Porfirio Gutiérrez, a rug-making artist from Oaxaca, recently held an online presentation where he shared his biography, as well as the background of the art* of rug making in Mexico. He started the talk by greeting us in his native language. He talks about the bug, seen in a couple of images that, when crushed, makes the red, and shades thereof, that is so important to the culture. He also mentions his early days as an immigrant to California, where he saw echoes of ancient Mexican structures in the modern houses to which he hauled bags of construction cement. You can see this in the two images of buildings. And he included several shots of rugs he and his family have made. It's easy to see why the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian has bought some of his work for its collection.
Here are some screen shots of the talk.
I have to say he inspired me (again, since I felt the same after his Harvard U program several years ago). So when he mentioned his having to mount an online trunk show having had to cancel all his in-person ones, and was thus was having trouble making ends meet, I tried to help him by getting another of his wonderful pieces.
* Or is it a craft? They talked about that.
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