Farming cochineal insects for natural dye

An insect died to create this color in my hand.

Hundreds or perhaps thousands of years ago, a Mexican weaver crushed a bug in her hand, found a bright red color and applied it to the thread she was weaving. That unknown weaver launched a cultural revolution. Well, it might have happened that way.

A fundamental aspect of folk art is doing things the way they were done before the advent of computers, mechanized production lines, and chemicals concocted in a laboratory. The terms hand-crafted and natural are as common in the folk art world as organic is in the world of agriculture.

A Magical Day in Mexico

Some days seem to be under a magic spell cast by a master planner. This one started out with a cool, blue-sky morning as we loaded ourselves and our luggage into a short cab ride to the Puerto Escondido airport.

Ready to fly

 A man with a phone and a plane -- That’s how Carlos Vega was introduced to us when we started figuring out how to get to and from Oaxaca to Puerto Escondido. Because all the “normal” airlines were booked, we wound up taking the twisty, seven-hour bus trip through the spectacular Sierra Madre de Oaxaca mountains to Puerto Escondido. We were delighted with the trip but thought one, long bus trip was enough.

To get back to Oaxaca, Bette found Carlos Vega and we called him and he said to meet him at the airport. No reservations, no tickets, no money exchanged … just “meet me there.” We didn’t know what to expect but we went to the airport, sat at the “restaurant on the left” like he told us to, and waited. Promptly, about the time we thought we should call him to make sure everything was on track, he walked up and led us through security and into a six-seater, twin engine plane. About 30 minutes later we landed at the Oaxaca airport. Next time, we’re going both directions with Carlos … phone number: 954-588-0062, in case you want to call him. 

Goodbye Puerto Escondido

Sierra Madre Sur

Detail from airport painting

Bathroom breaks and art -- When I landed in Oaxaca two weeks ago, I was on a mission and sped straight through the airport into a waiting cab. After the short flight from Puerto Escondido, we wanted a bathroom break before the cab ride. Bette went first and while I watched the bags, I started exploring a stunning painting but couldn’t find the artist’s name. When we exited the building, we saw a series of what looked like giant, metal alebrijes (fantasy creatures, usually wooden). We waived off the taxi driver and spent several minutes taking pictures of the delightful sculptures, which looked like the work of the same artist as the painting inside. 

Finally, I found the artist’s name: Fernando Andriacci and he found a new devoted fan. His work also turned up later in the day.

Old money breakfast and synchronicity —  Lisa Sonora, creator of Art House Oaxaca, where I’ll be staying for the coming week, met us for breakfast at Vieja Lira (old money), a small Italian cafe in Oaxaca central. Talk flowed freely and then Bette and I decided to do a short walk to give her a feel for the area before we were to meet Linda Hanna, folk art tour guide and Oaxaca co-ordinator for Feria Maestros del Arte. Linda had invited us to her bed and breakfast, Casa Linda, for comida (mid-day main meal) and was planning to pick us up at 2 pm so we had about three hours to wander.

We had just gotten oriented when Bette spied a shop that looked inviting. As we crossed the street, about half a block away from us, we saw a woman waving in our direction. We’re in the middle of Oaxaca. I don’t know anyone, but the woman looks familiar. Suddenly we realize, it’s Linda. She’s going into a meeting and tells us she’ll be out in an hour and could give us a mini-tour before we have to go to lunch. “Just some of my favorites,” she tells us. We’re delighted. 

El Templo San Jerónimo Tlacocha- huaya — When we entered the sixteenth century church, an organ was playing, creating a musical backdrop to a most unusual church. I didn’t know it at the time, but the organ is around 300 years old. The church is one of Linda favorites because of the extensive indigenous art work, primarily flowers. Built as a meditation and contemplation center for the Dominicans, it has a warm, inviting energy that made me just want to sit there quietly. Maybe next time. 

For scale, see the man in lower right.

  

Note tree on left ... big?

El Tule -- When I was creating my Google Map for this trip, one of the “must sees” was a tree Wikipedia states has the “stoutest trunk of any tree in the world.” In spite of my love for trees, it was beginning to look like this must-see would not happen this trip … until Linda mentioned it as one of the many things we could see in the two hours we had before comida. 

