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Towns and Villlges Around Oaxaca:
Teotitlan – THE NEXT GENERATION
The Zapotec weavers of Teotitlan are justly famous for their carpets. For centuries families have handed down the weaving tradition to their children with many families going back six and seven generations. But a fresh breeze of creativity is blowing through the village and a new generation is of weavers is taking up the carpet making tradition.
Two of the most renowned of this next generation, Demetrio Bautista Lazo, and Bulmaro Perez Mendoza shared their skills and their dreams with the Oaxaca Times.
Like most of the younger weavers of the community they grew up at their parents’ knees weaving rugs using the popular aniline dyes of the 1960s and 70s. But times have changed and so has the marketplace.
While the youthful weavers look forward in their designs, they are looking back generations for the rich hues and dying techniques of their ancestors. The happy results are rugs that seem to embrace both the future and the past.
For Demetrio the process of making a rug begins far above the village. It is here in the high meadowlands that he comes to gather the flowers and herbs that he’ll use to make many of the dyes he uses in the gorgeous tapetes that are earning this young weaver an international reputation and clientele. As the rainy season dwindles to a few brief weekly showers there are only a few remaining days in which to harvest. Soon many of the precious flowers which form the base of his dyes will be gone.
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“Right now I am obsessed with dyes,” he confides. “Every day I’m working to create some special colors. And I have some very interesting experiments I am conducting using different kinds of minerals. This is the last time this season to get some of the flowers I use. Pretty soon everything will drive.”
Rising at 5:00 a.m. he drives the curving road leading up out of town into the highland forests. He has his secret spots to seek out his earthy treasures and is always mindful about making sure that he doesn’t take too many of any single herb, or flower, all the better to ensure a continuing supply to meet his need.
“It is ironic,” he sighs, “But as much as I support the use of vegetable and natural dyes it would be easy with all of the interest in natural dyes for weavers to completely take all of the wildflowers. But I hope that is not going to happen.”
For Bulmaro, a member of the renowned Perez weaving family that has been chronicled in many of the books about Zapotec weavers, and who also happens to be Demetrio’s brother-in-law, using natural dyes is the only way to go.
“During the 1970s and early 1980s everyone wanted really bright colors and pastels, and we all used chemical dyes,” he recalls. “But now people want the natural colors and it is certainly much better for our lungs not to be inhaling chemical fumes.”
As children growing up in Teotitlan, Bulmaro and Demetrio, like most young people within the community, learned to weave at the feet of their parents who learned the artistry from their parents, and so on, for countless generations.
“We’ve always been weavers,” says Demetrio. “As far back as my family has lived here, and that is a very long time.”
For Bulmaro the legacy of his grandfather, an acknowledged masters of the craft, was a simple and profound influence.
Bulmaro holding one of his creations. “My grandfather lived until he was 92,” Bulmaro recollects. “And he was weaving until only a few months before he died. Weaving was his life, and now it is my life.”
The Zapotec weavers of Teotitlan first wove on traditional backstrap looms until the Dominican missionaries introduced harness looms and Roman Catholicism during the 16th century. Today, the lovely Dominican church which stands four-square in the center of town bears witness to the co-mingling of the two cultures. Among the thousands of hand hewn rocks from which the church is constructed are some which have been sculpted with the images of Zapotec deities. Here and there are stones which feature the geometric grecos that dominate Zapotec design.
“You can look at the designs in the stones, and look at my carpets, and still see the same designs,” Demetrio says. “We’ve been using many of the same images for hundreds of years. But I’m constantly refining my own ideas, and working to do something a little bit different.”
For Bulmaro, the desire to create a new design has led him to a pattern which was quickly picked up by other weavers and is now, he claims, one of the most popular designs in the marketplace.
He unfolds a beautifully colored rug with rich browns, reds, and golden shades. The pattern is subtle stripes and checks interemingled with the “Little Mountains” and “Rain” that characterize the design.
