By Nilda Callañaupa Alvarez and Christine Franquemont,
Photography by Joe Coca
Paperback | 151 Pages
ISBN: 9780983886044
A rare glimpse of Andean elders and their artisan textiles is captured in this stunning book. It vividly portrays dozens of ancient weavers and the landscapes they occupy in the Cusco region of the Andes. The book reveals the personal stories and life experiences of the weavers, bringing to life the decades of endurance, skill, fortitude, and natural pride honed from the time-honored traditions of the region and its people.
Winner of the 2014 Benjamin Franklin Gold Award for excellence in editorial content, photography, and design!
About the Authors
Nilda Callañaupa Alvarez is one of the founders and Director of the Center for Traditional Textiles of Cusco. She grew up in Chinchero, Peru, learning sheep raising, spinning, and weaving from her family and other Elders of the community. Callañaupa holds a degree from the National University of San Antonio Abad in Cusco, and has traveled throughout the world representing her people and their textile traditions. She lives in Cusco and Chinchero with her husband and two sons.
Christine Franquemont was an anthropologist with long experience living and working in the Andes studying textiles and essential native plants. She and Nilda Callafi.aupa shared a friendship since Franquemont lived in Chinchero with her family in the 1970s. She was twice a Fulbright Scholar in Peru, a Visiting Scientist in Japan, and a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellow. She was the co-chair of the Andean Textile Arts, a North American support organization for the Center for Traditional Textiles of Cusco, until the time of her death in 2013. Faces of Tradition is an important piece of her large legacy.
REVIEWS & PRESS
“An elegant, soulful book unlike any other I have held in my hands. It is a call for the honoring and preservation of culture through tapestries, through weaving, through the dignity of those who listen to the truth of their lives with their hands. This is a book about time and beauty woven together through weavers’ stories. A review in five words: portraits of integrity and love.” —Terry Tempest Williams
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