Palestinian Embroidered Pillow by Crossroads Trade
TAFA is having its first public event during the AQS Quilt Show in Paducah. We are excited to introduce TAFA to the public at large and are hoping to raise funds for our new website. We have a silent auction and raffle, both available to online participants and an exhibit and vendors. These are ways in which you can donate to support our efforts. This blog will feature the works and vendors in the next two weeks. You can see all of the TAFA Market posts in one place by clicking on this link.
Kate Harris is coming all the way from Massachusetts to be a vendor in our TAFA Market! Her car will be loaded down with gorgeous textiles and treasures from around the world: molas, African embroideries, Wounaan baskets, Palestinian pillows and much more! I have worked with ethnic textiles and crafts for over 20 years and Kate's selection and commitment to quality are among the best I have ever seen. Extra bonus: Crossroads Trade is committed to fair trade. These products represent traditions and people who have honed skills over the centuries, many whom now live in precarious and dangerous parts of the world. Embroidery, weaving and sewing allow communities to maintain the traditional structures of their communities without having to leave their homes for work in factories or meaningless labor.
Kuna Mola: Monkeys, Bananas and A Hammock from Crossroads Trade
I always find it interesting how simple and similar materials can generate such different results. For example, the first image in this post is of a Palestinian embroidered pillow. The following image is a South African embroidery, both using black cotton fabric as the background. But, look at the results! The Palestinians excel at cross stitch, boldly emphasizing negative and positive spaces. The South African embroidery uses running stitches, almost calling pointillism into mind.
South African Embroidery, "Cow", from Crossroads Trade
All of these cultural textiles are easily recognizable to those of us who are familiar with them. We can easily point out which countries or communities they represent. However, as with everything in life, styles also evolve. For example, certain mola makers become famous world-wide for their individual techniques and themes. And, contact with people like Kate has also inspired groups to adapt their traditional crafts to products which can be marketed worldwide. We then end up seeing two kinds of product: collectible pieces by artists within the communities and production pieces artisans who don't necessarily have the "muse". This means that there are huge variations of prices within similar kinds of pieces. One mola might be $35 while another might be $350. Kate will have that range with her, both low and high ticket items.
Arpillera from Lima, Peru, Crossroads Trade
Many quilters and sewers like to use unfinished textiles or vintage remnants to incorporate into their own pieces. A mola, for example, can be sewn into a quilt, a bag, a pillow, on to a jean jacket, or if you want to "go" Kuna, make a blouse for yourself, too! (The Kuna women wear them on the front and back of their floral, puffy-sleeved blouses.) Take a look at Crossroads Trade and if you see anything on the website that you would like Kate to bring, you can send her a message through her site or leave a comment here. Kate is bringing mostly textiles, but she also has gorgeous Wounaan and Emberá baskets from Panama.
Wounaan and Emberá baskets from Panama, Crossroads Trade
I don't know about you, but I do know that I will have a hard time looking at Kate's things and not getting them all slobbered up with drool. I'll have to wear a bib or something.... (Excuse the 4th grade humor.... just lost a bit of control!) And, I am super excited to meet Kate. We have talked once on the phone and I just know that the stories will be flying. It will be a great time at our TAFA Market and I do hope that you can join us!
The latest issue of National Geographic features the Tarahumara who live in the Sierra Madre Mountains of Mexico. Famed in athletic circles for their running endurance, the Tarahumara call themselves "Raramuri", or "the one who walks well". The article, of course, explores the tension between traditional ways of life collapsing as modernity infringes on Tarahumara land. Isn't that the story of all indigenous groups around the world?
The Tarahumara live in remote mountainous areas which have been difficult to access and have little arable land. The Copper Canyon Mountains cover part of the area. Mining and logging have long brought industrialists into Tarahumara country, but now they are also seen as a resource in themselves and efforts to capitalize on their colorful costumes and handicrafts threaten to further erase their autonomy. Cynthia Gorney, author of the article, focused on the life of one Tarahumara woman who had left her village because she wanted to study. She became a nurse and serves as a bi-lingual health care practioner for her people. She lives in town, has modern amenities, and wants to see the Tarahumara access more of these resources for themselves. Gorney explores some of the loss that modernization brings. Sure, everyone wants running water, electricity, appliances, and less back breaking demands. Unfortunately, with it comes drug addiction, alcoholism, depression, and other negative influences that can often devastate Native communities.