“Some weavers like to make rugs using the pictures of Diego Rivera, or Pablo Picasso,” he says. “But I like to respect that they were painters making paintings and I am a weaver making a carpet.”
Bulmaro is also known for weaving rugs with long-fibred mohair which creates an heirloom quality rug that will last well into the future.
“You can put one of those carpets down in a hallway and because of the strength of the mohair it will not wear out,” he says.
And while certain Zapotec motifs will turn up in the rugs of many weavers. Not all rugs from Teotitlan are created equal. Both men say that many weavers will claim to weave their carpets using all-natural dyes. There are, collectors claim, only a handful of weavers in Teotitlan who work using all-natural dyes.
“It is a very labor intensive process,” says Demetrio. “I used to have 70 nopales cacti for cochineal. But I have to ask myself, am I a weaver or a farmer?”
The rich and varied red dyes of cochineal that are the result of the harvesting of the insect from the Nopal cacus once was so highly valued that it was known as red gold. Its importation was closely watched by the government, and exportation of the furry white insects that live on the Nopal cactus was forbidden.
Today both cochineal and indigo remain the two most expensive, and most desirable, of the natural dyes, and any rug which is predominantly red could, both weavers caution, very well, be woven from aniline dyes. If the deal seems too good to be true it probably is.
But if the richness of red magnetizes many interested in Zapotec weaving, Demetrio has broken new ground with a palette of greens that are unique. With a great sense of pride he takes out a large carpet measuring approximately six by eight feet and with the air of a magician about to pull the rabbit out of his hat, he spreads it on the floor in a single expansive gesture.
The colors are subtle, as though he has indeed managed to create a magic carpet. No newly mowed lawn every looked this good. But the variations in tone, and the simple way he uses other colors, browns, and blues, work together to produce a carpet of dreams.
“This has been my surprise, working with these greens,” he enthuses. “When I first started using this palette people thought I was crazy. It was so different from what everyone else was doing. Now people who laughed at me a few years ago are coming back and wanting to buy my rugs.”
And there are continual surprises. For while Lazo has to be equal parts chemist, herbalist, and artist. Carefully measuring the ph balance of the dyes so as to remember his formulas for the future, sometimes something will happen that will be a complete and pleasant surprise.
“I had this yarn that I had dyed and it turned out this really unattractive shade of lavendar. I didn’t want to use it so I just threw it in a corner. Well, months went by. It rained, and sat out in the sun, and one day I went out and looked at it and it had turned into this beautiful shade of purple. It was fantastic and I immediately used it,” he laughs.
Right now Demetrio is balancing his work with dyes, with his weaving. He is currently cooking a pot of rich brown dye, and ventures over to the large outdoor kettle to check on the stew of wool, leaves, and other secret ingredients.
On the loom inside is the design of a fantastic carpet in a Tree of Life motif. The background of the carpet is a creamy lemon color, and when finished, 120 birds will gather around the branches.
The workshops of both Demetrio and Bulmaro both carry rugs from other members of their respective families. Demetrio’s workshop, which is housed in a graceful bulding on the way into Teotitlan is also the home to the La Cupula restaurant. A visit to see him might also include an impromptu lesson in the art and craft of the manufacture of natural dyes.
Bulmaro’s family workshop is an easy few steps from the center of town and offers the visitor the chance to see a large-scale weaving operation with more than a dozen looms that may be in operation.
Both Bulmaro and Demetrio have two children and both are hopeful that they will continue in the family tradition. In Bulmaro’s studio in fact are two small looms that he built so that his children could play at weaving and understand a little about the world in which they have been born.
And so a legacy of artistry is bound to continue.
This article was brought to you courtesy of iccoax.com Spanish language school in Oaxaca
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Itinerary Suggestions: Visit the weaving village of Teotitlan del Valle, , the Tule tree and Mitla archeological site. Oaxaca Tours provides private car & driver services to visit archeological sites and villages in the central valleys of Oaxaca.
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