Our Workshops and Backcactus Tours

Preparing cochineal red dye

The Art of Natural Colors. Dyes, Pigments and Artisans of Oaxaca
Jan 3-12, 2012
COX1201-SH

In coordination with Kansas State University and Professor Sherry Haar

Oaxaca is color! From the walls of the colonial buildings, the frescos in the Zapotec temples, the piles of food in the markets to the colors of her textiles, pottery and contemporary paintings, color is everywhere. In coordination with Kansas State University and professor Sherry Haar, we take a journey into the world of Oaxaca’s natural colors. We visit potters who search the hillsides for soils they can use as pigments to decorate their sculptures. We learn how earth pigments have been used for centuries to paint the buildings of Oaxaca. We see how different colors are used to bring life to handmade paper in an artisanal workshop. We meet a master dyer in Mexico’s largest tapestry weaving village and see how they turn plants and even an insect into a spectacular array of colors. We spend an afternoon at a research center where that insect, cochineal, which creates the best natural red day on earth, is cultivated.

And everywhere we go we are meeting Oaxacans, traditional Zapotec artisans, contemporary potters, the young men at a village run paper making cooperative, the people in the markets, cooks, etc. And we are immersing ourselves into this culturally vital place, from small villages to thriving markets and the vibrant streets of Oaxaca city. 

Our journey culminates with an innovative natural dyeing workshop presented by Sherry Haar at the Oaxacan Textile Museum with our group and weavers and dyers from Oaxaca state. What a wonderful way to cap off this unique adventure.

By following color we meet the people and see the places that comprise a rich and fascinating corner of this planet in a very special way.

Tour Itinerary by Day:

Day 1, (D) Arrivals. Meeting for orientation 6pm.

Day 2, (L) Our day begins out the front door, exploring the colonial city of Oaxaca, a UNESCO World Heritage site. We’ll visit the spectacularly restored ex-Convent of Santo Domingo which has become the Regional Museum. Among many of its treasures is the gold, silver and jade find from Tomb 7 of Monte Alban as well as a collection of beautiful Mixtec polychrome pottery. We’ll also visit a contemporary artist today who uses pigments in his paintings. Time allowing we’ll also take a walking tour of Oaxaca city to learn a bit about this lovely city of green stone, thick walls and shaded parks. PM in Oaxaca

Day 3, (L)  We start our day with one of Mexico’s most creative traditional potters, Angelica Vazquez. Through fine sculptural pieces Angelica depicts myths, legends and dreams in clay. She has also experiments with all the colored soils she finds and has created an interesting palette of earth pigment slips and paints that she applies to her pieces before firing.  Then we visit ruins of San Jose Mogote, site of Oaxaca’s oldest urban center dating back over 3,500 years. In the small community museum next door is one of the treasures of Oaxacan archeology, an expressive clay head painted with a bright red powder that hasn’t lost its color in perhaps a thousand years.  We’ll round off our day with a visit to a cooperatively run handmade paper workshop where, among other materials, natural pigments are used in coloring the papers. PM in Oaxaca.

Anglito by Angelica Vasquez

Day 4, (L) In Santa Ana Zegache there was an ancient and decaying church as well as decaying work options, but a creative project is afoot offering alternatives to both, renovating the church and generating local jobs through the crafting of…mirrors!  We visit Zegache today to learn about this project with an art restorer where we’ll try our hand at painting with egg tempura and natural pigments as was done when this church was built 400 years ago. Also it is Friday, which means market day in the nearby town of Ocotlan…and this is one of Oaxaca’s most vibrant markets so we’ll wade into the midst of it to take part in the fun! In the afternoon we’ll visit a place where the world’s best natural red dye, cochineal, is cultivated. PM in Oaxaca

A long tradition of plants used for natural dyes

Day 5, (LD)  Biding farewell to Oaxaca city we head to a small Zapotec village that happens to be Mexico’s largest weaving village with some 4,000 working weavers. A handful of those weavers are master natural dyers. We’ll spend the morning with one of those dyers, seeing how he works with different dyes including cochineal and indigo. After a traditional home-cooked lunch in the village we’ll visit some of the weavers in town to see range of weaving in the village. We spend the evening in a small hotel on the edge of the village. PM in Teotitlan.

Day 6, (BLD) The pine covered peaks that rise high above Oaxaca City are part of the Eastern Sierra Madre. Into them we travel today to visit one of the last surviving silk production areas in Mexico. 450 years ago the silk trade was booming throughout Oaxaca and the wealth it produced fueled the construction of some of the most elegant early churches in Oaxaca. But a century of disease, corruption and competition from the Orient turned that boom into a bust and by 1620 silk had all but disappeared from Mexico. However Oaxaca, remote, hidden and deeply rooted, hasn’t paid much attention to the wider world’s cycles of boom and bust. What you no longer find anywhere else you still find in Oaxaca. Lost in the sierra for centuries was a village where silk never died out. It was on the brink of disappearing in the 1990s, but efforts have been made to bring back this luxurious trade. We’ll meet members of a cooperative who have been on the forefront of that effort and see their beautiful creations of handspun silk woven on backstrap and floor looms and often colored with natural dyes. PM in Teotitlan.

Cactus with the cochineal insect used for an ancient and brilliant red dye

Day 7, (BLD) One of Mexico’s famous archeological sites is Mitla with its well-preserved palaces and their ornate decorative stone work. We’ll pay our respects to this monument…and then go even deeper. Ten miles down the road in a dusty village, hidden beneath the grounds of an abandoned and collapsing hacienda is an amazingly intact Zapotec tomb with geometric designs and remnants of the original pigments used to paint the walls. This is also a village of flying shuttle loom weavers and we’ll meet a family and see how they create lovely cotton cloth for clothing, bags, table clothes, etc.  Then deeper still up a winding dirt road and over a mountain to the mineral springs and “frozen” water falls of Hieve el Agua where we’ll soak up the sun, enjoy the views and perhaps take a swim in the mineral pools. PM in Teotitlan.

Day 8, (BL) Pottery making began in the Oaxaca valleys 3,700 years ago…and since then it has never ceased. Today we’ll visit the Zapotec village of San Marcos Tlapazola where pottery has been made for at least 100 generations, and perhaps twice that. We’ll see how they create their beautiful, stone polished pottery that is used for cooking stew, boiling coffee, toasting tortillas and a hundred and one other uses. Here the potters use iron oxide slips to finish and decorate their pottery. This technique is common in Mesoamerica and today we’ll learn how slip is prepared and used in this village. In the afternoon we’llr return to Oaxaca and the time is yours for resting or exploring. PM in Oaxaca.

Hammered Leaves

Day 9, (D) Sherry Haar, Professor at Kansas State University, will present techniques to create color, pattern, and prints with fresh plants on woven cotton and silk.  The presentation is open to the public, while the workshop is by invitation.  Sherry's recent textile designs have been shown in Fiberarts Magazine and in exhibitions in Canada and France. PM in Oaxaca.

Day10, () departures

Hammered Coreopsis