A Mother’s Gift

Teaching textile traditions is a gift mothers pass to their children generation after generation. Whether in Mexico or Morocco, Afghanistan or Laos, mothers have been teaching their daughters (ands sons) to weave, to spin, to dye, to embroider for centuries. Sharing these skills with the next generation is practical, of course, because it creates a […]

The Hat in the Hat

In our culture today, it’s most likely a felt or straw Stetson or a baseball cap, that thing men put on their heads. (In my father’s time, it was the ubiquitous fedora.) In Peru, it’s a knitted chullo, often topped with a brimmed felt hat. One for warmth, one for sun protection. The knitted chullos […]

To Weave a New Pattern–Lao Style

Our guides in this week’s travel adventure are Joshua Hirschstein and Maren Beck who began traveling through Southeast Asia fifteen years ago with their 9 and 11-year-old sons. After two family trips in Thailand, Vietnam, and later, Laos, Joshua and Maren wanted to transform these extended family adventures into a new lifestyle, a new way […]

Weaving in Morocco: Our Craft, Our Calling

Morocco

Last week, publisher Linda Ligon transported us to the highlands of Bolivia and Peru. This week, I’m taking us on a journey to Morocco. After my first visit there with author Susan Schaefer Davis, I described it as a place of “Layers and layers of flavor, color, and light, distilled into a single joy.” I […]

A State of Wonderment: Photography of Joe Coca

Joe Coca

All of our books, despite variations in craft techniques and far flung locations, share common themes: endangered textile traditions, the life stories of indigenous artisans, and culture and place as context—those hands that shape craft and crafter. The other common thread in our books is the remarkable photography of Joe Coca. Last fall, in celebration […]

And the Winners Are . . .

Armchair traveler

Every spring for the last thirty plus years, the Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA) celebrates the little guys in the publishing world through its Benjamin Franklin Awards. This is actually a highly regarded indie book award program that recognizes excellence in editorial content, photography, and design. This year the IBPA judges, hundreds of them, chose […]

The Lives of Women and of Nature

el mago

Author and photographer Eric Mindling has spent nearly three decades traveling the back roads of Oaxaca, Mexico. His 2016 book Oaxaca Stories in Cloth: A Book about People, Belonging, Identity, and Adornment shows not only his love, but his respect for the dramatic geography of Oaxaca and the people who have made it their home. […]

Nevertheless, Woad Persisted

Woad

Keith Recker has worked with makers from more than sixty countries to refine their products, tell their stories, find new customers, and gain the recognition they so deeply deserve. He has gathered their stories in his highly acclaimed book True Colors: World Masters of Natural Dyes and Pigments. His book is at once an immersive […]

I Am Still Here

To know a Maya woman in Guatemala is to know resilience. A Maya woman has an undeniable strength, despite poverty, despite discrimination, despite the obstacles in her path. It is a strength that allows her to keep her children fed and to negotiate an uncertain future. This story of Maya artist Bartola Morales is an […]

Far Gazing: A Bridge to Guizhou

What I love: mountains, hats, cloth, stories within ritual. On our third day in China’s Guizhou Province last spring, publisher Linda Ligon, photographer Joe Coca, and I bounced along steep and muddy mountain roads with our dear guide Wang Jun and faithful driver Mr. Zhou. We were in China to work on our newest book […]

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