Tag Archives: rugs

Drumroll! Shop Oaxaca Culture Now Open

Shop Oaxaca Culturehttps://shop.oaxacaculture.com — is our new online marketplace for all things Mexico! We hope you check it out. Of course, we offer clothing including amazing blusas (blouses) and huipiles (dresses), rebozos (shawls) and bufandas (scarves), made by our weaver friends in Oaxaca, Chiapas, Guerrero, Puebla, Michoacan, and remote villages tucked into mountain folds throughout the country.

We are also featuring hand-woven, naturally dyed rugs by Eric Chavez Santiago — these beautiful, sustainable, and ethically made floor and wall coverings make a perfect accent piece for any decor. Eric and his wife Elsa Sanchez Diaz are my partners in our Oaxaca Cultural Navigator tours and workshops. They also operate Taller Teñido a Mano, a natural dye studio where they use locally sourced plant materials, including indigo and cochineal to dye wool and cotton, and teach workshops.

Speaking of decor, we have a Home Goods section that offers hand-woven baskets from the Mixteca, hand-carved mezcal cups from the Oaxaca coast, and felted floor mats and rugs. You can find ixtle hand-woven market bags here, too. We will be adding more to this section soon.

In our quest for the remarkable and well-crafted, we have included a Jewelry + More section. This includes a mash-up of materials, from gold to silver, to clay beads, semi-precious stones, and vintage pieces we collect along the journey. See the earrings and necklaces we have posted to date.

As always, we will be adding new items as we source them, so please bookmark the URL and come back to visit us often. We will no longer be using the Oaxaca Cultural Navigator blog for sales.

I’ll be returning to Oaxaca soon, arriving on October 23, just before Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), and I’ll be keeping my eyes open for new and vintage pieces I know you will love. If there is anything in particular you are looking for, too, please let us know and we will try to find it for you.

BTW, we still have a few openings in our Day of the Dead day tours to Teotitlan del Valle and Mitla.

Now you know why you haven’t heard much from me in the last few weeks. Eric and I been working frantically behind the scenes to get this website up and running. We are also working on developing a textile tour to Guatemala for winter 2025, as well as a Women’s Creative Writing Workshop Retreat for January 2025, all as we get ready for upcoming programs, including Original in Mexico City, November 15-20.

True confession is that it’s hard for me to write about Oaxaca when I’m not there, so I hope you forgive me. And, personally, my other endeavors include landscaping, which I call taming the wilderness around my Taos home, and writing creative non-fiction that I read monthly at the open mic at SOMOS, the Taos literary society. At the end of this month, my sister and I embark on a two-week road trip to visit Zuni, Hopi, and Navajo pueblos, as well as Monument Valley, Mesa Verde, Canyon de Chelly, and Chaco Canyon. My connection to and appreciation for native peoples runs deep, whether in Mexico or New Mexico. Let me know if you’d like me to blog about this travel experience.

Sending you all my best, with deepest thanks and gratitude for your interest and support over the many years I have been writing and organizing cultural experiences.

-Norma

This Weekend, Oaxaca Rug Sale in Nashville, TN

We are coming to Parachute Home in The Gulch neighborhood of Nashville this Friday, Saturday and Sunday, June 9, 10, 11, 2023, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day. Come join us if you live in Nash or nearby! Janet Chavez Santiago is representing her family of weavers from Galeria Fe y Lola in Oaxaca, Mexico. They work only in natural dyes using the finest hand-spun wool, proven to be the sturdiest for a lifetime of use! I will be bring some select back-strap loom woven garments, light and airy, designed to help you get through the hot and humid Nashville summer. Mark you calendar! Bring your friends!

Coming Soon! What we are doing and thinking about.

In recent weeks, I’ve been in conversation with Scott Roth, one of the early entrepreneurs who came to Oaxaca and Teotitlan del Valle in the mid-70’s as a young Californian, an unencumbered explorer of culture and artisanry. He discovered the serapes and blankets of Teotitlan and imagined them to be repurposed as floor rugs for the growing US Southwest Style home decor and design field. This was the beginning of the making and exporting of handwoven rugs to the American southwest. Scott has written a personal history of rug development, weaving culture, and what it was like in Oaxaca during those years along with photos. I’ll be publishing his writing and photographs in the next weeks.

Before leaving Oaxaca, I packed up textiles to ship back to Taos, New Mexico, where I landed about a week ago. I have a wide-ranging assortment of hand-woven goods from Chiapas and Oaxaca. These include ponchos, huipiles, blusas, rebozos, bufandas, pillow covers, jewelry, and assorted miscellaneous items. I’ll be photographing and listing these in the next week. Please keep your eyes tuned to blog posts coming to your inbox!

