So like I was saying...

I'm sorry guys, I suck! Sort of dropped the ball and left you all hanging, huh? Well, it's just that I've been kind of busy with this and that. But I promise to be back real soon...with posts on all kinds of fun stuff, including but not limited to:

1. Burning Man!
2. My wedding dress (which I was crazy enough to try to make!)
3. Our honeymoon!

For those in the know, we'll be heading to Huatulco, a beach town in Oaxaca state. That's right, going back to Oaxaca! Only this time, we'll be staying here, instead of in atiny room with two other people:



Eff YEAH! I can't wait, people!

Serious Doubt

Everyone pretty much spent Sunday recuperating from the previous night's activities, but I decided I wanted to go to the market in Tlacolula since it would be my last chance to check it out. The market in Tlacolula only happens on Sundays and the class had gone the week before, but I stayed at home to rest. The cool thing about the market here is that all the local vendors and shoppers come to the market dressed in their wonderfully colorful local dress. Most of the women wear a dress with an embroidered apron over it, ribbons braided into their long hair, and silk scarves. It's quite beautiful.



The nice thing about Tlacolula is that it is a little smaller than Abastos (which I visited the previous Saturday) and therefore more manageable. Plus there are a lot more artisans selling here, so you can get rugs, embroidered tops, pottery, etc. in addition to veggies, bread, and other household items.

We got back to the house pretty late in the afternoon and rested up to prepare for the writing class later that evening. After class, Raul wanted to have a quick meeting with Team Leather, as we were heading out to San Dionisio Ocotepec the following day and he wanted to make sure we were prepared.



First of all, a little bit of history...Don German and Dona Clara have 5 daughters and 1 son. One of their daughters is named Sarahi, and she is involved with the program, as an assistant (she lives at the house and all). Last year, Sarahi and one of the other daughters worked with the class as artisans. This year, we are working primarily with Don German. Raul is very involved with this family and he cares deeply for them, and as I mentioned before, they are at a serious turning point financially. Apparently Don German is always flip flopping on whether or not he will go to the States. Adding to this somewhat complicated situation is the fact that Don German is a very difficult man. There are many different issues at play here...first, the leather group is composed of four women (me, Katy, Adrien, and Lindsey), and this is a man surrounded by a family of women, and pretty strong women at that. It seems sometimes that he is just trying to keep his head above water and maintain his power as head of the household. Every time he comes to our house, he is dying to talk to any of the boys--Raul, Tomo, Josh. Secondly, he is a pretty proud man, and it seems that he is always testing us, making us prove ourselves. I think he was pretty disappointed in our performance the first day we worked together (when we all made huaraches)...like he expected us to be perfect cobblers our first time. Don German is a man who makes you earn his respect...the hard way. Finally, he, unlike his daughter Sarahi, is less comfortable with experimentation and the process we are advocating...I think he finds it all very weird and has a harder time making the leap from a form experiment to product.

So, you can see this is kind of a hairy situation...on top of the design challenges, we also have a lot of interpersonal challenges to work with. Raul had a short meeting with us to make sure everything went smoothly with Don German this week.

The aim of the class is arrive at a mutual understanding of each others' processes: the artisans share with us their mastery of a certain craft, and we share with them our design process (which involves experimentation, prototypes, etc.--things that are completely foreign to them). This is to result in a hybrid process wherein we collaborate on new designs together. Well, as you can see in one of my previous posts, I created a bag and a shoe. Apparently I wasn't supposed to do that...instead of making a bag, I should have just cut slits into a piece of leather and taken it to Don German and asked, "What should this be?" I've found that often, communication of the class objectives and processes are not very clear, and I did not realize that what I did (i.e., create a finished product) was not ideal. Raul pointed out that the last thing we wanted to do was to go to the artisan and say, "I designed this, now you make it." I was kind of freaking out a bit that I had messed things up in terms of the collaboration, but I was able to calm myself down a bit by realizing that: 1. Raul freaks out for no reason all the time (really, he's pretty dramatic), and 2. We had a pretty wide range of stuff in the group, from finished products to form experimentations, so there was still room for collaboration with Don German. In any case, the discussion on Sunday night left me pretty nervous about the meeting the following day.