I first learned about the Tarahumara about 20 years ago. A friend of mine, Ginger Blossom, sells their baskets, ceramic pots, dolls, and some textiles. She has been travelling down to the Copper Canyon for years, often taking medical supplies coveted by the people she supports. Ginger has a website where she occasionally reports on her travels. Her store is in Richmond, IL, just an hour and a half north of Chicago, definitely worth the trip!
Corn cob dolls by the Tarahumara available at Native Seeds
Bernard Fontana wrote a beautiful book about the Tarahumara in the 1970's, "Tarahumara: Where Night is the Day of the Moon" (see slide show at the end of this post). Although thirty years have passed, the book still seems current as even then, Fontana spoke of the threats the Tarahumara faced with modernization. Here are a couple of excerpts related to their handicrafts:
"When Father Fonte first met the Tarahumaras in 1607 they made all of their clothing with the materials at hand, largely from plant fibers but no doubt from hides of wild animals as well. A short time after the introduction of sheep, and still in the seventeenth century, wool began to substitute plant fiber, with the Tarahumaras, principally the women, weaving the wool and shaping the clothing. Precisely when Tarahumaras first began to acquire woven cotton cloth and other imported textiles is difficult to say, although the process doubtless began sometime in the 1600s. By the 1930s, most Tarahumara clothing was sewn from muslin and from other cloth manufactured elsewhere, but the sewing was done by the women. This continues today. Women enhance their sewing by doing lovely embroidery, chiefly on blouses, loincloths and cottons. The designs, in a full range of colors provided by commercial embroidery yarns, emphasize life forms: floral, human and other animal, and include geometric figures which may represent such entities as the sun and moon. Embroidery is one of the more important Tarahumara art forms. Their embroidery designs have a charm and naivete that are unique." (page 46).
"If pottery is inorganic, and I am not altogether sure that is the right way to think of it, then basketry is most certainly organic. Nearly every Tarahumara woman, and many of the men, knows how to make baskets using the leaves of beargrass or of palm trees (found in the barrancas). Some basket makers even use pine needles.
On all our trips into the Sierra Tarahumara we have seen basket makers at work. It is something that can be done when one is sitting down to tend the flocks. It can be done at home in between other chores, the materials set aside to be picked up again when it is convenient.
Like Tarahumara pottery, their basketry is the essence of simplicity. There are no decorations woven in; the beauty lies in the form and in the sense of utility conveyed.
All Tarahumara baskets are plaited. Both the lidless guari basket and the lid-covered petacas, like the petate (a mat), are twill paited. Most are single weave, but in the barrancas and in parts of eastern Tarahumara country baskets are made in a double weave, especially the petacas." (page 91)
I have been working with handicrafts from around the world for over 20 years now. My entry into a new culture often comes through the craft connection. I see something, it captures my eye, I look at the technique, the materials used, and soon I want to know more about who made it. Now, after all these years, I can say with certainty, "I know a little about a lot!" Each culture would take a lifetime of study to even begin to understand the relationships between the people and their connection to nature, religion, each other and us, the outsiders. Learning about the Tarahumara was my first real exposure to all the other indigenous cultures who live in Mexico. Each is fascinating to me and if I could, I would have married my interest in the handicrafts to anthropology, roaming around and documenting people and their crafts. (A little jealousy here of some National Geographic assignments?)
Over 100 years ago, Carl Lumholtz lived this dream out. Hired by the American Museum of Natural History to explore the Sierra Madre in Mexico, Lumholz spent several years with several indigenous groups, including the Tarahumara. He collected samples of handicrafts, native plants, took hundreds of photos, and made illustrations of what he saw. He documented his experiences in two volumes called "Unknown Mexico" (see slideshow at the end of this post) which remain to this date authoritative in the depth and scope of information gathered. The books have over 300 photos plus 91 drawings and is a fascinating read. Much of it seems current and even back then, Lumholtz urged:
"When we thus consider the reciprocal influence conquerors and conquered exert upon each other- furthermore, the ever-growing expansion of commerce into the farthest corners of the globe- and finally the rapid development of means of communication in a degree that we probably can but faintly realise, we are able to perceive how nations and tribes, whether they want to or not, will be stibulated to gradual progess, on lines and by methods that in the natural evolution of things become general. A certain difference in men will always remain, dependent on environment, but surely the general trend of human destiny is toward unity. Civilised mankind is already beginning to have a social and aesthetic solidarity. ... If the Louvre, with its priceless art treasures, should burn, cultivated people of every nation would feel the loss as if it were their own. Undoubtedly this feeling of unity will grow immensely as the centuries pass by. The backward races have much to learn from us, but we have also much to learn from them- not only new art designs, but certain moral qualities. Hypocrisy will be done away with as civilization advances, and the world will be the better for it.