I jumped at the opportunity to see the ancient tree (age estimates between 1,200 - 3,000 years with 1,600 being the most agreed upon) and we were off to the village of Santa María del Tule.  

Note the person at the bottom right.

More people at bottom right.

I’ve seen big trees: the giant sequoias are overwhelming in their grandeur, and I’ve seen old trees: the twisted bristlecone pines in the eastern Sierra are mind-bogglingly old, with at least a couple dating back five thousand years. However, El Tule has it’s own way of stealing your breath away. It is massive in the way a mountain is massive and its trunk meanders rather than maintaining the expected round trunk shape, creating walls of textures and burl flowers.

This is not a close up.

Technically El Tule (named for the tule grasses growing from this naturally wet area) is a Montezuma cypress or ahuehuete (meaning "old man of the water" in Nahuatl). Mythically, the local Zapotec legend holds that it was planted about 1,400 years ago by Pecocha, a priest of Ehecatl, the Aztec wind god. All of that aside, it was humbling to stand in the shadows of this incredibly beautiful living being.

The artist Fernando Andriacci has two pieces of art close to the tule tree and the church. This one gives you another sense of scale of the tree and church.

Note tree and church in background.

Casa Linda — I had heard tales about Linda’s folk-art-filled bed and breakfast, but still wasn’t prepared. Nestled on a beautiful, half-acre of trees, rocks and a creek in the village of San Andres Huayapam, five miles from central Oaxaca, this is a little piece of paradise. Linda is a weaver who came to Oaxaca sixteen years ago, and stayed. She now leads folk-art tours and shares her love of indigenous art and the villages of Oaxaca.

Dining room mural.

The above photo from Linda's website shows an incredible mural in her dining room and is better than any photo I was able to take in my beauty-stunned state. For more photos, please check out www.folkartfantasy.com/. 

Not only did we get to feast on the incredible beauty and variety of the folk art displayed, her friend, Chef Sam, fed us royally.

And the beat goes on — By the time Bette and I were returned to Art House Oaxaca we were stuffed, with food, beauty, culture and inspiration. We had an hour or so to rest before time for Bette to catch a taxi for her flight home. We crashed in my room and it wasn’t long before we heard the distant sounds of band music. We wondered what it was, but not enough to get up and find out.

Walking the half block to the corner got Bette's taxi made me realize what an incredibly beautiful evening it was … and I could still hear the music, so, once Bette was on her way, I followed the music and found bands and mojigangas (large puppets) celebrating a wedding in Santo Domingo Plaza. I followed them for awhile and then ran into a similar parade for a quinceanera. The birthday woman was beautiful so I joined her parade, taking futile pictures in the dark with my iPhone but enjoying the music, dancing and conviviality. 

At some point, a guy handed me a thimble full of a clear liquid (presumably mezcal), the first sip of which burned for a block and a half. The gesture of inclusion seemed to be a perfect note on which to end this incredible day.  

Tequila vs. Mezcal: It's all about the story

Mezcal in Oaxaca by Joyce Wycoff

It’s almost like a sports event: my team vs. your team, Jalisco vs. Oaxaca.

Technically, tequila is a mezcal since both are made from the agave plant, however tequila is only made from the blue agave while mezcal can be made from any of 28 varieties of agave. Tequila is primarily made in Jalisco, while mezcal comes mainly from Oaxaca.

The primary difference is in the piña. After the stalks of the agave plant are cut away by the jimador, there is a head which looks like a pineapple … thus piña, the Spanish word for pineapple. Tequileros bake the piñas in above-ground ovens. Mezcaleros bake the piñas in below ground pits.

The Mexican restaurant Acapulcos, clearly favoring mezcal, describes the process:

The agave heads (also called agave hearts, or piñas) are roasted or grilled over hot rocks in a cone-shaped pit (called palenques or hornos). A fire is started and burns for about 24 hours to heat the stones that line the pit. The agave heads are put into the pit and then covered with moist agave fiber that is left over from the fermentation process. A layer of agave leaves or woven palm leaves cover the fibers and the agave heads are left to cook for two to three days.

They go on to explain the types and aging process of  mezcal … as well as the worm!

Types of Mezcal

Mexican government regulates mezcal, defining various types and aging categories in a manner similar to tequila. The regulations split mezcal into two categories:

Type 1: 100% agave (using any or all permitted agave plants)

Type 2: Minimum 80% agave and maximum 20% other sugars.