We headed out to San Dionsio Ocotepec the following day (Monday) with Mariana (the class TA) as translator. I think we were all on edge a bit from the previous night's discussion, but we agreed amongst the four of us in the car that it was OK that we had a few finished products because Don German is a man that wants to be impressed (remember the whole earning his trust thing?) and also because he has a harder time looking at the result of an experiment and being able to see where we might be able to push it. For these reasons, we decided it would be a good idea for me to present my stuff first. I had woken up that morning feeling kind of weird (I would find out later I had an amoeba) and I was really nervous presenting my shoe and my bag to him.



Well, I am happy to say that he was ecstatic with our designs. He kept asking if all of this had come out of my brain, and saying that our heads should be smoking because we were on fire. SCHWOO. He wanted to start making stuff right away, but we kept telling him that we weren't ready for that--we still wanted him to take our ideas and see where he could take the concepts. He was pretty reluctant to do any experimentation--he just wanted to start making stuff, but we felt it was important if we were going to try to collaborate. We spent the rest of the day explaining our concepts and showing him how we had made everything, and we decided to leave his house early so he could spend the rest of the day experimenting with our ideas (plus, I was feeling pretty sick by that point so I wanted to head home).

Looking back on this day, I think this is the point when everything changed...we had earned his respect and he was finally ready and willing to do all the silly exercises and experimentations that we were advocating. It was a great day. :)

Poetic Moments

Sorry about the lack of updates...I will definitely be posting about my last week in Oaxaca (cuz it's too good not to write about!) but my computer has been back at Apple getting serviced so I've been a little debilitated since coming back to the States. In the meantime, amuse yourself with Tomo's photo set of our Poetic Moments (click on the photo below for the full set):



HA!!!

Tomo's Oaxaca Photos & Video

Tomo has done it again...here are is is Flickr photo set from Oaxaca. If you look closely you can catch all of our "Poetic Moments."

http://www.flickr.com/photos/crackitbaby/sets/72157601261710006/

Also, here's his personal project "Back to Oaxaca," which I filmed!:

HOME

Yay! I made it home! Four of us in the class booked the same flight back from Oaxaca and we had to SPRINT to catch our connecting flight in the biggest airport in the world (Mexico City). Luckily, the flight was delayed, but even still, we barely made it. There was no way I was going to spend the night in DF! The bad news is that they lost my bags and my computer is messed up, but I sure am happy to have spent the night in my own bed. :) Here are a couple of other things I am really grateful for (in no particular order):

- Brushing my teeth with water that comes out of the sink.
- Throwing toilet paper in the toilet.
- Actually understanding (fully) what people are saying to me, rather than having to figure out what they mean from the 3 words I understand in the sentence.
- Seeing my man.
- Seeing my kitties.

I'll be posting this week to update you all on the last week of activities in Oaxaca, so stay tuned. It was an amazing, difficult, beautiful, challenging experience and even though I was probably crazy to do it so soon to our wedding, I am a better person for it. :)

Personal Work

I've finished my personal work, letterforms that I found in the covered up graffiti in Oaxaca. Some of the local students that are working with our class said they really liked my piece, because (intentionally or unintentionally), there is a political component to it (most of the graffiti is political in nature, and therefore covered up by the powers that be).



I also wanted to share Tomo's personal work. There is a little boy who plays the accordion (and begs for money) right in front of Santo Domingo church, in the same place every day. In the middle of the night, Tomo went out and did this tape painting on the wall, right where the boy sits. That's right...he put up long strips of masking tape and cut the image out, then peeled it off. Everyone has been walking by taking pictures of it and I think the little boy has made out like a bandit. :)

Daily Life Part II

Mayates



Mayates are enormous beetles that live underground, eat shit, and come out from under the ground to die. They are EVERYWHERE in Oaxaca and they are huge. I took the photo above for scale...you can see they are about the size of your big toe. It's kind of sad and poetic that they only see the light of day when the are going to die, and finding them everywhere is kind of a daily reminder of the cycle of life.

