Handmade Zapotec bag · Teotitlán del Valle, Oaxaca
The El Sol Bag.
A handwoven wool “Sun” bag in natural plant dyes, made on the loom by Margarita Gutiérrez Martínez. There is one of it.
Buying this item supports the community it was made in — Margarita’s family and the Zapotec weavers of Teotitlán del Valle.
- Made by
- Margarita Gutiérrez Martínez, master weaver
- Where
- Teotitlán del Valle, Oaxaca, Mexico
- Material
- Handwoven wool
- Colour
- Natural plant and insect dyes — no synthetics
- Edition
- One of one — there is no second
- Shipping
- USPS, calculated at checkout. U.S. for now
One of one, so once it sells the page comes down. Real USPS shipping is calculated at checkout. We ship within the United States for now — outside the U.S., email info@thecommunitygarden.org and we will arrange it. Measurements and weight on request: ask us before you buy and we will go and measure the actual piece.
The design
The design is a sun.
Weavers in Teotitlán work from a small set of Zapotec motifs that includes the sun, the fret, the diamond, the Ojo de Dios and the lightning of Cocijo. Each family has its own way of weaving them. The bag is made on a treadle loom, so the design is part of the cloth rather than printed on it.
The weaver
Margarita Gutiérrez Martínez is a master weaver from a family of master weavers in Teotitlán del Valle, and she leads the Zapotec art and language work the foundation supports there. She is one of our community partners in Oaxaca, not a supplier we found.
Teotitlán del Valle
Teotitlán paid its tribute in cloth to the Aztecs, then wove for the colony, then for traders in Santa Fe, and now for the people who come to it. Sheep and the treadle loom arrived around 1535; everything before that was cotton on a backstrap loom. What did not change is that this is a weaving town, and the families in it still keep their own motifs and their own dye recipes. Zapotec is still the first language of the village.
Roughly a hundred and fifty families weave there. Only about a dozen still dye with cochineal and indigo, and a handful use nothing else.
The colour
Nothing in the bag is a bottled dye. Cochineal is a scale insect farmed on nopal cactus — it takes tens of thousands of them to make a pound. They are dried, ground on the metate, and then pushed from scarlet to orange to purple with nothing but acid and alkali: lime juice one way, bicarbonate the other.
Añil gives blue, pericón yellow, pecan husk brown, rock moss green, and dyeing one over another gives the rest. Indigo is the showpiece: the yarn comes out of the pot a dull green and turns blue in your hands as the air hits it.
Buying it
The bag was bought outright from the weaver at a price she set. 100% of the profit goes back into the Zapotec art and language work the foundation supports in Teotitlán. We are a U.S. 501(c)(3), EIN 92-0810800. More on how the artisan program works, and on the weaving and dyeing itself.
For exact dimensions, strap length or weight, email us before you buy and we will measure the actual bag rather than guess at it.
Where the money goes
100% of the profit goes back into cultural preservation with the makers.
The bag was bought outright from the weaver at a price she set. The profit funds the Zapotec art and language work in Teotitlán del Valle.