There are three aging categories:

Abacado (also called joven or blanco): clear, un-aged mezcal that results from the distillation process. It is often bottled immediately, but flavoring or coloring agents can be added.

Reposado (also called madurado): aged in wood barrels for two to eleven months.

Añejo: aged in wood barrels for a minimum of twelve months.

The regulations also forbid mezcal producers to make tequila, and tequila producers cannot produce mezcal.

The Worm Surprise

Mezcal is widely known for the agave “worm” (or gusano) that floats toward the bottom of the bottle. It is primarily a marketing gimmick to help boost sales, especially in the United States and in Asia. In fact, it is not a “worm” at all, but one of two insect larvae (a caterpillar of a night butterfly or the larvae of the agave snout weevil) that can infest yucca and agave plants.

Tequila never (ever!) has a worm in the bottle.

So, which is better?

Food court in Oaxaca

John McEvoy, who bills himself as the Mescal PhD and wrote the book Holy Smoke!: It’s Mezcal, obviously leans toward mezcal. For the rest of us, it’s either a matter of taste or story. Tequila has a clear, contemporary story, while mezcal has a smokey, artisanal story. And, then, there’s the worm.

Since I don’t actually like the flavor of either, I’m swayed by the story and the thought that somewhere in a mescalero village there is a donkey turning the wheel that crushes the piña heads that have been baked in a pit lined with volcanic rock. Add that to the story heard in my much younger days that eating the worm produces a psychedelic trip and I probably wind up on the mezcal side.

While here in Oaxaca, my friend Dolores and I stumbled across a delightful food court and met the owner who focuses on the mezcal bar. He made me a mojito-like drink that was wonderful, primarily because I couldn’t taste the mezcal, but thoroughly enjoyed the idea of it. No worm, of course.

Alhóndiga Reforma also has a remarkable mural on their wall. I'm still looking for the name of the artist.

Resources:

https://acapulcos.net/mezcal-versus-tequila-whats-the-difference/

http://mezcalphd.com/2012/08/tequila-vs-mezcal/

Art House Oaxaca

Dolores in front of a giant travel journal page

This is a woman’s place. (Sorry, guys!)

Especially women, who after a full life of working and tending to a family, are now looking for ways to activate their creativity.

I am here with one of my long time friends, Dolores Forsythe, and staying with Lisa Sonora, a woman we met YEARS ago at an Intuitive Painting workshop at Hollyhock on Cortes Island in Canada. The workshop changed my life and the three of us have stayed friends over the years, however, this is the first time we have all been together since that long ago workshop.

Colorful walls with creative messages

Lisa is a queen of art journals and using them to unleash our inner artist. After moving to Oaxaca several years ago, she created Art House Oaxaca to serve that process. Walls have been painted by with bright colors and inspirational sayings by workshop participants and a large outdoor studio offers an abundance of art materials and space for projects. The residence spaces are basic but comfortable and the location is in the heart of historic Oaxaca. Within easy walking distances are coffee shops, restaurants, historic architecture, crafts markets, art galleries, and shops featuring unique Oaxacan folk art.

 

Materials galore!

More glimpses of Oaxaca

Art House offers a variety of creative workshops and long-term creative project residencies. For more information, Contact Lisa Sonora Beam. 

Another truth about travel: every day is a new day

Sometimes the world seems backwards.

My first day here, I wanted to go home. Yesterday, the streets turned golden and I fell in love with with this magical place! Maybe I had just been looking at Oaxaca backwards.

Within blocks of Art House Oaxaca where I’m staying is the Andador Tourístico, a shifting kaleidoscope of sights and sounds, art and history. I went out for coffee and came back four hours later, completely enchanted. 

Papel picado reflected in my cup of café Tlaquepaque

Every day of travel is a new day. Of course, every day of life is a new day also, which is probably the lesson that travel brings us. The limited time span of travel focuses our attention, reminding us that life is finite and not to be wasted.

Yesterday, my friend from Coronado arrived so three of us, who hadn’t seen each other in several years, got to reconnect and catch up on life stories as we ate, talked and shopped our way through a medley of shops and tiny outdoor boothes.

