[gallery] DIGS attended the trade show in Antigua a week ago, invited by the trade mission to speak on a panel. Antigua is idyllic and is a perfect backdrop for the show. A Spanish Colonial town dating back to 1500-1700 nestled in the mountains near a volcano, its magic.
The show was very insightful in gaining an introduction into Guatemalan handcraft. The show is held at an incredible 5 star hotel that before was an old monastery. It houses a museum and a crypt on the grounds, if you find the time to visit it’s a must. What I found most interesting for such a little show was the desire to fuse design into hand- crafted items across many exhibitors in almost all materials, a trend of course DIGS loves! We met amazing artisan groups working in very compelling sustainable materials with unique provenances we are now collaborating with so stay tuned!
This trip also afforded us the opportunity to visit Ecolibri, on Lake Atitlan, an area renown for Shaman, yoga retreats along side traditional villages nestled between several live volcanoes. You can sense the power of the place the minute you arrive. Ecolibri is a non-profit assisting an artisan cooperative of mostly women weavers. Traditionally in Guatemala, the men work the large looms and the sewing machines and the women relegated to the back-strap loom (don’t get me started!). However, at Ecolibri, the founder Dita Zakova introduces the various tools and machines to the women, so they develop other skill sets. They also get to use their embroidery skills, crochet and basket making. Ecolibri is also the group taking on our infamous Scarfitecture challenge!
Speaking of which we were able to shoot the second installment of our video documenting the arduous process of the making the unique one-off scarves.
Besides Scarfitecture, Dita has Ecolibri very busy with several interesting programs involving and benefiting local Mayan Indians from the various villages around Lake Atitlan. 1000Faces sells beautifully designed cotton jersey skirts, made from scraps and left over remnants found in open-air markets in various villages around the lake. Coupled with embroidery, hand stitch details and patchwork, all the monies from sales goes to buy special Mayan nut nutrition supplements for local children. One bag of nut nutrition is donated with each skirt sold and each bag of nutritional supplement lasts a whole month. Dita has a long list of children and is meticulous to be sure each one gets a bag as skirts are sold. She has several customers in the US that buys skirts by the hundreds!
Another program Dita participates in is a program in collaboration with Calysyria.org, where they go into remote villages at higher altitudes that are often poorer then average, where hundreds of children die in each village each year under the age of 3 months because of the indoor smoke from their ovens…imagine. I can’t, the statistics were devastating and Dita could not live on the lake without addressing this huge problem head on. Each year she takes volunteers from US universities up to the villages and each uses their own monies to build a family a smokeless oven themselves. I think its Dita’s Czechoslovakian tenacity that gives her the drive to take on amazing adversity to accomplish almost single handedly the challenges that arise as a pioneer would in the Wild West.