It is unnatural to be without a special love to the country of one's birth, just as a man has more affection for his famiy than for other families. But let our allegiance extend to the whole globe on which we travel through the universe, and let us try to serve mankind rather than our country right or wrong." (page 483, volume 2)
Tarahumara men in handwoven wool garmentsPhoto by Carl Lumholtz
Lumholtz was perhaps naive in thinking that hypocrisy would fall away as civilization "progresses". He would probably be shocked at the double talk and nastiness we see today coming from political leaders around the world today. Some things never change.... But, others do, greatly. His sensibility and obvious care for the people he documented shows throughout the stories Lumholtz relates in his books. But, there are occasions, when his language and behavior absolutely shocked my socks off. One of the objects he desired from every area he went to was a skull, or as many as he could get. At that time there was much interest in examining skulls from different cultures to determine intelligence. A skull was the same to him, as a textile, and he apparently had no shame in how he collected either. This exchanged happened with a Huichol group:
"The native authorities, as well as the people themselves, were very nice to me and all contributed toward making my stay among them profitable. As this was my last opportunity to secure ethnological specimens from the tribe, I was anxious to complete my collections. The women here excel in making shirts and tunics, which they richly embroider with ancient designs. Through the kindness of the alcalde I obtained several of these valuable garments, with which the people themselves were loath to part. ... Being desirous of securing here some skulls from an ancient burial-place in a distant valley, but unable to make the trip myself, I persuaded the Indians to go alone to fetch them for me. They brought the precious load back safely in two bags which I had lent to them. This was remarkable in proving that the Huichols are not afraid of dead who passed out of life long enough ago." (page 285, volume 2)
In another incident, villagers kept their favorite dead relative's skulls in their homes. Lumholtz wanted a certain one that he saw in a man's house, but the man refused to give it to him because it was of his father. Lumholtz learned that the man had never married because he had a serious case of hemorrhoids. He ordered medication for him, which he traded for the skull. The man replaced his Dad with another favorite uncle... The books are packed with such stories. I treasure them immensely!
The National Geographic article stated that because of junk food, incoming roads and better transportation, many Tarahumara are already slowing down as runners. Yes, we want life to be easier, but it is a shame that in the trade we make for that ease, we lose so much that makes us special as a group. I am a mut with no particular ethnic ties, except that I physically look like a Viking. So, it's easy for me to choose which cultural influences I want to adopt, even if it is only in outward manifestations like food or clothing. But, for all of these Native peoples who are confronted with industrialization, we can only hope that they will be allowed to retain the values and important things that they choose to hang on to. We are one world, but our differences also make for interesting weavings! May the Tarahumara walk well towards the destiny of their choice!
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Brazil has had a long tradition of handicrafts. Most of the larger cities and metropolitan areas have what we used to call, "Feira Hippie", or Hippie Fairs. Many of the craft skills were brought by European immigrants, but these melded with both African and Indigenous influence into new interpretations of the crafts that are identifiably Brazilian. For example, the Portuguese brought bobbin lace making as an art with them during the colonial days. The skill spread up and down the coast among fishing villages, especially in the NorthEast. Lace techniques were used to make fishing nets, hammocks, bed spreads, curtains and other household items. In the 1970's, Brazilian artisans enjoyed a true renaissance in craft mediums. The craft fairs really were populated with the hippie generation trying to make a living from their cottage industries.
Imports from Indonesia, China and other countries almost devastated craft production as they could undersell the products of local artisans. However, with the growth of fair trade projects around the world and increased opportunities through online marketing and sales, Brazilian artisans found supportive audiences both at home and abroad.
