We hope that you will join us on April 1 for a special event to benefit the communities of the Center for Traditional Textiles of Cusco (CTTC). The CTTC supports groups of weavers in ten villages, each community with its own unique dress, textiles, and techniques. The weavers depend on sales of their textiles to help support their families and send their children to school. For several years, COVID halted tourism and, thus, textile sales. Now, just as Andean communities were beginning to recover and regain hope, the political strife in Peru has brought tourism to a halt, once again. But where there are caring hearts, there is always hope On April 1, ATA and CTTC are teaming up to … Read More
Travel to the Andes in 2023 with ATA!
Our Andean Textile Arts board recently had a scouting visit to Peru (and Ecuador) and we are so very pleased to report that we feel able to begin our textile tours again in the fall of 2023! We found the weavers eager to show us all that they have been working on during the pandemic and especially excited for tours to start up again! We’ve even added an optional extension to Ecuador that we expect will be very popular. And, once again, Raul Jaimes will be our guide in Peru. In addition to our fall tour, we have one to Bolivia as well. We are finalizing the costs and exact itineraries for both tours, but we have dates: PERU FALL … Read More
Congratulations, CTTC Interns!
As part of its 2022/2023 grant requests, the Center for Traditional Textiles of Cusco (CTTC) asked for the support of the ATA community to create an internships program for young weavers, aimed at developing the next generation of leadership for the CTTC and the weaving communities. You all gave generously to our spring 2022 campaign, and we were able to fund a grant that has already brought three young weavers to work at the center in Cusco. All three interns have learned new skills and provided valuable help to the CTTC’s programs. Alesandro “Sandro” Hayme, from Accha Alta, is 19 years old, and he has been interning in retail operations. He says the work in the CTTC store has been … Read More
Coca in Andean Culture
On September 13, Andean Textile Arts had the honor and the pleasure of hosting Wade Davis in a Zoom presentation entitled “Coca: Divine Leaf of Immortality?”. Davis comes to this topic not only with great passion, but with an impressive background and list of credentials: author, photographer, filmmaker, cultural anthropologist, explorer-in-residence for the National Geographic Society, and of particular relevance to this topic, holding a doctorate in ethnobotany from Harvard University. The leaves of the coca plant have been in use in South America for thousands of years, pre-dating the arrival of the Spanish. Rather than a drug, coca is a mild and benign stimulant with exceptionally high nutritional value. It is held in reverence by Indigenous peoples of the … Read More
2021 Bid for the Future Funds to Help Andean Weavers Get COVID Vaccinations
Thanks to everyone who participated in our 2021 fundraising auction, A Bid for the Future. Thanks to all of you, we raised more than $26,000 to benefit the weavers of the Center for Traditional Textiles of Cusco (CTTC). Together, you donated 387 phone cards to help the children of the ten CTTC communities continue to attend school remotely, and 55 kilos of cochineal to help the weavers afford to dye yarn in all the beautiful reds and purples they and we love. (Special thanks to the Natural Dye Study Group of the Eugene Weavers Guild, who got together to purchase cochineal for their fellow artisans in Peru.) The rest of the auction proceeds, including over $1,500 in direct donations, will … Read More
ATA 2020 Annual Report Now Available
The year 2020 was like no other, for the ATA community and the world at large. It tested our resilience, our kindness, and our creativity. In our 2020 ATA Annual Report, just released, we reflect on the challenges we faced during the past year, including the need to sustain the Andean weavers we support as they struggled through the pandemic. Thanks to your generous donations, we were able to take on those challenges head on: Our annual donations increased 23.5%, despite the cancellation of our textile tours to Peru and Bolivia—typically our largest source of donations. We funded 15 grants benefitting 378 adult weavers and 272 young weavers. We kept Andean textile revitalization programs running, while also preserving income for … Read More
Andean Textile Talks Bring the Andes to You
We can’t always visit the Andes, especially now with COVID restrictions limiting international travel. But that doesn’t mean we can’t experience the people, traditions, and textiles of the Andes virtually. And that’s exactly what our new Andean Textile Talks series offers you—a chance to immerse yourself in the history, beauty, and techniques of one of the world’s oldest textile cultures, all from the comfort of your home. Many of you joined us on February 9 for our first Andean Textile Talk, featuring award-winning video maker Kathy Brew and her film Following the Thread. In fact, you could say, we had a virtual packed house. Her beautifully crafted film took us to several villages in the Peruvian highlands to learn about … Read More
Nothing Like a Good Book About the Andes
The Andean Textile Arts (ATA) community includes weavers, dyers, and fiber enthusiasts. It also includes travelers. We share adventures in person. We trek to ancient ruins and high mountain villages. We share armchair adventures, our stories, and our pictures. We are students of the world. When we on the ATA board pondered how to continue to reach out to our Andean Textile community in this time of restricted physical travel, I quietly suggested . . . ”let’s do a book club.” And so, it began. I reached out to a few of my fellow book lovers on the board; a list was created from our shared book list developed over the years. Gratefully, a few hearty folks raised their hands … Read More