The best plan might be NOT to have a plan.
I spent my working life doing goals and objectives, setting annual plans and then evaluating whether I met those targets. They became part of my annual performance review. Yet, the serendipity of how my personal life progressed was never a conscious decision. Sometimes I felt bad about that. I should have had more direction.
But I couldn’t have planned it better. How I came to live in Teotitlan del Valle, Oaxaca, Mexico, was pure accident.
Many I meet ask, How did you get here? Here’s a condensed answer.
Church of the Precious Blood, Teotitlan del Valle, built atop Zapotec temple ruins
My friend, Annie Burns, moved to Teotitlan from Pittsboro, North Carolina, in the early 2000’s. She would return to visit with wonderful textiles to show and sell. At the time, there were probably three or four gueros living here. She kept inviting me to visit. Finally, I did, in 2005 with the wasband.
Teotitecas, Parade of the Canastas each year in July
Annie introduced us to Josefina Ruiz Vazquez and her mother-in-law Magdalena. They had both lost husbands to illness that same year, son and father. Josefina and Magda are great cooks. Josefina, mother of three youngsters, was left with no means of support. Annie thought, maybe they could start a B&B. We were the first experiment in hospitality for gringos.
That’s how Las Granadas B& B in Teotitlan del Valle got started. Today, it is a shadow of its former self. Another friend, Roberta Christie, stepped in to make a huge difference by creating the infrastructure to make it happen. But I digress.
Rooftop View of Teotitlan del Valle from Las Granadas
Years ago in San Francisco, I was a beginning weaver and experimented in natural dyes. My love of textiles informed my adulthood and as I traveled, I collected. During that first visit to Teotitlan del Valle, I thought I had landed in heaven. Teotitlan was filled with talented weavers and stunning textiles.
Federico Chavez Sosa at his loom in Teotitlan del Valle
I was on a quest to find a family that worked only in natural dyes. I did research in advance and knew that while it was not widespread, there were a few working with plant dyes and cochineal. I set out to find them. It wasn’t easy. And, of course, I loved all those bright aniline dye colors, too.
Yet, it was a time when we were talking more about sustainability and consuming what was healthy, organic. Making a commitment to buying an organic textile was important to me and I didn’t want to compromise.
Dye demonstration with cochineal bug, acid and base
For the first few days in Teotitlan del Valle, I walked around meeting and talking with weavers in their workshops to learn more. There were many beautiful textiles and I was smitten. But I restrained myself from buying.
Everyone could give me a natural dye demonstration, crushing the cochineal bug in my palm, squeezing lime juice, adding baking soda. I watched the color change from orange to red to pink to purple, depending on proportions and chemistry. I wasn’t certain who was actually using the process to dye the wool.
Eric Chavez Santiago dyeing wool with wild marigold
Then, the only Internet connection in town was at the pharmacy across from the church. One day, as we left, we decided to make a right turn instead of our usual left to wander through the rug market.
I hear a voice say in perfect English, “Do you want to see my rugs?” Looking down to manage my steps on the cobblestones, I waved my hand and shook my head, no. The English was too perfect. Too slick, I thought. Then I looked up, saw these magnificent rugs and stepped into the space.
Chavez Family Weavers, portrait by Norma Schafer, 2012
That’s when I met Eric Chavez Santiago and his sister, Janet. Both were university students, selling rugs in the market during Christmas vacation. Janet was huddled in the corner with a book on her lap, studying. I went to their family home and studio to see the complete collection, meet dad Federico Chavez Sosa and mom, Dolores Santiago Arrellenas.
Being a Teotiteco Danzante for Dance of the Feather requires incredible concentration
I saw the actual wool dyeing and weaving process. Eric explained how difficult the economy was. The market demand had softened since the 90’s when Santa Fe Style sent thousands of Zapotec rugs out of Oaxaca to the American southwest.
Of course, I bought rugs. Eric later told me, many came to visit them, said they would help and were never heard from.
Caracol rug design, communication symbol by color master Federico
Then, I went home to North Carolina, gave thought to how I might help this family. I wrote an arts education grant with the Carrboro Arts Center to the NC Arts Council. We got funding to bring Eric and Federico to North Carolina for workshops, expoventas (show and sale) and give a master class at NC State University College of Textiles. I helped get 10 year visas with assist from Congressman David Price‘s staff.
It was never the plan to live here. The idea was to visit once a year … maybe. Living in Oaxaca City was not considered. I fell in love with Teotitlan del Valle, her people and textiles.
The casita where I live in Teotitlan del Valle, Oaxaca
The next year, Federico and Dolores invited us to build a casita on their land. It was a surprise and a gift. Because no foreigners (even people born in other pueblos) can own property in Teotitlan del Valle, we knew that this would be a vacation home that would always be owned by the family. This relationship is based on trust, respect and good will.
Because of this unique arrangement, this is not for everyone. Many immigrants who live in Teotitlan and other usos y costumbres pueblos rent.
