Take 20% Off the Shop — Use Code AUG20
It’s still summer and we have some beautiful, lightweight clothing for sale in the Shop that will carry you through the dog days of August and into September. And, as we transition into autumn and then winter, check out some mid-to heavier weight blouses (blusas) and huipiles and ponchos. All are handwoven. Many are made […]
Just in: Two Embroidered Oaxaca Blouses
We’ve just added these to the shop where you can purchase them directly and use a credit card or PayPal for no added fees! http://www.shop.oaxacaculture.com Size Small, measuring 19″ wide and 21″ long. Both of these are embroidered using a sewing machine, but the pattern is created free-form. They do not use a template and […]
Question: What is the difference between Artist and Artisan?
Are artisans also artists? This is a question that has been ruminating in my mind for a while now. It was triggered again recently when I attended the Weave a Real Peace (WARP) conference in Colorado in mid-May 2024. When there, I listened to the keynote presentation by Lynda Teller Pete, a Navajo weaver from […]
Oaxaca Deep Dive: Cooking, Culture + Craft Tour
Jump into the magic of Oaxaca, Mexico, from January 11 to 17, 2025. During this six-night, seven-day immersion tour you will discover (almost) everything this UNESCO World Heritage city has to offer. You will take a hands-on cooking class from a traditional chef who uses an outdoor wood-fired kitchen to prepare acclaimed pre-Hispanic dishes, visit […]
10/30/24 Day of the Dead Tour in Oaxaca: Hands-on Bucket-List Experience
On October 30, 2024, we give you a wide-ranging, immersion Day of the Dead experience of a lifetime! Construct a Day of the Dead Altar. Participate in a workshop using wild marigold botanical dyes. Savor traditional tamales made with mole amarillo with a local Zapotec family. Taste artisanal mezcal. Discuss culture, traditions, and Zapotec history. […]
Denver, Colorado and Update
Just a brief note to tell you why I haven’t been writing lately. I’m in Denver and go into a surgical procedure this afternoon at University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Center to repair L4-L5 vertebrae that has been causing me increasing pain over the last year. I’ll keep you posted as I progress. Meanwhile, yesterday […]
Textile Tour in Oaxaca, Mexico, December 2024
Join us in Oaxaca from December 6 to 14, 2024, for a spectacular insider’s view of the textile culture and history of this World Heritage colonial city. We have created this experience in collaboration with Fiber Circle Studio in Petaluma, California, and owner founder Alisha Bright. Lots of touring plus hands-on workshops to keep you […]
Mother’s Day Tidbits + New in the Shop
Mother’s Day, started by social activist Anna Jarvis in the early 20th century to honor her own mother, has now become the second most popular holiday in the United States for gift-giving, following Christmas. Groups of mothers whose sons had fought or died on opposite sides of the American Civil War were involved in the […]
New Shipment Arrived for Shop Oaxaca Culture: Shop Mother’s Day
Three more very large shipping boxes just arrived from Oaxaca and we’ve just listed their contents on the shop! We are featuring handwoven and densely embroidered huipiles and blusas, rebozos, neck ties and bandanas, handwoven palm baskets, beaded coin purses, and more. These are from the Oaxaca Coast, Chiapas, the Mixteca Alta, and Michoacan. There […]
Choco-Cafe
One of the sublime pleasures of living in Mexico is being able to savor her homemade chocolate. Chocolate, the word, comes from the Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs. In its original tongue, it is spelled Xocolatl, pronounced show-koh-lah-tel. In reality, the t and the l in the final syllable are slammed together, but for […]
Oaxaca to New Mexico, a Contrast
I arrived in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on Thursday afternoon. After getting up at three o’clock in the morning to get in the taxi at four o’clock to arrive at the airport forty-five minutes later, I’d say the trip was pretty easy. It was a mere six hours plus from Oaxaca through Houston to get here, […]
Lament of the Dog Catcher
Butch came to me six years ago, joining Mamacita and Tia, to form a tribe of three. At the time, he may have been six years old, sleek, muscular, a commanding presence. Today, he is an old man, thick in the middle, graying almost beyond recognition, limping from time to time on his back left […]
Xi-Guia: Making Handbags in Teotitlán del Valle
I spent the morning with Estela Montaño and Edith Montaño Martínez at their home and workshop in Teotitlán del Valle, Oaxaca. Xi-Guía is the name of the town in Zapteco, the indigenous language here. We were filling out a grant application to WARP (Weave a Real Peace). They needed my help since they are not […]
Jump Start Summer Blouse Sale: Oaxaca + Chiapas
Stay cool and fresh as spring is here and summer is just around the corner. Preview sale of Oaxaca and Chiapas cotton and linen blouses before we put them in our shop. The shop won’t open back up until mid-April. Buy before March 29 and we will take these back to the USA when we […]
Day of the Dead 2024 Photo Workshop Instructor Featured in Elle Magazine
Elle Magazine Mexico features an interview with photographer Luvia Lazo from Teotitlán del Valle, Oaxaca. Luvia is leading a photography workshop here in October 2024, just before Day of the Dead. The interview is in Spanish, but you can use Google translate or just get the gist of it by looking at her extraordinary photographs. […]
