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 […]
Zinacantan + San Juan Chamula, Chiapas: Magic Towns
My friend Chris Clark writes a blog called Color in the Streets. It is her musings about living on Lake Chapala, Jalisco, and visiting many regions around Mexico during the last six years since she moved there from North Carolina, where I first met her. Chris’ partner Ben died almost two years ago and she […]
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 […]
Textile Conference WARP in Denver
Last Tuesday I drove from Taos to Denver through the La Veta Pass studded with snow capped mountains on my way to the annual meeting of one of my favorite textile organizations, Weave a Real Peace (WARP). I’ve been involved since I organized their 2017 annual meeting in Oaxaca, Mexico. The welcome circle, that included […]
Mother’s Day in Mexico is Always on May 10
Feliz Dia de las Madres! Happy Mother’s Day The sentiment is the same around the world wherever Mother’s Day is celebrated: love, gratitude, and appreciation. It is a day to honor and celebrate mothers and those who have stepped into this role as surrogates. We show appreciation for their care and contributions to us as […]
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 […]
Traveling in Chiapas: Charmed, I’m Sure
My friend Chris Clark writes a blog called Color in the Streets, and just reported on her recent trip to Chiapas with us in February 2024. Chris lives in Ajijic, on Lake Chapala, in the Mexican state of Jalisco. She talks about how this was a dream come true trip that she had wanted to […]
Shop Open! New Blusas, Baskets, More
We have just returned to the USA from Oaxaca. From January through March we traveled the Costa Chica along the Oaxaca coast, the highlands of Chiapas, Oaxaca’s Mixteca Alta, and the folk art villages around Lake Patzcuaro, Michoacan, to source some of the finest clothing and craft. Each of the 123 items in the shop […]
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 […]
Come Join Me! WARP Annual Textile Conference 2024 in Colorado
WARP stands for Weave a Real Peace. I have been a member since 2017 when I helped organize their international conference in Oaxaca, and provided most of the programming. I love this organization. It is committed to social and economic justice for artisans all over the world. The women and men who attend are deeply […]
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, […]
Eric Chavez Santiago to Speak About Textiles on WARP Chat
Meet a Member Fireside Chat: with Eric Chávez SantiagoTuesday, April 9th at 3 pm Eastern(Spanish)Wednesday, April 10th at 3 pm Eastern(English) Will you be attending?EVENT DETAILS: NOTA: puede ver la historia en español abajo del inglés. This program is a series of monthly Fireside Chats on Zoom with a different WARP member each month. (This […]
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 […]
Looking for Frida Kahlo + Diego Rivera in Mexico City: Art History with a Textile Twist
Arrive Thursday, February 27 and depart Thursday, March 6, 2025, 7 nights, 8 days Come to Mexico City to explore the lives of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera through their art, and meet contemporary Mexican fashion designers who are making an impact on international style. This is an in-depth art history and textile education at its best! […]
Textiles, Pottery, Paper, Masks and More on Lake Pátzcuaro, Michoacan
In addition to the monarch butterflies, what draws us to Michoacan is its extraordinary artisan traditions. Rich in cultural diversity, the Purepecha villages cling to their language and pre-Hispanic customs. Many of the craft and artisan wares were developed and promoted by Bishop Vasco de Quiroga who introduced traditional artisanry, many based on Spanish prototypes, […]
In Patzcuaro, Michoacan: Weaving and Guitar Making in Ahuiran and Paracho
Many of you have heard about the famous Ahuiran, Michoacan, feather weaver Cecelia Bautista Caballero, who died in 2022 at the age of 83. I wrote about her in 2019, the last time we visited the village before this year. Ahuiran is a small Purepecha village known for its hand-woven rebozos made on the back-strap […]
Why Visiting Monarch Butterflies is a Bucket List Experience
For two days, our group of fourteen travelers and three guides rode horses, hiked, climbed, and pushed ahead to see the Monarch butterflies in Michoacan and Estado de Mexico, Mexico. We reached over 11,000 feet in altitude to get to where the butterflies roost and overwinter in the central highlands here. Our first day was […]
