Made by Hand...The future of Maya textiles and other indigenous arts

Long bus ride today from San Cristobal to Panajachel on the foreshores of Lake Atitlan.  I've done it before and it's a lovely ride.  The little mini-vans were not, in my opinion, designed for long journeys over bad roads (at least not with the comfort of the passenger in mind) but the scenery is amazing and I always feel a great sense of anticipation about arriving at the lake.  With pleasure I quickly discover for this trip I will be in good company.  These little buses are always full and the dynamics can be totally different.  One trip I swear for the entire 11 hours trip there was not one work exchanged between the passengers.  Happily this was not the case today and conversation flowed easily from the very first 'buenas dias" as I board the bus.  I sit in front of a lovely young British couple, Emma and Ronan, who are on week 6 of a 12 month travel sabbatical.  I think back and try to remember the feelings and thoughts I had when I first set off on my travel sabbatical beginning of 2010.  Its been more than 3 years ago and my priorities changed so completely in those first 12 months I couldn't imagine going back to the corporate life.  I wonder if the same thing will happen to them.  A friendly Romanian couple sit next to me and across the aisle is a petite American girl who looks vaguely familiar.  We soon figure out why.  Chris has been a tour leader for a Guatemalan based tour company the last three years making multiple visits to Roatan.  We know many of the same places and people and no doubt I have seen her on the island before.  We quickly fall into enjoyable conversation about our travels, swapping stories and tips about the different routes.  Just before the Guatemalan frontier we are have to pull up abruptly when the traffic stops.  People  are abandoning their cars and walking down the road.  Which is not a good sign.  I guess we'll be here for a while.  Turns out there is a Zapatista protest ahead.  They've closed the road.  Chris is well read on Mexican current affairs. Apparently there has been a lot of Zapatist unrest in the last weeks due to proposed governmental reform that further disadvantage the farmers and already marginalised indigenous groups.  We are stopped for about an hour.  When they open the road again we have to pay a "toll" to pass.  It's a small amount which ostensibly goes to helping the poverty-stricken rural indigenous communities who are pretty much ignored by the government.  These periodic and minor inconveniences are a regular part of travel in Mexico.  Chris seems really well informed on current event and the Zapatista agenda and fills us all in.  Cool.  
Chris and I are talking more about Mexican and Central American culture.  We get onto the topic of artisan products.  I comment that one of my challenges is to educate tourists on the different quality and origins of hand-crafts, and explain the higher prices in my gallery.   So many of the tourist souvensuir shops now are selling "imitation" indigenous crafts which are made in Asia.  They are much cheaper of course and to me, the difference in quality, both aesthetic and material,  is clear.  They are mass produced in factories using vastly inferior materials and have none of the cultural significance or artistic vision or the real thing.  Many of these mass-produced souvenirs will have the words "made by hand" "Roatán" or "Honduras" stamped on them giving the impression, or outright stating, that the item is a Central American handicraft.  Tourists literally don't scratch the surface and seem happy enough to spend their money on this and take it home as a gift or memento.  Especially at the cruise ship docks.  Chris tells me is becoming a big issue in Antigua, where she lives.  Many of the vendors in the street markets are selling textiles mass-produced in China but passed off as traditional Maya hand-weaving (ironically the women selling these textiles are dressed in traditional Maya textiles which ARE woven by hand in their villages and are seeped in ancestral knowledge and symbology).  The Maya women who are persevering with their highly skilled ancestral craft on the backstrap loom cannot compete because, in their ignorance, most tourists go for the cheaper option without an idea what they are buying or what impact their decision is having.  
The topic is top of my mind as just yesterday I was looking at a photo essay from Michael Wolf "Chinese Factory Workers and the Toys They Make" (Click here to see the Michael Wolf Photo Essay "Chinese Factory Workers and the Toys They Make").  While these toys do not compare to the art I deal in, it is a topic which is all-pervasive and often times I am pondering this most offensive assault of China's massive manufacturing and piracy capabilities on the art that I love.  Wolf's photo essay does a great job of humanising the industrial machine that is flooding the world market with cheap products of every possible imagining.  These factory workers are just people, with families, trying to make a living.  But the global impacts are huge and potentially devastating.  So what does "made by hand"  really mean to us and why is important?  There is some element of hand-work in all these Chinese factories and the people who work there are highly skilled at the repetitive task that they do.  The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines "artisan" as "a person who is skilled at making things by hand".  Does this make a Chinese factory worker an artisan?  I much prefer this definition which I found on Wikipedia.  "An artisan or artizan (from French: artisan, Italian: artigiano) is a skilled manual (meaning by hand) worker who makes items that may be functional or strictly decorative.   Artisans practice a craft and may through experience and aptitude reach the expressive levels of an artist".  It's the words "reaching the expressive levels of an artist" that are important.  Making the whole item from beginning to end with passion, love and artistic vision. And usually employing ancestral knowledge or techniques that have cultural significance.  With cheaply made synthetic and mass produced asian knock-offs flooding the market there is a danger that the real-deal gets relegated to those high-end stores and galleries where the more informed consumer shops.  Will this decline in economic incentive lead to a decline in the number of mothers who choose to pass this skill onto their daughters?  Or fathers to their sons?   To break the chain of ancestral knowledge which has existed, in some cases, for thousands of years, would be a tragedy.  The forums in which the artisans work are an important form of social cohesion which in some cases is all that is holding these fragile and fragmented communities together.  If these forums start to dissolve there is the risk of loosing a broader sense of cultural identity including language. The gradual shucking off of ancestral traditions and knowledge, or cultural markers can lead to an ancient race of people all but disappearing as it is absorbed into the modern-day country (or countries) in which is now resides.  Such as the Maya who live across Honduras, Belize, Nicaragua and Mexico.  So as travelers and consumers I think we have a real responsibility to help preserve these cultures and I'll put it out here.  When traveling and shopping for souvenirs, please ask some questions about where the item came from and how it was made.  Do some research online before you go and educate yourself on what to look for. And don't look for the cheapest option.  If a women spends three months making a shawl on a back-strap loom from cotton she picked, spun and dyed herself, she's not likely selling it for $5.  And if you hare happy to buy a $5 acrylic machine-made scarf while on vacation, at least do it with the knowledge that it was probably made in a Chinese sweatshop.  Ask yourself, does it seem FAIR and try and conduct your shopping habits to the principles of fair-trade.  Every little transaction makes a difference.
My mind thus occupied, the road flies by and soon we are beginning the steep windy decent into the lake.  Chrysta and I exchange information so we can meet up when I am in Antigua later in the week.  Was a good ride all things considered and I just make the last boat to San Pedro.

PS At LALA Gallery we have a personal relationship with every artist we represent and everything we sell is made by hand, in the country of cultural origin, using traditional methods.  If you want to see more check out the gallery page at Latin American Lifestyle and Art (LALA)

Passing the Zapatista roadblock

Young Maya girl in traditional dress selling cheap asian-made textiles on the street