Brazilians have three things in abundance that make fair trade products viable: excellent raw materials, an abundance of rural and urban poor who need work, and the entrepreneurial spirit that is necessary for project success. Bazaar Brazil embodies these elements in their wonderful selection of Brazilian fair trade crafts. Located in Redwood City, California (US), the shop is owned by two Brazilians who are doing their share to represent these artisans:
Mara Sallai is from the same area I grew up in. My brother was born in her city of Londrina. We had a brainstorming session trying to figure out if we had any acquaintances in common. We didn't, but we do share a love for Brazil and a hope that these crafts will empower the people they represent.
Bazaar Brazil focuses in on products that recycle waste and that are made by truly disenfranchised people. Many of the artisans are handicapped, have served time in prison, or live in areas where there is either no or very low-paying work.
Coasters, boxes and other objects are made from recycled wood by people with down syndrome.
Recycled polyester that are cast offs from large factories are made into textured pillows and throws.
Two of Mara's favorite products are banana fiber vessels and the Baniwa baskets. She describes both in terms of their local economic importance.
Baniwa from the Rio Negro- weavers of tradition
"The Baniwa basketry are made of "Aruma fiber" and have a sustainable feature - each cut fiber creates seeds for another two or three. The fibers need to be dyed before they are cut in under steam; the dyes are 100% natural.
Patterns of the baskets express their language and symbolize their environment. Authentic and without the touch of the western influence, the weaving tradition becomes a statement itself. Baskets can be used as storage units to help declutter your home, bottle and card holders, or bread and fruit displays. Each piece promotes indigenous design, culture; and helps provide protection to the Amazon rain forest.
Ethnic designs of the Brazilian Amazon rainforest cross rivers, waterfalls, distances and challenges to mark their significance in the "Western" market. Before arriving to the biggest city in the Amazon rainforest, the fair traded baskets travel 4000 miles navigating through three rivers and sixteen waterfalls."
Vessels made from recycled cardboard pulp covered with banana plant fiber.
Mara continues: "In the interior of Minas Gerais (a Brazilian state), banana plant fiber and recycled cardboard pulp have changed the lives of a group of rural workers. The hands that once tilled the soil, crocheted or kneaded dough, now separate and and work the fibers from banana plants. Instead of making bread, they make papier machie. Their decorative pieces are winning the world over.
Sixty artisans now produce 800 pieces a month, on order. The decorative plates have found distributors in other Brazilian cities, Germany, France, Italy, and in our own California Redwood City, USA. They work within a cooperative system and have learned that the banana plant not only gives them fruit, but also sustains their families. They have also seen that their products fulfill both eco and fair trade principles."
Mara also works with individual artists. This one is from her home town of Londrina. The artist recycles used coffee filters as a canvas for her objects:
Many of the fair trade shops one sees around have been selling the same crafts for decades. Although they still play a vital role in the economy of the lives they represent, Bazaar Brazil offers a fresh selection of high quality handicrafts and decorative items. On the first page of their website, there is a link to a wonderful little video interview with Mara that shows the store and other products nicely. Bazaar Brazil does not have a web store, but I'm sure they would welcome your inquiries and if you are in the neighborhood, it's a must visit!
Bazaar Brazil: Bringing Fair Trade from South to North
My first exposure to sculpting with living plants was through my best friend's father when I was a kid in Brazil. Our city was 30% Japanese and her father had immigrated from Japan after World War II. He spent hours with his little bonsai trees and in his garden. Over the years, my appreciation for art as it relates to nature has continued to grow. I am drawn to environments that blend in with their surroundings and that seem to have a conversation with all the elements around them. In college, I fell in love with artist and architect Friedensreich Hundertwasser.
Way before there was even a green movement, Hundertwasser explored how buildings can function as organic structures, both in design and in incorporating living plants and trees as part of the architectural dictates of the environment. Never square, buildings replicate natural mountains. Roofs are gardens, both insulating the living spaces and allowing the mind and body to breathe.
Since then, people have been experimenting with nature in a partnership of art, form and chance. My friend Pam sent me an e-mail with some images of artists who have been taking the ancient bonsai practice to another level. Most had no source information, so if anybody out there knows where these images came from, please leave a comment so we can credit them. I got a big kick out of the time, effort and patience it took from conception of the idea to its fruition.
