Accha Alta A little more than ten years ago, I was visiting the breathtakingly high, beautiful Andean village of Accha Alta. This very traditional small community was still farming potatoes the old way, tilling near-vertical land with handheld hoes. They were still weaving sacks (costales) of handspun llama wool on backstrap looms to take those […]
01
Jan
Jan
Since Linda and I returned from Peru a couple of weeks ago, where we were hard at work on a future Thrums book, Peru has occupied much of my brain space. Visions of sugar plums and all that fun holiday stuff were nudged aside by images of Andean peaks and Inca ruins and textile–ancient and […]
Wishing you a happy holiday season filled with peace, beauty, and a bit of magic. We’re looking forward to an exciting 2016 and the opportunity to share more stories about traditional textiles and their makers. –from all of us at Thrums Books.
06
Nov
Nov
I was adding some photos to our Pinterest pages this week, which gave me the chance to look carefully at Weaving in the Peruvian Highlands: Dreaming Patterns, Weaving Memories, again. I’ve read this book so many times, and I’m still fascinated by it, still learn something new each time. This book was one of Thrums’s earliest projects, published in […]
18
Sep
Sep
Cultural Enterprise Back in 2012, when Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State, she helped launch an organization aimed at preserving and elevating traditional crafts. The Alliance for Artisan Enterprise (AAE) now has members operating in sixty-nine countries, creating jobs, increasing income, enhancing cultural heritage, and promoting development in ways that are respectful of the people and […]
26
Jun
Jun
I’ve been fascinated with the Smithsonian Folklife Festival blog and Facebook feeds the last few weeks. Interpret “fascinated” as spending way too much time watching video clips of upcoming events and dreaming myself there! The Festival started this Wednesday on the National Mall in Washington D.C. and runs through the weekend, then it’s on again […]
05
Dec
Dec
Just a year ago today, Thrums Books released Beyond the Stones of Machu Picchu. It was such a pleasure working with the author, Libby Van Buskirk, who had deeply researched the folk tales and folkways of the Peruvian highlands during her many years of travel in that country. And the illustrator, Angel Callañaupa, a Quechua […]
31
May
May
It wasn’t my first time in the Andes, that trip in 2005, but it was the first time I felt a real connection to the people and the incredible textile work being done throughout the region. I was on a tour sponsored by the Center for Traditional Textiles of Cusco (CTTC) and its North American […]