Taxis



Taxis in Oaxaca are kind of weird...there are taxis that drive you to places withing the city limits, and then other taxis that take you from city to city, so if you want to leave town, you have to take a taxi to the taxi stand so you can get in another taxi. None of the taxis have meters...usually you just hop in and the guy tells you how much you owe him at the end of the ride . Typically it's about 30 pesos in town, so split amongst several people it is really cheap. The taxis that take you from city to city are sold by the seat, so you pay about 20 pesos for your seat and they cram a bunch of people in there to make the drive worth it. It's best to get in the back because they sit 3 people in the back and 3 people (including the driver) in the front and if you are the person caught in the middle of the front seat, it's a tight squeeze. I had a man pretty much crawl on my lap on the way back from the market in Tlacolula. Also, the taxis drive really, really fast and there are no seat belts. Lindsey, one of the gals in our leather group, is usually very tense on the ride home from San Dionisio Ocotepec.

Dogs on the Roof





In Oaxaca, nobody walks their dog. Instead, dogs are kept on the roof to "protect" the house (i.e., bark at you). They are usually very mean, and that was the case with these two guys above. It's kind of interesting when you take Walter (Raul's dog) for a walk, as people are very afraid of him, and they think he is kept on a leash because he is dangerous. Also, everyone thinks Walter is very fat. If you've ever traveled in Central or South America, you know that the dogs are pretty much emaciated down here, so a healthy dog like Walter looks like a fatty. I always wonder if the Oaxacan dogs look at Walter and think, "fat, rich American dog!"

Sabado Sabado Sabado

Saturday was my one and only TRUE day completely off, and had a blast. It was one of those wonderful days that makes you so happy to be alive and interested in the world around you.

Raul had arranged for an optional tour of Santo Domingo church (by the man that restored it) that morning, and though it sounded interesting, there was no way I was going. I needed a REAL day off to recharge (and rest up for the night's festivities...more on that later).

I started off the day by heading to yoga...I've been to a few classes and they have always been pretty interesting. As if doing yoga in Spanish weren't interesting enough, it's, um, different here. In the first class I went to, after we om'ed, we had to sing. For a long time. I kept wondering when the singing was going to end, then realizing that thinking that wasn't very zen, and then finding myself wondering again when the singing was going to end because it had been going on for a really long time. Also, about half way through the class, the instructor makes us do these weird lion's roar/freaky/barbaric yawp sounds. It's very strange and it's all that Adrien, Katy and I can do to keep from cracking up.

I followed up yoga with a trip to the organic market for some breakfast. I met Tomo there and we ate and agreed to work on our personal projects together later that day. As part of the class, Raul is asking us to do personal work, something that makes you interact with the city, or involves your response to this place.



Something I really love about Oaxaca is all the colorful walls and the street art. But what really makes this place special and endearing is how people paint over the graffiti and street art with any random color paint they find. This would never happen in the United States...people always try to match the original color of the wall, almost erasing the act of vandalism, trying to pretend as if it never happened. In Oaxaca, they will paint over a yellow building with some green paint. There's something really charming and honest about that, like they are honoring experience, or the past. For my personal project, I walked around the city photographing these walls and finding typographical forms in them. Ultimately, I am making a typeface out of my images. Here's what I have so far (I am missing several letters still, like G and Z):



I am naming the typeface Fantasmas (ghosts). The extra bonus to this project is that I got to walk around the city, on streets and blocks I hadn't traveled yet, seeing things that weren't on the "main drag" in Oaxaca.

I also helped Tomo with his personal project. He had me videotape him as he was walking backwards through the city. Afterwards, he reversed the tape. it turned out SUPER cool. I'll post it at some point if he ever gets it on YouTube or something. We got a lot of strange stares from people on the street.