This bicycle in a tree reminds me of my mother's cousin, Darren, who for years has been sculpting a garden and cemetery in Western Minnesota. His forest is filled with bathtubs, old cars, and other discarded household appliances that are planted with nature and slowly eroding back into the soil. Maybe my interest is partly genetic...
All knotted up...
Star of David
Arch
A living hut
Tree ladder
One of the photos did have a name on it, so I was able to trace it, Pooktre. Australian artists Peter Cook and Becky Northey have transformed their land into a living sculpture. Calling themselves tree shapers, they work on two kinds sculptural work, pieces that are eventually harvested and others that remain planted. The two photos below show Peter with a couple of his living chairs:
Pete's favorites are his trees shaped like men:
Explore their site. They seem like wonderful people. Apparently, they have never sold a piece yet, but had a show in Japan that made the bonsai community wild with excitement. They are thinking of having workshops in the future.
All of this coincides with another Canadian fiber artist that I had recently bookmarked, Alastair Heseltine. You see, to me, working with these plants and trees is fiber art in its most raw and basic form. Yet, it cannot be done without tremendous patience, skill and foresight. Heseltine also plays with tree shaping, but most of his larger pieces involve juxtaposing created structures with nature's background. Here is a living bush that is replicating a basket weave (Heseltine also makes traditional baskets):
And, here is a large sculptural piece that has been assembled by a body of water:
Many of Heseltine's pieces are functional, such as this bench, which I absolutely love:
But, his mastery of basket weaving is especially shown in this gorgeous figurative sculpture:
What I take from this as a fiber artist is that the materials are secondary to the vision. Developing our skills to their fullest potential is a life time of hard work, patience and pushing the elements to tell a new story. Hundertwasser was considered a nut in his early days. He passed away in 2000, finally receiving recognition as the visionary that he was. Most of us will never be famous or rich, but we can enjoy our craft and let it lead us to new places that right now might only live in the murky lands of our imagination.
Alastair Heseltine
Fiber Art to the Max: Tree Shaping and the Dictates of Nature
Have you ever seen a basket so beautiful that you wish you could blow it up to a much bigger size, magnify it, step into it and live in it? Well, there are traditional dwellings around the world that have lived out this concept, using the natural fiber materials found in their environment to build simple to elaborate living structures. Bamboo, wood, straw, banana leaf, grasses and many other renewable materials take the basic concept in assembling a basket to that larger dimension.
In 1973, a book called Shelter was one of the first to document dwellings from around the world in one place. It is still available through Shelter Publications, which has since published a couple of other publications on the same theme. The book has over 1,000 images of yurts, huts, tents, domes, tree houses and other dwellings in their traditional environment or inspired by native cultures. The book inspired me to get others like it and to think of living spaces in a new way.
Urban and suburban sprawl in the United States have been swirling out of control for the last fifteen years. McMansions behind bars in gated communities promise isolation from crime, other undesirable outside influences, manicured lawns, uniformity, and above all, distance from nature.
Where would you rather live? Here?
A gated community in Ontario, Canada.
Or, here?
A Toraja House in Indonesia
Now there is a huge housing crisis with millions facing foreclosure, displacement, and financial ruin. The increasing cost of oil has also put a stopper into the car culture, the desire for the biggest monster on wheels possible. How many of us really need a hummer? Without downplaying the real pain many families are facing in the loss of their homes, jobs, and access to transportation, this crisis is helping give green construction and transportation businesses the boost they needed to enter mainstream markets.
Several years ago I knew I was fed up with life in Chicago. I longed to be closer to nature, my business was not doing well (retail store selling handicrafts), the cost of living was enormous, and I just wanted out. I started thinking about maybe having a bed and breakfast somewhere with a cultural theme. I knew I wanted to be somewhere in the SouthEast and started researching bed and breakfasts in that area. Everything was Victorian or cute country. Then I found some green businesses, mostly in Florida. New Mexico, California and other Western states had a ton of wonderful spas and green hospitality places with interesting architecture and commitments towards sustainability and low impact living. Sigh... All these wonderful experiments going on all over the country... but, they all need capital and acceptability from the public.
