Soledad Vásquez learned the art of hand-weaving wool rugs from her great-grandfather who made wool rugs until his death at age 98. Today, Soledad passes on this artistic craft to her son Germán. Soledad Vásquez continues to use the traditional materials and techniques of the Zapotec to create her beautiful rugs, even though most other weavers in the area have changed to more modern techniques and equipment. It is a long process to create hand-made wool rugs in the traditional methods. The process of fashioning a woven wool rug begins with washing the wool, no soap is used for this because it can damage the wool, instead it is soaked in warm water then the wool is pulled with a wooden and metal brush that separates dirt and burs from the wool. Next the wool is pulled and twisted into thread, during this stage different colored wools (previously dyed) can also be twisted together to create more diverse colors. The process of pulling the wool is done with an antique wheel and spindle, and is worked by hand. Once the woolen yarn has been made it will be dyed by soaking it in a large pot of dye. Watch this video of Soledad demonstrate hand-pulling wool to create yarn for her rugs. (English translation coming soon). The dyes used to create the colors of the rugs can be organic or inorganic. Examples of organic colors are yellow and red. The red is made by crushing the insect the cochinilla (which lives in the cactus) into a powder then adding it with the wool into a pot with heated water. The woolen yarn will be stirred in this pot with the dye for many hours and, often, dried lime will be added to determine the vibrancy of colors. The dried limes are used as an acid to determine the darkness of the color, if they add a lot of dried lime the color will turn lighter, with less lime the color is darker. Once the colored dye has set into the wool yarn it will be hung out to dry. This process is repeated for each colored yarn that will be needed to weave a particular pattern in the rugs. Watch this video of Soledad showing how she uses natural dyes to color the yarn for her rugs. (English translation coming soon). Once all the chosen colors are made into yarn, and dried appropriately, the weaving of the rug will begin. Soledad Vásquez continues to do her weaving by hand on a pre-Hispanic backstrap loom as opposed to the European horizontal looms used by many other weavers. This makes the process longer because it requires particular attention and knowledge by the artist handling the loom. The course of weaving a rug can take many months to complete because it is a slow and meticulous process. However, preserving the ancient methods and using traditional, organic materials make the final creation that much more unique and beautiful. Soledad Vásquez uses a combination of traditional Zapotec patterns as well as her own unique designs: diamonds, triangles and rectangles, birds, butterflies, flowers, lightning bolts, mountains and ancient figures and motifs all decorate the rugs by Soledad Vásquez. To view a catalogue of hand-woven Zapotec wool rugs by Soledad Vásquez, please click on the link below. |
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| Catalogue of Hand-Woven Wool Rugs by Soledad Vásquez | |
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