In exciting news, I’ve been talking with a San Juan Chamula, Chiapas, weaving family who we’ve known for several years. We visit them during our Chiapas Textile Study Tour in their remote highlands village of Chilinjoveltik, where Maruch and Micaela employ traditional back-strap loom weaving techniques to make those traditional furry Churro wool wrap around skirts and ponchos worn by women and men. They felt the wool textile with their feet, dancing on the wool, massaging it with pressure and water, until the fibers knit together and the result looks like a sheep pelt. I bought a couple of these and now use them as floor mats in the bath, bedroom and by the kitchen sink. They are making four small rugs for me in various shades of natural wool: creamy white, brown, grey and black. They will be ready in a month and I’ll be posting them for sale.

Brisaida is one of my favorite weavers from San Juan Colorado, on Oaxaca’s Costa Chica, that stretch of land along the Pacific Coast extending from Puerto Escondido north to Acapulco. We visit her on our Oaxaca Coast Textile Study Tour. She contacted me this week to appeal for help. She has some amazing huipiles and blusas available for sale. I said, sure, I’ll help you! Finding buyers for extraordinary work is the biggest challenge that indigenous weavers face. Most speak only a native language and without Spanish, markets elude them and they depend on middlemen who often pay less than the value of a textile and the work women put into making them . You have always been to generous with your support for these extraordinary artisans. Stay tuned for these pieces that I hope to post early next week!

Weave a Real Peace (WARP) is an international textile organization that I have belonged to for many years (we organized their 2017 international conference in Oaxaca). We admire what they do to support and promote indigenous artisans worldwide. Their annual conference is in Kent, Ohio, from July 13-16. We have been invited to make the closing presentation on July 16. Perhaps you will consider attending!

Come travel with us to explore and discover the weaving culture of Oaxaca and Chiapas. Space open in most of our 2024 tours. A $500 deposit will hold your reservation for our multi-day excursions and a 25% deposit will reserve your space on our day tours. Scroll down the right column to see what you might enjoy! Saludos.

Zapotec Oaxaca and Oriental Rugs for Sale

I am offering several rugs from my collection for sale! Why? They don’t fit into my Taos house. The sizes and colors are not adapting well to my new environment. Some are new. All are in excellent condition.

How to Buy: send an email to norma.schafer@icloud.com and tell me the rug you want to purchase by number, your email, your mailing address and which payment method you prefer: 1) Zelle bank transfer with no service fee; 2) Venmo or 3) PayPal each with a 3% service fee. I will then send you a request for funds.

Shipping cost is based on weight and destination, and is additional. I will need to know your address and determine weight to calculate mailing costs.

SOLD. #1. 6 ft x 8-1/2 ft. 100% churra sheep wool in all natural shades of gray, Caracol design.

This new, never used rug is made by a master weaver in Teotitlan del Valle, Oaxaca who is a personal friend. It took him two months to create this masterpiece. The colors are a mix of gray on a cream background. The edges where it was cut from the loom are finished with an intricate braiding technique. No fringes to get stuck in your vacuum cleaner. The Caracol design is the most difficult to achieve because of the curves. It is symbolic of communication and the frets have deep meaning regarding the continuity of life, interpreted from nearby Mitla archeological site. Tapestry woven rugs of this size and quality are retailing for between $2,800 and $3,200. I’m selling it for $1,800 plus shipping. I calculate shipping cost to be around $60 but I will let you know if you wish to purchase this.

SOLD#2. Mitla Grecas are designs found on the archeol site temples rug measures 2.5 ft x 5 ft

This is woven at the Fe y Lola studio in Teotitlan del Valle of churra sheep wool colored with natural dyes the yellow comes from wild marigold a d it is paired with a warm natural gray wool the warp is sturdy cotton. The design is an innovative version of a traditional style. this rug usually sells for $510. You can buy it for $425.

SOLD #3. From the studio of Francisco Martinez Ruiz, This is a stunner, perfect as a wall-hanging with hand-knotted macrame fringes.

This tapestry is made with all natural dyes and measures 2-1/3 ft x 3 ft. the wool is dyed with cochineal, moss, and wild marigold. It is very fine and dense weaving using 10 warp threads per inch. Retails for $450. Will sell for $325.

SOLD #4. Runner measures 2.5 ft x 9.5 ft Gorgeous, natural dyes in wild marigold, indigo overdyes, and cochineal.
Another caracol masterpiece from Fe y Lola studio. The green is achieved by dipping a wild marigold skein of wool into an indigo dye bath. Original cost $1,300. Selling for $750.
#5. Hand-knotted wool pile rug in the Persian style, made in India. Measures 4’ x 6’ and in excellent condition.