One day, I sat back and had this wonderful vision of a place I would love to be a part of. I saw this villa unfold in front of me, full of the craftsmanship I so love, people from all over the world, a place of teaching and of recovery from the city. I wrote it down, researched it, and called it the Peace Villa. I didn't pursue it, but kept it up on my website, just in case someday it would come off the shelf.
Since that time, similar ideas have been pursued by others, both in terms of personal housing and for recreational purposes. Simon Dale built a house in Wales for his family, what I consider the ultimate dream of living in a big basket.
Simon gave me permission to use his photos and text from his website, so I have a bit below.
"It was built by myself and my father in law with help from passers by and visiting friends. 4 months after starting we were moved in and cosy. I estimate 1000-1500 man hours and £3000 put in to this point. Not really so much in house buying terms (roughly £60/sq m excluding labour).
The house was built with maximum regard for the environment and by reciprocation gives us a unique opportunity to live close to nature. Being your own (have a go) architect is a lot of fun and allows you to create and enjoy something which is part of yourself and the land rather than, at worst, a mass produced box designed for maximum profit and convenience of the construction industry. Building from natural materials does away with producers profits and the cocktail of carcinogenic poisons that fill most modern buildings."
The house is much lighter and bigger on the inside than I expected:
Simon has many more photos and instructions for how to build a similar structure on his site. But, see! Isn't it just a big basket?
This is not a new idea. Variations on this can be found all over the world from time immemorial. Here is a photo, now on public domain, of a wooden yurt from Russia:
Mongul Travel sells gorgeous fabric yurts for under $4,000:
Isn't this just gorgeous? So, here you can live in a basket, covered with your favorite textile! And, look at how bright and sunny the inside is:
Many may think that living in a traditional dwelling like the ones I'm showing here, means living in discomfort, without bathrooms or other amenities, but there are many green construction businesses out there that are adapting these traditional building methods to modern needs or expectations. Bamboo is a wonderful renewable material that has lately been used in many new ways. We now have bamboo fibers that knitters, weavers and quilters can use in their work, and the construction business generates gorgeous flooring and pre-fabbed panels that offer both a durable and healthy option to the often poisonous mainstream materials. Here's a nice little video showing the construction of a bamboo house using pre-fabbed panels:
Your basket house does not have to be rustic and ethnic looking. You know the slick lacquerware found in Thailand and VietNam? Here's an example from Green Tulip Ethical Gifts:
Those who like a sleek, modern look can have it, too! Building Green has a bamboo model house designed by Danish architect, Soren Korsgaard:
If you can't or don't want to build your own basket house, consider staying in one for your next vacation. Many of the sites mentioned in this article have good links that can give you more information on other projects or resources. Again in Wales, Cae Mabon, offers such a retreat with wonderful structures like this one throughout the resort:
Heifer International, a wonderful food aid program based here in the United States, works worldwide to alleviate hunger. They have several learning programs for adults and teen-agers and are soon opening the Hidden Villa in California:
"The ten acre campus will be located at Hidden Villa, a nonprofit environmental education center in Los Altos Hills, California (18 miles west of San Jose). Since 1945, Hidden Villa has provided learning opportunities to inspire a sustainable future."
Not only are these basket houses interesting architecturally, but they also step lightly on the earth and save resources. If built correctly, they can help us save energy, reduce our dependency on oil, and decrease the use of toxic materials. My friend, Tom Spaulding, of Angelic Organics Learning Center, recently built a new building which houses their offices and training workshops. They used straw bale building methods with naturally harvested woods for supports, creating a gorgeous structure. This is in Beloit, Wisconsin where winters are miserable and long. The building was so warm, they often wore shorts during the winter! Imagine! No heating bills in the bitter MidWest!
The challenge and delight for all of us is to use these ancient ideas that have worked for our ancestors and apply them in big or small ways to our immediate environment. It's not always easy as city ordinances and neighbors may balk at what looks different from what they are used to. It takes education and successful examples to make inroads into entrenched ideas of what is acceptable for our neighborhoods and communities. But, we are not talking about the sod houses of yesteryear. Instead, we have beautiful, solid structural options today that can use these fibers to the full capacity of our imagination and technology. Take it to the next level!