Dark Forest Room

Highlights: In MOCA, the contemporary arts museum, I was in one well-lit gallery looking at black and white sketches when I glanced through a long, almost black room, through a door way into another well-lit space. The doorway perfectly framed a painting of a woman. The presentation was so dramatic and engaging that I entered the dark space only to realize there was a painting of a forest done in black-on-black. 

It was an almost  jarring sensation, trying to comprehend the subtle, black, forest painting but still being drawn to the light and the picture of the woman. 

Fernando Palma Rodriguez

The work of Fernando Palma Rodriguez, creator of mythic robotic pieces takes up the second level of this museum, giving viewers a chance to wander from room to room and engage with eerily “living” creatures. In an artist interview with Rachel Bongiorno, she says, "Palma weaves images and stories from the Nahuatl culture and shows how the technology impacts on the way we view and interact with the natural environment.”

Attached to this exhibit was a haunting short movie produced and directed by Rubén Quiroz showing a coyote-human moving disjointedly through the modern world. Unfortunately I couldn’t find it online.

Filemón Santiago Exhibition

At MUPO, the museum of Oaxacan painters, is housed in a seventeenth-century building originally built to educate girls. The current exhibition, the first offered as the museum reopened after the September, 2017, earthquake, displays four decades of the work of Filemón Santiago.  This video gives you a sample of his symbolic and disturbing work.

Upstairs in an unattended room was an labeled work I found fascinating. Google helped me identify it as Los Colores de Oaxaca painted by Rodolfo Morales in 1996. I sat with it for a long while, trying to comprehend the message and the culture the artist offered about Mexico and its people. 

Los Colores de Oaxaca by Rodolfo Morales

After all that culture, it was time for coffee and I found Lusicarú, an art-filled coffee shop connected to La Mano Mágico, where I learned my first Zapotec word: Lusicarú, meaning “beautiful eyes” and tried café Tlaquepaque which was wonderful, but not quite sure what made it different. 

Topping the day off was an amazing bit of wall art, even though it was an inside wall, a Oaxacan wedding parade in the streets with giant puppets representing the bride and groom. Plus, I even saw Superman! You just have to love Mexico.

Oaxacan Wedding

The Truth and Trouble about Travel

From a courtyard

Whether you’re a fearless, try-everything adventurer or more of a timid, tiptoe-into-the-moment traveler, there is one thing that’s always true … when you’re traveling, you’re not at home in your comfort zone.

Today I arrived in Oaxaca, apparently expecting golden streets. Instead, I was met by loco drivers (and lots of them) honking like they were in New York and sometimes driving on the left side of the street for some unknown reason. As I walked around the cathedral square and the zocalo, I heard no friendly “Buenos días!” and found no charming outdoor cafes. 

Admittedly, I was operating on three and a half hours of sleep so I was tired and hungry, but I just kept thinking, “This is not Ajijic.” Since I had already decided to keep a travel journal, when I finally found food, I wrote my first impressions of Oaxaca:

• loco, honking drivers
• no friendly greetings on the street
• dry and dusty looking
• more indigenous people in colorful clothing

Woman working in Cathedral plaza

 

• Art House, where I’m staying, is in a great location and it’s fun to see my friend again
• very little wall art, and what I’ve seen so far has an edgy, political tone
• no outdoor cafes, at least where I walked
• nice walking surfaces with few cobblestones
• kids in sparkly roller blades learning to skate in the Zocalo
• overwhelmed by by the profusion of galleries and tiendas of arts and crafts
• being hit on by  the colectivo driver was cute at first and then got disturbing
• happened into a restaurant that served tlayudas, an iconic Oaxaca street food

 

Tlayuda with chorizo

About the tlayuda … it’s a very thin. grilled corn tortilla about the size of a plate, smeared with beans, cheese, lettuce and whatever else the cook feels like putting on it. Some say it’s like a Mexican pizza but mine was folded in half and served with a relatively hot salsa. It was actually quite good and the people were lovely. 

I was feeling more sanguine after eating and I’m sure everything will look much brighter tomorrow. However, for a moment, I truly just wanted to be home. As much as I love being at the bottom of a learning curve, it’s not a particularly comfortable place. 

 

 And, thus, the journey begins. 

 

Morning after: My Fitbit tells me I've slept 8 hours and 25 minutes. The day calls me.

The Cathedral a few blocks away

I love plants on walls ... and angles.