After walking through the city, I was pretty sweaty, so I went over to the hotel to go swimming. It was nice to cool off for a bit and relax in the sun, and that's pretty much how I spent the rest of my afternoon...resting up for the evening's festivities.

As I mentioned in some previous posts, the Oaxaca class is like a big happy family. There are tons of people who live in Oaxaca who just sort of orbit around the program. Well, two of these people are Luisa, an artist from Colombia (I posted a picture of her glass piece--the one I saw at the Museo de Arte Popular in Mexico City), and Gustavo, this guy who owns a small boutique/gallery in Oaxaca that carries some really interesting pieces (usually they are an intersection of design and local artisanry...right up our alley!). Anyway, Gustavo just moved his store to a new location, so he had a grand opening party at the new location. We hung out there, drinking mezcal for about 2 hours, then it was on to a show honoring Colombian artists (where Lusia was showing). They were playing Colombian music at the party and it was super fun! We were all dancing and drinking and just having an excellent time.

OK, the next thing we did...might just rank up there with Lucha Libre as a once-in-a-lifetime experience. In the south of the Oaxacan state, some small villages throw a huge ball (I believe in conjunction with the guelaguetza, though I could be wrong about that) called a vela. They elect a queen, and that queen has attendants, etc. Everyone dresses up in their traditional garments and it's a huge deal. Well, in Oaxaca, the most progressive and gay-friendly states in the country of Mexico, this custom also gets practiced. With drag queens. And they are FABULOUS!!!

Here is this year's queen, right after she got crowned:



And here is last year's queen:



Here I am with the queen from two years ago (center), and her partner:



One really funny thing about the vela is that with your entry fee of 150 pesos, you also get a case of beer. Here is Luisa and her friend, carrying in their cases of beer:



The dresses and hairpieces are just gorgeous:



It was a BLAST. We danced all night to traditional Mexican music, drinking beers and getting hit on by both men and women alike. What can I say? WOW.

Los prototipos

Thursday and Friday of last week were spent at the house, taking our form experimentations from Monday and Tuesday and either pushing them further or turning them into products that the artisans could produce. We got a very late start on Thursday, as we were waiting for someone to show us where we could purchase some vinyl/fake leather in order to make our prototypes. And, as I've come to learn here in Mexico, if you think something is going to take about 3 hours, it will actually take 6. If you think someone will show up at noon, they'll actually be there around 2PM. We really have very little control over our schedules, and in some ways, that's a good thing for me. I've found that I can be a lot more wishy washy here (and without guilt!)...in the States, if I commit to doing something, I will do it, even if I don't want to anymore. Here, I can say I'm going to go to yoga at 6PM, or to the market at 2PM, or maybe I'll meet someone at the club at 2AM, and I can just flake on all of it without a worry. Maybe that's the nature of traveling, or maybe it's just Mexico, but either way, it's a huge pressure off my back, and I'm enjoying the freedom because I know I won't be able to behave the same way once I get back to the States.

In any case, a little bit of background about our project. As I've said in some previous posts, our artisans are very poor and the head of the clan, Don German, is staring down a lot of pressure to migrate to "el otro lado"--"the other side", i.e., the US, in order to make money in order to feed his family. Huaraches are not as popular with the locals anymore, and tourists don't like them either. In addition, the materials cost a lot. So, here's a peek into the mind of a designer: the first question I ask is, "What are my constraints?" As I see it, we have a several:

1. Create a product that can be sold to tourists or at galleries for a good sum of money. This actually creates a number of other constraints:

Create something that is beautifully designed (of course). :)

Create something that has beautiful craftsmanship. This one is a little more difficult, as the artisans are supposed to make the final product, not us. And quite honestly, Don German and Dona Clara do not yet have the sensitivity towards craft that is necessary to sell, for instance, a purse for US$100.
2. The product must maximize use of materials and minimize waste.
3. The product must be remain true to the nature of the materials. In other words, there should be a reason we are using leather to make the product. Leather has certain properties that other materials do not. We should be exploiting these properties to their maximum effect.
4. This one is not really a constraint, but it is in the back of my mind: build upon the legacy of the artisan's product in some way. In other words, if they make shoes, we don't want to design houses for them to make.

