Mi clase de Espanol y Papermaking

Flowers of the Pechote tree

Day two of Spanish class went well, I am remembering more than I expected. Only two of us in class, un otro estudiante being Helen, una maestra de arte (what a coincidence!) from Indiana who is also on a grant,  but more of an artist grant, not a teacher one. She and I are doing pretty well under the tutelage of Moctezuma (no joke, that's his name... but we call him Mocti).

At the language school, there's a group of teachers, administrators and kids from California who have been taking many day trips after their lessons. Katherine, one of the staff, thought Helen and I would like to tag along on today's excursion to Etla to visit a papermaking workshop. Of course! The group were very nice to include us, and we had a good time. See evidence below.

Natural fibers and dyes used for the paper.

In the large tub is a slurry of cotton, linen and/or maguey (cactus) fibers and water. He dips the frame in the slurry and covers the screen in the middle of the frame with the slurry. He then drains off the excess water....

...and carefully tips the whole sheet of new paper onto a felt covered board. Here he's putting one sheet on top of another to hold the leaves inside the paper. The sheets are put one to a board and stacked on top of each other and put under a very heavy press, which squeezes out alot more water. They are then hung to dry, which takes about 3 - 4 hours in the sun.

When dry, the beautiful paper is made into many things: envelopes, writing and art paper, notebooks, boxes, and yes, even kites.

Here's a woman making a paper kite. They make pretty large sheets of paper, but with a kite this size they have to glue sheets together. They then secure a split bamboo brace to the back with glue and glue and paper strips. They also fold over and glue the edges of the kite.

We then went to a local arts center, which is housed in an old textile factory, where they were having an exhibit of local Oaxacan textiles and a ceramics exhibit of one man's life work.

These textiles are beautifully handwoven and most are quite thin, and in a variety of colors and styles. Some, as you can see, are worn as shirts or dresses or shawls.

Second story of the center, the ceramics exhibit.

The view from the terrace patio.