At Original, Textiles from Chiapas Tell Stories
A group of us spent five days at Original this past week. This is a textile extravaganza in Mexico City that honors indigenous weavers and designers from throughout Mexico. With over 1,000 artisans showing and selling what they make, to say the event was mind-boggling is an understatement. The show also featured pottery, lacquerware, copper, […]
Why Day of the Dead is NOT Halloween
Rooted in pre-Hispanic indigenous religious and spiritual practices that has nothing to do with the Catholicism imported to Mexico by the Conquistadores and attending priests, unfortunately, Day of the Dead has morphed into what is becoming an attraction for party-goers in Oaxaca. Day of the Dead is coming back around on the calendar, observed from […]
The Social Justice of Textiles
Many of us find comfort in the handmade. We know that most handwoven, embroidered, appliqued, and other ornamental elements of cloth are made by women, many of whom live in rural areas that struggle with poverty, lack of access to health care and limited educational facilities. We buy, collect, wear handmade not only for its […]
Guest Post: Help for Oaxaca Street Children
Marla Jensen wrote to me to ask if I can help put the word out for help to support The Oaxaca Street Children Grassroots. This is the USA-based, 501 (c) 3 not-for-profit that provides funding for Centro de Esperanza Infantil in Oaxaca. Some of you know it, located on Crespo Street. Marla knows how generous […]
Oaxaca’s Pacific Coast Offers Biodiversity for NC State University Students
After five days around Oaxaca city and into the rural Tlacolula Valley, our group of 13 people boarded the Little Airplane That Could — the 13-passenger AeroTucan, for a 35-minute flight to Puerto Escondido. Over the next five days we would immerse ourselves in the the bio- and cultural diversity of Oaxaca’s Pacific Coast. There […]
Textile Flower Bouquets of San Lorenzo Zinacantan, Chiapas
Zinacantan is about thirty minutes by taxi from the center of San Cristobal de Las Casas. They grow flowers here. Large greenhouses dominate the landscape like a checkerboard rising from the valley to the hillsides. This is a prosperous community that exports this produce throughout Mexico, as far as Mexico City and Merida. Local dress […]
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 […]
2019 Oaxaca Textile Study Tour: San Mateo del Mar and the Purple Snail
Saturday, January 5 to Thursday, January 10, 2019 — Six days, five nights immersed in the weaving and natural dyeing culture of Oaxaca’s southern coast. You can take this short-course independently or add it on to the front end of our Costa Chica study tour. Itinerary Saturday, January 5, arrive in Huatulco on Oaxaca’s mid-coast. […]
2019 Oaxaca Costa Chica Study Tour: Textile Explorers
Oaxaca Costa Chica Textile Study Tour Arrive on Friday, January 11 and depart on Monday, January 21, 2019 — 10 nights, 11 days in textile heaven! Trip is limited to 11 participants. This entire study tour is focused on exploring the textiles of Oaxaca’s Costa Chica. You arrive to and leave from Puerto Escondido, connecting […]
NCSU in Oaxaca: Crocodiles, Iguanas, Mangroves at Ventanilla Beach
It was a rollicking day in the skies over Oaxaca yesterday as I made my way back to Teotitlan del Valle from Puerto Escondido via Mexico City, where Tropical Storm Beatriz was having her way with us. Sheets of rain fell as I took off in the little Aeromar turboprop. In Huatulco, the news wasn’t […]
NCSU in Oaxaca: At Tierra del Sol Permaculture Farm
This week I’m traveling with twelve students, three faculty members and a videographer from North Carolina State University Department of Horticultural Science. It’s a study abroad program that I organized for Professors Ricardo Hernandez and Julieta Sherk. Many students are from rural North Carolina and have never been to Mexico before. They are studying sustainable […]
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 […]
Locavores in Oaxaca: Eat Local and Who Makes Our Food
People in the Oaxaca valley have eaten locally grown corn, beans, squash, tomatoes, poultry and fruit for centuries, long before the term locavore came into existence. The farm-to-table movement in the United States is one example of eating fresh food produced within 100 miles. During the years I lived on an organic farm in Pittsboro, […]
Oaxaca, Mexico: Source for Natural Dye Textiles
It’s an ongoing discovery. Finding the weavers who work with natural dyes. They live and work in humble homes or grander casas, on back alleys, dirt streets, cobbled avenues, main highways, hillsides and flat-lands. Their studios are filled with the aroma and sights of natural materials — stinky indigo dye vats, wood burning fires, prickly […]
Agave Beverage of Choice? Aguamiel, Pulque and Mezcal
Here we are in Oaxaca, Mexico, center of the universe for the cultivation, production, distilling and bottling of agave nectar we call mezcal. Mezcal is hot. A hot commodity, that is. I stand corrected! Agave is not a cactus. It is a succulent. Thanks to reader Andrew for bringing this to my attention. I’ve changed […]
A Day of Clay: Visiting Santa Maria Atzompa with Innovando la Tradicion
In their own words, Innovando la Tradicion is a creative platform where artisans, designers and artists share skills, knowledge and stories to rethink and honor the ceramic traditions of Oaxaca. The group helps potters and pottery communities in Oaxaca with support to develop their trade. Before the new year, my sister and I joined a one-day excursion […]
