Santo Tomas Jalieza c/ La Familia Navarro Gomez

So it took a while to get things going, but once they got going quickly. I am actually home now, but still want to share what I did. It’s also hard to blog from my phone, so I don’t really like to do it.

Ines was explaining to us how in their village they are taught from a very young age to start memorizing the designs. They were working completely from memory and didn’t have any patterns. Each image is a different object or creature. Ines was working on “el venado”.

Mariana, Ines’ mother, was working on “la danza de la pluma”.

They were using backstrap looms that they tied around a pillar on their patio. Their beater is called a “machete” because of the shape. She also explained that some of the warp goes through the small holes reed, but others through sides, depedning on if they are to be lifted for the pattern or not. Also, they primarily use dyed cotton (that they source from elsewhere).

Note: I’ve decided that instead of making the blog part of the paid membership area, I want it to be accessible. But I will be adding an option for folks to be able to donate to my practice at the bottom of each blog post. Being an artist requires so much time and money, of which we usually have neither. So community support is essential to our progress as artists. Thank you so much for being here.