It was just a few months ago that we sent our holiday greeting to you, expressing gratitude for your support this past year. We were rejoicing that after a three-year COVID-forced hiatus, the ATA board had been able to visit the Center for Traditional Textiles of Cusco (CTTC) and many of the weaving communities. Tourism was rebounding in Peru and the CTTC was poised to welcome all. Fast-forward four months and life in Peru has once again been altered due to political volatility. Tourism has come to a screeching halt. Inflation has at least tripled. And our dear weaving friends, who rely upon tourist and the support of the CTTC, are once again thrust into an unknown future. Of course, … Read More
A Virtual Visit to the Weavers of Cusco: A Special Benefit Program
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
Cataloging & Using Traditional Designs
The Center for Traditional Textiles of Cusco (CTTC) has long understood the importance of documenting weaving designs, techniques, and other textile traditions that were disappearing over time. One of the early goals was to create a simple design catalog as a physical archive documenting a woven example of each design and its name. In 2020, the CTTC completed the documenting of the designs from all ten communities, finishing it during Covid, which helped to maintain contact with the weavers. In 2021, the CTTC expanded the design catalog from a physical archive to a digital database, taking photos of all the designs and collecting histories from the weavers about each design. By the end of this year, all of the CTTC’s … 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
Celebrating Peru’s Ancestral Textiles
On the third of November, the Center for Traditional Textiles of Cusco (CTTC) held a “Celebration of Ancestral Textile Arts” to mark the unveiling of its newly remodeled store, educational center, and office building in central Cusco. Throughout the day, representatives from the CTTC’s ten weaving associations spread across the sunlit green lawn of the Qorikancha, the most important temple in all of Incan culture, to work on backstrap looms, show off naturally dyed yarn, and talk with locals and tourists as interested passersby filled the wide sidewalk along the lawn. Dignitaries including the CTTC’s executive director Nilda Callañuapa, the CTTC’s board president Miryam Luna, and the mayor of Cusco, Víctor G. Boluarte Medina, all spoke warmly about the important … Read More
Chinchero Weaving Center Ready for More Visitors
Chinchero, Peru is a town in transition. It’s good news and bad news. Travel to Peru’s Sacred Valley has outgrown the airport in Cusco, and a new airport is under construction in Chinchero, one that will put incoming tourists that much closer to Machu Picchu, the ultimate destination of so many. The face of Chinchero is already changing, with exploding construction, more traffic, new businesses. The weavers of Chinchero are concerned about how the airport will affect their community. At the same time, they are determined to preserve their textile traditions and take advantage of what new opportunities may come. In preparation, the Chinchero weaving center, an extension of the Center for Traditional Textiles of Cusco (CTTC), has been remodeled … Read More
A Long-Awaited Visit to Peru’s Weaving Communities
During a recent ATA board visit to weaving communities in Peru, the village of Mahuaypampa was our first stop. Of all our visits, this community was the hardest hit by illness and low morale over the past few years. But this day, we were warmly greeted by the weavers who showered us with rose petals, followed by an honorable request to be padrinos (godparents) of their weaving shelter (we were the first group they welcomed into their center). With hammer in hands, held jointly by at least five of us, we smashed a clay jar filled with chicha, a corn-based beverage, and entered the compound. Construction of their weaving shelter was still underway (a project begun in 2019 with the … 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
Chuspas: Small Bags with Big Significance
When I started researching this topic, I was merely focused on the one very old chuspa that I had in my collection, which I purchased in Peru in 1980. Chuspa is a Quechua word for bag or purse. Elaborate chuspas are used as part of dancers’ costumes during festivals; every-day, smaller chuspas often carry money (these chuspas are also called monederos). I knew that chuspas also are used for carrying coca leaves, but I never thought about the significance of coca to the Andean culture. I had only been told that the Indigenous Quechua speakers would chew the leaves to help give them energy or to keep from getting hungry. While chuspas are made using traditional techniques, the sacred substance … Read More
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