Artisans of Michoacan

November 15, 2008                                                                                    Darrell, Donald, David and Douglas Haun 
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"Artisans of Michoacan: By Their Handsby Travis M. Whitehead
Order from {Click here} amazon.com or barnesandnoble.com
"I'm a former U.S. Army photojournalist who served in Panama and Northern Iraq. I've been a reporter for in South Texas for 14 years. I won an Associated Press Award in 2005 for a stories series about the homeless in Hidalgo County. I've written for Texas Highways."
From the book "Artisans of Michoacan: By Their Hands" by Travis M. Whitehead
Chapter 18 - Cecilia Bautista Caballero - Woven and Feathered

She pulled out the webbed hem of a black shawl called a rebozo. Two large stones held the cotton fabric in place on a wooden table as she inserted the fuzzy quill of a coal-colored rooster feather. Peering closely, eyes squinting, her tiny hands eased a needle through the tip, looping black thread around the feather and the fabric, adding to what promised to be a magestic creation.
"It's an order from Mexico City," said Cecilia Bautista Caballero. The elderly artisan was seated in her workshop in Ahuiran, a small village in western Michoacan, where I had travelled with my friend Noemi from the Casa de las Artesanias. 
"It will take two months," she continued, gesturing toward a bundle of restless rooster feathers. The dusky light oozed into the workshop, catching shadows of iridescent emerald and rusty red hiding in the tar-complected plumes. "They're from the U.S. The ones here are too small."

"Artisans of Michoacan: By Their Hands
by Travis M. Whitehead
Order from {Click here} amazon.com or barnesandnoble.com
Juana Alonso Hernandez,, the mother of David Santos Alonso, makes guanengos with needlepoint, makes cocuchas, raises fighting roosters, clears land for others to plant their crops, and cultivates her own corn fields. She's seen her share of tragedy in life, having lost her husband when they still had young children to raise. About 17 years ago, two of her children died in separate accidents. One son died in Oregon when he hit his head during a fall. A daughter died after being struck by lightning while washing clothes. Still, she's managed to persevere and make a life for herself, and she's always full of smiles.
"Artisans of Michoacan: By Their Hands
by Travis M. Whitehead
Order from {Click here} amazon.com or barnesandnoble.com
Hermelinda Reyes Ascencio in the village of Cocucho.
"Her hands coaxed the thread, relinquishing the kaleidoscopic hues within her soul to cavort freely across the white fabric of the blouse, or guanengo as it is called in Michoacan. At eight-four, Hermelinda Reyes Ascencio's fingers still moved with a tender dexterity as she sat in her granddaughter's yard in the village of Cocucho pulling the the filament through the material surrounding a needlepoint flower radiant in shades of violet, magenta, and lavender.
Martha Lopez Luna gripped a fragment of hummingbird feather with tweezers and placed it delicately on her painting of Isla Janitzio rising over the lake. Pondering her arte plumaria (feather art) painting for a moment, she removed a small puff of raw-umber feather from a jar and split the piece into tiny threads, then changed her mind, inserting instead a tiny shred of peacock feather in Lake Patzcuaro for a reed. Meanwhile, Lorenzo the Loro had stepped crassly to the window and now peeked inside as if to ask, "Hey! Have you used any of MY feathers yet? Where!? Let me see!"

"Artisans of Michoacan: By Their Hands
by Travis M. Whitehead
Order from {Click here} amazon.com or barnesandnoble.com
From the book, "Artisans of Michoacan: By Their Hands" by Travis M. Whitehead.

"Pale green reeds dove beneath rays of yellow fiber as Santiago Marcelino Morales wove them into a basket, the smell of freshly cut vegetation filling the air of his shop in Ihuatzio. The courses of chuspata, harvested from nearby Lake Patzcuaro, zigzagged in eaer arpeggios toward the top of the container. Suddenly, the ...rhythm changed as Santiago sliced a reed with his thumb and index finger, then entwined stalks around tense strips of aged vegetation to embrace them in a chain pattern. Arriving at the top, Santiago brought the rambunctious composition to a close, looping the reeds over themselves in still another design called pico terminado. 
Santiago's family is involved in a number of crafts. He makes all sorts of things out of found objects, including flowers made from corn leaves dyed different colors. They also make rebozos, which are shawls.
"Here in this family, we don't go by, 'You are a man, and you are the woman. Do this, do that.'" Even his son, Jose Angel Marcelino Gabriel, shares the rebozo-making trade with his wife. "If there are a lot of dishes and my wife is busy doing something else, I can do the dishes no matter what."
"Artisans of Michoacan: By Their Hands
by Travis M. Whitehead
Order from {Click here} amazon.com or barnesandnoble.com