Deep Into the Mixteca Alta: Oaxaca Textile + Folk Art Study Tour 2025
5 nights, 6 days, March 12-17, 2025 — Starting and ending in Oaxaca City We go deep into the Mixteca Alta, a mountainous region of the Sierra Madre del Sur in the north of Oaxaca state that is situated between the capital city and the Oaxaca coast. This area is home to Mixtec-speaking and Triqui […]
Surprises in the Mixteca Alta, Oaxaca: Handwoven Palm Baskets
OMG. Shuko and I went a little crazy in the Tlaxiaco (Tla-hee-ah-koh) market that happens once a week on Saturday, starting at 7:30 a.m. in the Mixteca Alta This is a tianguis similar to the one we find on Sundays in Tlacolula, but much more rustic. Recently, it was held in the town zocalo across […]
Pilgrimage to San Pablo Tijaltepec, Mixteca Alta, Oaxaca
The map says it’s just under five hours from Oaxaca City to the remote Mixtec village of San Pablo Tijaltepec. For those of us who traveled there last Sunday on our Mixteca Alta textile study tour, it seemed more like many more hours and a world far, far away. We were based in Tlaxiaco (Tla-hee-ah-koh), […]
Drought Hits Mexico Hard, Including Oaxaca
I’m reposting this from The Mezcalistas team and Susan Coss, who is a mezcal educator and runs Mezcal in a Bottle throughout the USA. She operates out of the Bay Area of Northern California. There is water urgency here in Oaxaca, where many of us buy water for drinking and household use. We are alarmed […]
In the Triqui Village of Chicahuaxtla, Mixteca Alta, Oaxaca
Our friend Shuko Clouse captures the essential emotion and experience of being in the Triqui village of San Andres Chicahuaxtla in the Mixteca Alta as she traveled with us this past weekend on a textile exploration seven hours beyond the city of Oaxaca. She writes a blog called Our Universe that is part of her […]
Threads of Connection in Oaxaca + Chiapas: Norma Presents at OLL, Tuesday, March 5
This Tuesday, March 5, 2024, at 4:30 p.m. I will be making a presentation at the Oaxaca Lending Library titled Threads of Connection in Oaxaca and Chiapas: Meeting Artisans Where They Live and Work. If you live here or are visiting, I invite you to join us. Contact the OLL website to register. During the […]
2025 Oaxaca Coast Textile Study Tour
Arrive on Saturday, January 11 and depart on Sunday, January 19, 2025 — 8 nights, 9 days in textile heaven! This tour will not be offered in 2026! We go deep, and not wide. We give you an intimate, connecting experience. We spend time to know the culture. You will meet artisans in their homes […]
Oaxaca Day of the Dead Photo Workshop
Three Days — October 27, 28, 29, 2024, 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Arrive just before Dia de los Muertos, Day of the Dead, to explore the Zapotec village of Teotitlan del Valle as preparations begin for this grand celebration to honor the ancestors. We take you inside people’s homes and workshops where you might […]
2025 Women’s Creative Writing Workshop Retreat: Inspirations for a New Year
January 2-8, 2025, seven days, six nights in Teotitlan del Valle, Oaxaca, Mexico. It’s the start of 2025, a new year, and we are inspired to revisit the years passed and the one that now begins. What are our hopes, dreams, wishes, aspirations. What are our regrets. What memories come up that bring us gratitude, […]
Pinotepa de Don Luis Weaver Dazzles Us on the Oaxaca Coast
Our first stop in Pinotepa de Don Luis is at the small home and workshop of weaver Sebastiana Guzman. Her work is always very fine — she uses the finest cotton from the best mill in Puebla state, as well as hand-spun coyuchi brown, white and green cotton. The village is known for its work […]
Las Sanjuaneras Cooperative, on the Oaxaca Coast, San Juan Colorado
At the end of a winding road about an hour-and-a-half up the mountain from MEX 200, the coastal highway leading north to Acapulco and beyond, is the Mixtec village of San Juan Colorado. Here, almost all the women weave and there are over thirty registered cooperatives. One of our favorites is Las Sanjuaneras. Why? They […]
Tixinda. Purple Snail Dye. Caracol Púrpura. On the Oaxaca Coast.
Tixinda is the Mixtec word for the purple snail, also known as caracol púrpura in Spanish. It produces a rich purple dye used for ceremonial clothing in the Oaxaca coast village of Pinotepa de Don Luis. The weavers here make beautiful garments on the back strap loom using touches of this rare dye in the […]
Hot, Humid on the Oaxaca Coast. Heading North on the Costa Chica. Day One.
Last night was amazing. The bioluminescence in the Manialtepec Lagoon was the most spectacular I’ve ever seen in the eight or so years we having been coming to Puerto Escondido for the start of the Oaxaca Coast Textile Study Tour. (We are scheduling this again for 2025, so please tell us if you want to […]
Tootling Around the Villages in Oaxaca
We weren’t exactly going off on a tangent, getting sidetracked, or wandering aimlessly. We had a plan. I spent Thursday and Friday last week taking friends to visit artisans down MEX 190 — the Panamerican Highway — to visit makers I have known for years. Oh, and did I say it’s 80 degrees Fahrenheit here […]
Belated Happy New Year From Oaxaca + Eating
Welcome 2024. On New Year’s Eve, I traveled from Albuquerque to Oaxaca, arriving just in time for a birthday dinner at Quince Letras with my friend Carol. We sat on the rooftop terrace and enjoyed a delicious tomato salad and tlayuda with chapulines (yes, grasshoppers). Left to right: Santi the Snowman, sculpture in front of […]