“Why could no one come to this meeting?” I wondered out loud to Señora Luz during my second “official” meeting with Las Madres de Ashé. Ostensibly the meeting had been their idea to get everyone together and have a further discussion (about whether or not they wanted to deal with this gringa researcher), but no […]

I needed to find materials for the needle felting workshop I had planned with the artisans of Cantagallo, and in Lima, there’s one place to go to get textile materials: Gamarra. A large area of pedestrian-only blocks dedicated to clothes, fabrics, materials, and a whole lot of other stuff, Gamarra is located in La Victoria […]

  On my first day back in Lima, I went to Miraflores to visit Adelina and Katy who had been in Lima showing textiles at two different craft fairs for almost the whole time I was living at their house in Pucallpa. It was great to see them again, hang out at their stand, tell them […]

In Pucallpa, anyone can have a restaurant for a day. In fact, it seems that the narrow definition of a restaurant has been wholly redefined. For example, any enterprising family can decide they want to make some extra cash, cook up a huge grilled meal, invest in a large quantity of beer, put a sign […]

On one of my last days in Pucallpa, I asked Leonida to explain her textile techniques and patterns for an interview. My only request was that she describe processes in the way that she had been telling me informally while we worked together. As the interview unfolded however, she took the opportunity to speak about […]

We decided to make a bag. Shipiba women make and sell a lot of bags in various sizes from cell phone pouches to small hand bags; the construction is very light, although people say these bags hold up well. Also, women tend to cut up large pieces of embroidery or painted textiles to make smaller […]

There is a market in Pucallpa where you can buy anything. Not just things you might need for your house, motocarro, dinner, etc, but also live animals from the jungle; monkeys, birds, snakes, endangered river turtles, and turtle eggs (which are a delicacy of the region). The market is call Bella Vista, but Katy, Adelina’s […]

Teresa, in addition to being a gifted artisan, is an incredible sales woman. This means she’s the perfect person for me to hang around with, and she doesn’t mind me tagging along. Of course, it’s important that I buy my fair share of textiles from her, she will even trash talk (lightly) someone else’s embroidery […]

My days in Pucallpa quickly fell into a comfortable rhythm. Waking up early in the calm, white rectangle of my mosquito net, eating breakfast in San José, and then heading to Yarinacocha to wait for a car to San Francisco. I got into the habit of calling Teresa from town to ask what groceries she […]