Frida Kahlo Mania: See Her in the USA
Our iconic Frida Kahlo, her life, art, clothing, jewelry, pain, sorrow, tragedies, affairs and everything else worth examining about her is featured in 2015 exhibitions around the United States of America. Frida Kahlo: Art, Garden, Life is an exhibition at the New York Botanical Garden featuring the plants that Frida loved to wear and had in […]
Iconic Frida Kahlo: A Look Inside Her Closet
Frida Kahlo is iconic. I have described her as the 20th century’s Virgin of Guadalupe. Her legend endures. The Huffington Post has just published a photographic essay by Ishiuchi Miyako of her personal belongings, along with letters and photographs, first revealed decades after her death. These clothes and other life’s artifacts — letters, corsets, altered shoes […]
2016 Looking for Frida Kahlo + Diego Rivera: Mexico City Art History Study Tour
Come to Mexico City for an art history tour to explore the lives of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera through their art. This is in-depth art education at its best! We offer you a narrated immersion experience that you cannot get visiting these places on your own. Come solo, with a partner or friend. Norma […]
Looking for Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo: Garden at Casa Azul
Casa Azul, home of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera in Coyoacan, Mexico City, has a stunning garden. Once the home of Frida’s father and mother, and where she was born in 1907, Rivera bought the property after the family amassed huge debt paying for years of treatment after the bus accident that severely handicapped Frida […]
Young Oaxaca Weavers Honored and Encouraged
Faye Sims, a textile friend from Salt Spring Island, Vancouver, BC shared a blog story today about the new exhibition at the Museo Textil de Oaxaca and I wanted to pass the gist of it on to you! The story refers to Eric Chavez Santiago, our close family friend and we are incredibly proud of […]
Black and White Photography Magazine Spotlights Oaxaca Workshop Instructor
Black and White Photography Magazine features the work of fine art photographer Sam Robbins in its current issue Number 91. Sam co-leads our summer 2012 Oaxaca Photography Expedition: Market Towns and Artisan Villages with her husband Tom, also an art photographer and architecture professor. As a testimony to their extraordinary teaching style and technical knowledge, […]
Why Learning Spanish Makes You Smarter
Learning a second language like Spanish or any other language for that matter, makes the brain nimble! according to psychologists and language researchers. I liked this article published in The New York Times, March 18, 2012. Studies show that learning a foreign language as an adult will stave off dementia and Alzheimer’s. It’s like exercise for […]
A Worthy End-of-Year Gift of Education: Oaxaca Learning Center
I received this message from Gary Titus, who has made a commitment over many years to educate Oaxaca children and prepare them to go on to university. This is a legitimate and worthy organization. I want to share his message with you: From Gary Titus–Greetings from the Friends of the Oaxaca Learning Center! 2011 has […]
Oaxaca Center Promotes Indigenous Language and Culture, Opens November 26, 2011
Tucked behind the tall green-tinged cantera stone wall at the corner of Av. Independencia and Fiallo is the newly renovated 16th century Dominican convent San Pablo de Indios. It is reinvented as Centro Academico y Cultural San Pablo. The renovation has been a painstaking six-year project funded by the Alfredo Harp Helu Foundation to […]
Pinatas Galore Plus Great Shopping at Mexican Market “La Cumplidora” in Sanford, NC
Drive by window-shopping is my weakness. I was on my way to meet professor Robin Greene, who leads our Oaxaca Women’s Creative Writing and Yoga Retreat: Lifting Your Creative Voice, at our mid-way breakfast diner in Sanford, NC. Almost there, and I noticed some pretty remarkable, huge pinatas hanging in a store front on the […]
Mexican Immigration Heartbreak: Catch 22
Earlier this week I was visiting friends in Morganton and Valdese, NC, in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Morganton is fortunate. It has a chicken plant that is still operating. Who are the workers? Latino/a immigrants. No one else wants the job. Morganton is also the home of the deceased, venerable U.S. Senator […]
Oaxaca Health Clinic Welcomes Carolina Nursing Students
The School of Nursing at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill encourages students to develop the knowledge and skills needed to provide quality care in global environments and to recent immigrants to the United States. Students can do this by taking a summer course and meet requirements by volunteering with a nongovernmental organization […]
Indigenous Languages Sustain Cultural Heritage: At Risk of Extinction
Zapotec, Mixtec, Huave, Nahuatl and the other 12 indigenous languages of Oaxaca have fewer and fewer native speakers. As young people want to become part of the “mainstream” Spanish-speaking culture they leave their mother language and their culture behind — often out of the strong desire to assimilate. And continuing education requires commitment, resources, and […]