This rug has no wear and will surely provide pleasure and comfort for another two or three generations. Thick wool pile. Vintage. Outstanding. Last photo is reverse side of rug. Valued at between $600-800. Will sell for $385. This rug is heavy and I estimate shipping could be $75-100.

Thank you VERY much for looking. Let me know if you have any questions. Thank

Churro Wool: How the Spanish Brought Sheep to the Americas

In a week, I climb on the magic bird to carry me back to Oaxaca. It’s been a year-and-a-half since I left, just before Covid became a pandemic in March 2021 that erased all our plans and created this hunker-down-for-a-while, I’m scared mentality. Yesterday, I got my third jab, the Pfizer-BioNTech booster, plus a flu shot. I’m ready, face masks and sanitizer in the packing pile. Back to Teotitlan del Valle where churro sheep wool is carded and dyed to weave into rugs.

Churro sheep came to the Americas with the Spanish conquest. We find this breed in Northern New Mexico and Colorado, where the high altitudes are conducive to growing a thick pelt. When it is shorn, carded and woven, it makes thick, sturdy, resilient blankets (for humans and horses), and later adapted to the making of floor rugs.

Display of churro wool rugs at Taos Wool Festival

My adopted Zapotec family in Teotitlan del Valle, Galeria Fe y Lola, buy their handspun Churro wool from Chichicapam and the Mixteca, where 7,000 feet altitude guarantees a higher quality pelt. This elevation is similar to the Mountain States where livestock growers, spinners and dyers work in this wool to textile weavers who use the ancient European treadle loom that was also introduced by the Spanish in the New World.

Baby yak, whose wool is amazingly soft and luxurious

This sheep is descended from the Iberian Churra, prized by the Spanish for its hardiness and adaptability. It was the first breed of sheep domesticated in the New World in the 16th Century, when it was used to feed and clothe the armies of the conquistadores, clergy and settlers. We can trace the lineage to 1494 when Spain established colonies in the Caribbean and Mexico. There were no four-legged animals in North America and only llamas in South America before the Spanish arrived.

Carolyn wrote to me to add this:

How the Spanish brought sheep to America? In slings in the holds of their ships! Several years ago a replica of the Santa Maria sailed into the Oakland estuary and docked for several days. We were able to tour the ship and the sailors were more than happy to answer our questions. Four legged animals were kept in slings so their legs would not break in rough weather. The smell must have been atrocious. But the image stuck with me.I’m happy for you that you finally get to go back to Oaxaca.

Taos is host to the annual Wool Festival, now in its 38th year, and always held the first weekend in October. I made it a point to attend. Fiber art and textiles call to me here, too. Why was I surprised to see rugs woven on the peddle loom using churro sheep wool? I shouldn’t have been. I know the Navajo were resourceful in growing their herds of churro sheep, and all those beautiful blankets and rugs trace their origins to the Spanish introduction of this breed.

Today, non-native weavers use this breed, too, to make and sell beautiful rugs. I saw plenty of them at the festival, many reminiscent of Zapotec and Navajo textiles. Over the years, the churro has been cross-bred with the softer, finer merino sheep. Sometimes, churro and merino are also spun together to give a silkier, softer luster.

When I first moved here to Taos, NM, four months ago, one of the first things I did was join the Millicent Rogers Museum. It has an extensive collection of Native American folk art and craft, including early Navajo looms and textiles. This loom is more similar to the back strap loom, used as a vertical frame loom. This got me thinking about how technology is adapted to the user. It´s not a floor loom and it´s not a back strap loom. Weavers sit on the ground to weave.

History of Navajo Weaving. Some scholars speculate that the Navajo picked up this weaving technique in the 1600´s from nearby Pueblo tribes who were adept using the vertical loom. It couldńt be used to weave a textile wider than 18 inches. Larger pieces needed two identical textiles that were then stitched together. We find thesame circumstance in Oaxaca, Mexico.

In Teotitlan del Valle, the floor loom has hardly changed from when it was introduced there by the Spanish in the 1500´s, who taught the local men to weave in the tradition of the European tapestry loom. It was too heavy and cumbersome for women, who were versatile cotton back strap loom weavers, to use.

Last week I wrote about pronunciations and mis-pronunciations. Here we have another one! Settlers had a difficult time saying Churra Sheep so they said Churro instead. And, that’s how we know this breed today!

Contemporary New Mexico woven churro wool rug
Contemporary churro wool rug with natural dyes woven by Eric Chavez Santiago, Teotitlan del Valle, Oaxaca (psst, it’s for sale, ask me about it)