We are posting our annual end-of-year NEWSLETTER on our website a bit earlier this year, as we want to make an announcement about a colorful and exciting textile event to be held Saturday, November 13th, here in Tucson.
Maya Traditional Textiles – Exhibition & Sale
Joan Jacobson Guatemala Collection
Saturday, November 13 – 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
St. Michael & All Angels Episcopal Church – Parish Center
602 N. Wilmot Road (at 5th Street), Tucson
Detail, huipil (woman’s upper garment), San Ildefonso Ixtahuacán, handwoven on a backstrap loom in three cotton panels, joined by hand embroidered seams. Joan Jacobson’s notes indicate she purchased it from the young weaver. San Ildefonso Ixtahuacán is a Mam community in Huehuetenango. (Photo – Cole Jacobson, the collector’s grandson).
St. Michael’s Guatemala Project, in conjunction with the estate of Joan Jacobson of Tucson, is hosting an exhibition and sale which celebrates Maya indigenous weaving traditions and features over 200 items selected from a collection that numbered more than 600. A weaver herself, Jacobson made multiple trips to Guatemala from the 1970s to the early 2000s, and also worked with trusted dealers in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Some of each purchase price will be returned to Guatemala through St. Michael’s Guatemala Project, which works directly with 21 rural Maya communities.
Gayle Castañeda of the Castañeda Museum of Ethnic Costume, Tucson, is providing invaluable patient guidance in identifying, assessing, and cataloging textiles.
Information – Guatemala Project Coordinator, ilaa@mindspring.com,
(520) 623-3063
The Castañeda Museum donated hundreds of volunteer hours to determine the identification and age of the textiles and provided tidbits of unique information for many of them. Gayle Castañeda, our Museum’s director, knew Joan Jacobson personally, and admired her passion for music and art, her dedication to the Tucson Museum of Art, and admired her ardent interest in local government and the well-being of Tucson. Joan was of great help to Gayle when her technical expertise was needed to help Gayle understand complicated weaving techniques used in many of the Museum’s Mexican and Guatemalan garments.
St. Michael’s GUATEMALA PROJECT was founded in 1993 to aid Maya indigenous people living in the most remote mountain areas of Guatemala. Volunteer teams from St. Michael visit these areas annually, to provide funding to train community Maya health care workers, purchase medicines, and transport patients needing specialized care to larger towns, among other humanitarian activities.
While our event is a benefit sale, the Castañeda Museum wants to inform you about a Guatemalan textile exhibit at the Sam Noble Museum of the University of Oklahoma in Norman, Oklahoma. The Castañeda Museum recently contributed a substantial number of Maya textiles to their museum’s collection, and we hope you will check out the Sam Noble website.
In this NEWSLETTER, we are featuring a few of the changes in design to the huipil (woman’s upper garment) of the Guatemalan town of Santiago Atitlán, from the late 1800s to the present. All the huipil examples were woven on backstrap looms with embroidery added.
Explore information about the backstrap loom on the Internet for a more in-depth understanding of this loom type. Santiago Atitlán is situated on the southern shore of Lake Atitlán, and its people are Tzutujil Maya.
The top half of this second huipil features hundreds of embroidered birds. It probably dates to the 1960s. With colored threads becoming more easily available in the 1950s embroidered birds soon became a dominant motif.
This huipil with close-up was collected in the 1970s. The small figures are an old traditional design, but the neckline favors the trend of the very large flower and bird embroidery. The two birds at the neckline represent what seems to be a macaw on the viewer’s left and definitely a harpy eagle on the right.
The last huipil dazzles with its colors and beadwork. The birds and flowers are covered In seed and bugle beads, which were introduced in the mid-1980s. This huipil is dated ca 2000.
Donations to the Museum include those of November and December of 2020 through September of this year. We are most grateful for all your donations, and no gift is too modest.
We list here some of our special contributors: Ila Abernathy, Dr. & Mrs. Robert Brown, Charles & Tali Castañeda, Beth Dittrich, Candee & Adrian Gaxiola, Greg & Helen Greene, Edward & Barbara Haugland, David & Carol Hoffman, Joan Russell, Ann Samuelson, Kathy Street,
Marjorie R. Van Steen Memorial Fund.
Anita Ladensack donated a cloth, Arizona Hualapai Tribe doll, with beaded cape & headband,
ca 1990. She also donated 2 carved Katsina dolls, an eagle dancer & a Situlili figure, ca 1988-1990.
Included here is our annual fundraising appeal. We depend on your generosity to sustain our outreach to the public. The Castañeda Museum is a 501(c)(3) entity, and all donations are tax-deductible to the extent provided by law.