With these constraints in mind, I created the following:

Handbag at rest:



Handbag when there is weight placed inside the bag. The exterior of the bag (which is shown in vinyl but will be made out of leather) is cut with several rows of small slits. The interior of bag is longer than the leather portion of the bag, so when weight is placed inside, the exterior leather portion will stretch to expose the contrasting lining:



Personally, I think the bag meets most of the constraints I listed above. It is interesting both from an aesthetic and functional aspect. It uses less leather than you would need for a bag of that size (due to the stretch), and it stays true to the materials (leather will maintain it's shape even when sliced; no other material would work quite as well as the leather with this design). The only thing I am worried about is that the construction is somewhat tricky, so I might need to make some changes if Dona Clara and Don German are to produce this design.

I used the scrap pieces from the bag to make a pair of earrings (sorry, no photo), so there really was very little waste in this design.

On Friday morning, I took a break from working to go run some errands. I was itching to get out and we needed some more supplies anyway. On my walk, I saw some shoes out of the corner of my eye and thought about them the rest of the way home. They inspired me to make these:







I don't know why, but I love them! I can't wait to get home and make a pair for myself. :)

Another experiment I did...I'm not quite sure yet what this will be:





And, an experiment that Adrien did. We think it might be a lamp:

Day Off

This Wednesday, we were finally given a day off (and by day off, I mean "there are still activities going on but it is optional to attend"). Since I had ducked out of the Sunday market trip, I decided I had it in me to take part in the optional activities, which involved touring the town of Etla, and boy am I glad I went.



We started our day in Etla by touring a paper workshop, where they make handmade artisanal papers. The workshop was up on a hill in Etla, and the view was absolutely stunning. I shot the photo above from the outdoor deck where they were airbrushing stencil designs by Francisco Toledo (the most famous living Oaxacan artist) on kites made of handmade paper. Not too shabby, huh? The workshop only uses natural fibers for their papers. Here is our cute tour guide showing us all the fibers they use:



He demonstrated how they make a sheet of paper for us. This is the "chop"/watermark that gets printed into their papers:



After the tour, you can browse through their gift shop. And, as you can imagine, a bunch of art students in a handmade paper store is like a bunch of kids in a candy shop. Plus, they make jewelry out of their papers! Super interesting and creative:



Yes, those are just rolled up papers strung up as bracelets and necklaces! They also had earrings.

After the paper workshop, we walked around the art school in Etla, whcih was just stunning. It used to a be a textiles factory and it was converted to an art school. WOW. The place was amazing. I would love to take classes there!







We had lunch at a cute restaurant in town and headed over to a glass factory, where they make ear plugs like these:



The owner of the place, Jason, was from the States. He was super nice and gave us a pretty extensive tour of the facilities. We learned a lot about glass and its production. Jason is really great to his employees, training them and giving them pretty extensive benefits.



We walked from Jason's workshop to another glass studio run by another American, except this time, the studio specializes in using recycled glass. Apparently glass blowers don't like to use recycled glass because it can be difficult to work with. Xa Quixe (the name of the studio) has perfected a technique and formula for working with recycled glass, and the studio was also very green compared to many other studios in the states, capturing heat from their furnaces for the kiln and other small refinements that reduced their energy use to approximately 40% of the usage of an equally sized studio.

One of several ginormous piles of used glass:



That gets turned into these, artisinal mezcal bottles. The top row is populated by their "warped" bottles, which are also very popular.



We also got to see one of the employees blowing glass, a really fascinating process:



I had been waffling back and forth about going to Etla because I sort of wanted a day to myself, but in the end I was glad I had the chance to check out this beautiful town and meet a couple of really interesting artists doing fabulous things for their adopted country.