothing that is Art-to-Wear. In the workshop we create the felted nuno cloth and then design garments using indigenous Mexican textile patterns including the quechequemitl, huipil, rebozo and blusa. You […]
Earrings, a Pendant, Dreams Realized: Sterling Silver Jewelry Workshop
Beryl Simon from Boston, Massachusetts, signed up with us to take a sterling silver jewelry making workshop before she visited Oaxaca. She wrote: I love working with silver! I have a passion for jewelry making and design, and would like to expand my skills. I also love the work created in this workshop that I […]
Felted Fabric Fashion Oaxaca Style
Making felt is one of the oldest forms of fabric known to humankind–a process more than 6,000 years old. Felt happens when sheep wool is moistened, heated and agitated. For our Felted Fashion Workshop with Jessica de Haas in Oaxaca this week, we used merino wool dyed with natural plant materials — […]
Linking Oaxaca Past to Present Through Arts and Design
The New York Times featured Oaxaca as a living example of how to best marry past and present in its June 15, 2013 feature story, The Past Has a Presence Here written by Edward Rothstein in The Critic’s Notebook in the Times Arts & Design section. Says Rothstein, “In the museums and gardens of Oaxaca, Mexico, […]
Felted Fashion Workshop: Making Wearable Art Oaxaca Style with Wool, Silk and Cotton
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 […]
Indigo Dye Workshop: It’s Called Shibori, Not Tie Dye
Actually, using resist dye technique using indigo to create patterns and designs on cotton is called shibori, tritik, amarra or plangi(depending upon country of origin). It’s not the hippie dippie 60’s tie dye that’s been reincarnated on beach blanket bingo T-shirts. It’s high fashion wearable art. Not long ago, I saw an Eileen Fisher designer […]
Felting Wool at Museo Textil de Oaxaca
Textiles and fiber arts are the primary reason I landed in Oaxaca. It started years ago when I learned to weave in San Francisco, California. Now that I am here in Mexico almost full-time, I get to take advantage of the great workshops at the Museo Textil de Oaxaca organized by education director Eric Chavez […]
Artist’s Studio: Mauricio Cervantes, Oaxaca, Mexico
There is a robust contemporary art scene in Oaxaca that is rooted in the Mexican art traditions of Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros with influences by Francisco Toledo, Oaxaca’s living art treasure. Mauricio Cervantes is one of the new generation who taps deeply into his cultural history. Hidden behind a peacock-blue facade on Avenida Benito […]
Lost Textile Tradition of Making Needle Lace Revived in Oaxaca
The town of Tlacolula de Matamoros, Oaxaca, is widely known for its Sunday market or tianguis. Tourists and villagers from throughout the region flock there to shop, eat or stock up on whatever is needed for home or workshop. Visitors know little about the textile traditions of Tlacolula, where up until the 1960’s cotton and […]
When Indigenous Oaxaca Dress Becomes Inspiration for High Fashion
Years ago I discovered Mexican designer Carla Fernandez and her sweet little book (out of print) that taught me the difference between indigenous and Western clothing design. Rather than form fitting construction with darts, waistbands, zippers, buttons and collars, pre-European style clothing of the Americas is made for easy fit and comfort. The emphasis is […]
Make Mexican Sterling Silver Jewelry: Workshop in Oaxaca
Learn to make sterling silver jewelry — rings, pendants, earrings — using the ancient lost-wax process. This is an excellent introduction to wax carving and sling casting techniques, plus the finish work needed to laminate, stretch, cut, file, solder, polish and buff your piece. Comprehensive 3-Day Silver Jewelry Workshop: $325 […]