But plans have a way of changing and nothing is for certain. The wasband and I had our differences. Our divorce was final in 2014. For now, this is where I live and this is how I got here. I never planned it this way.
Cane bobbins wrapped with red wool dyed cochineal
Eric, who thought he might work in a bank after graduation, went on to become the founding director of education at the Museo Textil de Oaxaca, with our coaching help and his innate intelligence. This year, Eric is starting a new entrepreneurial venture at the Alfredo Harp Helu Foundation. Janet is a linguist educator at the Biblioteca Juan de Cordova. Youngest brother, Omar, will finish university in December and wants to take the family business to the next level. Federico and Dolores run Galeria Fe y Lola in Oaxaca City and continue to weave.
Goals? I have no idea what’s next.
Women’s Creative Writing and Yoga Retreat, March 2017
With a great dye master, natural dyes have strong color, as strong as commercial dyes
Will you share your story? If you live in Mexico, how did you get here?
Details, Another View of Frida Kahlo at Casa Azul
In the last three years, I’ve probably visited Casa Azul, where Frida Kahlo was born and lived with Diego Rivera, over ten times. I come because I organize the art history study tour, Looking for Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera.
Frida Kahlo Calderon, daughter of Jewish Hungarian father and Oaxaquena mother
Can you get to Mexico City next weekend?
On this latest visit last Friday with a group from Australia and New Zealand, I served as a consultant for their leader who wanted a one-day quick immersion into Frida’s life for her group.
Frida’s father and mother, her portrait of them
I wondered: How do I continue to take photos of the same iconographic details of Frida and Diego’s life? The paint brushes. The photographs. The furniture. The folk art collection.
Detail of studio paint brushes, her strokes became weaker at the end
The pre-Hispanic ceramics and lava rock sculpture. The clothing. The frog urn that contains her ashes. The paintings she created out of pain. Reverence. Disappointment. Courage. Commitment to love and family. Passion.
Watermelons. Celebration of Life. Finished just before death.
Go to the details, I told myself. Captures the parts, not the whole. Focus on the brush strokes. The lace. The color. The shadows and reflections. The images of the men and women she loved.
Colored oil crayons, still neatly boxed, waiting. Ready.
Go to the details. Find the ribbons. Find the ribs of the plant leaves. The shape of flowers. The accoutrements of the corsets and built-up shoes to hide her deformities. The textures and reflections.
Palm ribs in the expansive garden, Casa Azul
She put such a strong, uplifting face to the world despite her injuries — physical and emotional.
She called Diego “Toad” and “Panza” — ashes contained within the frog jug.
This trip to Casa Azul was different for me and I used the experience to examine the infinite, small parts of life that we often scan over to take in the big picture.
Visceral, the insides of a gourd, like a fertile womb ready to give seed. But she couldn’t.
If you want to join me in Mexico City, Thursday, July 29, for a July 30 morning start to a three-day immersion into the murals, paintings and lives of Friday and Diego, there is a space for you. It’s so easy to fly in and out!
Lover, sculptor Isamu Noguchi, in Mexico
Why is Frida Kahlo an icon? Perhaps you would like to help me answer this question.
Supported by a frame, a corset, exposed, bare and barren.
What does she represent for women who aspire to be independent, strong, feminine and vulnerable?
Painting from a wheel chair, Casa Azul
She hid her misshapen body beneath glorious hand-woven and embroidered dresses, put her best foot and face forward. Persevered and thrived.
Loved by photographer Nicolas Murry. She was devoted to Diego.
Today, she is more famous, more revered than Diego Rivera because she exposed herself and revealed the internal, damaged self.
Frida refused to let her polio define her, though she wore a brace, sturdy shoes.
Andre Breton called her Mexico’s surrealist painter. She is more than that. Surrealism conjures up Salvador Dali and the distortions he saw in life. Frida reflected on her own distortions and created beauty from them.
Saludos, Norma
On the bus, a fateful day of destruction and a lifetime of reconstruction
Would Frida have become the painter she did without having suffered the trolley car accident that sent a metal spear through her uterus?
Frida Kahlo, 1907-1954
Self-portrait, through Frida Kahlo’s looking glass
Sometimes courage requires that we each put one foot in front of the other to move forward, despite set-backs. We love Frida Kahlo because through her story she teaches us that life requires risk, innovation, and that being afraid is part of our existence.
Painted gourd adorns kitchen table in Casa Azul
When Frida died, Diego Rivera wanted to establish a museum to honor her. She was not yet recognized. He convinced his friend, Dolores Olmedo, to invest in purchasing Frida’s paintings and Casa Azul.
Closet where Frida’s belongings were sealed for 50 years
But, he made her promise not to open the green closet door, where clothing, diaries and photos remained secreted for fifty years.
In 2006, the closet was opened and art history was rewritten.
The garden at Casa Azul
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Posted in Cultural Commentary, Mexico City, Workshops and Retreats
Tagged art history, Diego Rivera, feminism, Frida Kahlo, icons of womanhood, life, Mexican painters, Mexico City, study tour, Women