Blog: Slow down: Simplify, savor, synthesize

Several years ago, my husband and I decided to semi-retire. We bought a Roadtrek camper van and equipped it with vanity plates that commanded us to GOMOSLO. It worked for awhile, but life offers a feast of possibilities, each costing a portion of our time and energy. Without noticing, we drifted back into “busy.”

In the wee hours of this morning, on my way to three weeks in Oaxaca, once again, I felt the message to slow down. The past couple of weeks have been north-of-the-border busy, getting ready for two art shows and delivering my first newsletter for Feria Maestros del Arte. These were fun, engaging, creative projects. However, with the trip to Oaxaca already scheduled, they came with challenging deadlines, and I found myself revving up to a much higher tempo than normal, actually a bit frenetic.

Now, sitting in the airport in Mexico City after too little sleep, I find myself relaxing and thinking about the weeks to come, letting go of the expectation that I’m going to devour the world of Mexican Folk Art in one huge gulp. I have a google map of Oaxaca with dozens of pins marking the “must sees," the art villages surrounding the city, and the artist’s workshops that I want to visit. And, I’m sure I could add dozens more and create a non-stop schedule for the next 21 days, letting myself get caught up in a frenzy to climb the endless learning curve I’ve chosen. 

 

However, one of my art journal friends has, nicely and somewhat subtlety, encouraged me to keep a travel journal and I actually started one last night with pages of maps of all the places I could be visiting. Added to that is the fact that I'm staying at the home/art studio of a friend who is also an art and travel journal guide. Methinks, there's a message about taking the time to journal about this trip.

Perhaps, it isn’t the quantity of what I see and learn, but also the quality of the experience and what it means to me. Maybe, the travel journal is not just another task to perform on this trip, but actually the point of the journey … not as a product but as the process of making sense of the experience.

As these thoughts meandered through the morning, a thought struck me:  Slow down: simplify, savor, synthesize. Simplify my agenda and don’t try to “see it all.” Savor what I see and do with all my senses. Synthesize the many pieces of what I experience into a meaningful whole. Slow down and enjoy this gift of time and the introduction to this great city and its incredible diversity of culture and art. Let it seep into my pores.

My journey into Mexican Folk Art

Sunset Egret by Joyce Wycoff

My life seems like a long, slow, surprising tiptoe into art. Nothing in my early years hinted at where I’ve wound up: no art in my family, little art in my school life, and far more pressing issues in my early adulthood. I was a practical person and art would pay no bills.

Slowly though, art tapped at my door, peeked around the corner, and finally moved in, lock, stock, camera and Photoshop. With great hesitation, in late mid-life, I finally called myself an artist. The art I make is modern … bright colors, the juxtaposition of opposites, and the sometimes startling emergence that happens when two unrelated things join together and something completely unexpected arises from that joining.

Ancient traditions: purple magic in a dyeing world

Recently, I held a bit of magic in my hand. Magic that connected me back through thousands of years of history and a sacred and fragile bit of today’s world. All of this was handed to me at the premier Mexican folk art festival: Feria Maestros del Arte, held every mid-November on beautiful Lake Chapala, Mexico.

Caracol púrpura, milked for its ink

Purple has long been coveted as a color of beauty and a sign of royalty and wealth. The wearing of purple was often forbidden by sumptuary laws intended to regulate and reinforce social hierarchies. Interestingly, for as highly as it has been valued throughout history, the discovery of purple dye seems to have come from the whims of accident.

The primary source of purple dye has been snails which make a defensive ink, somewhat like an octopus. In Phoenician mythology, its discovery was credited to the pet dog of Tyros, the mistress of Tyre’s patron god Melqart. One day, while walking along the beach the couple noticed that after biting on a washed up mollusc the dog’s mouth was stained purple.(1)

Did a dream change Mexico’s art forever?

Purple-dotted three-headed dragons, orange-striped unicorns, multicolored armadillos, a turquoise-winged owl with a human face. Where do all these brightly painted mystical, fantasy creatures come from? Called alebrijes (Spanish pronunciation: [aleˈβɾixes]), this popular form of Mexican folk art stems from one man’s dream … well, maybe.

Buho Nahual by Zeny & Reyna Fuentes

The popular story is that the term and this form of art came forth when Pedro Linares fell ill.  Wikipedia tells us this story: