Week 13 – a new appreciation for the Huichol
The iguana was finished at the beginning of this week – eyes and symbols down the spine.
Now I’m working on the bra portion of the harness. This portion of the piece pays homage to the Huichol, descendants of the Aztec. The technique is called ‘yarn painting’ (you may remember a similar craft project when you were a kid). The difference between the craft project you may be familiar with and the Huichol art is the weight of the yarn used. The Huichol typically use a very fine yarn, and in my attempt to pay proper homage to the art form, I too am using fine weight yarn garnered from recycled sweaters.
This is the beginnings of my novice attempt at yarn painting. The center of each gourd will feature a peyote flower – one of the most symbolic images used in the Huichol arts. If you’d like to see the immensely skilled work of the Huichol, I suggest you visit one of our local galleries, Galeria Atotonilco. To give you an idea of time involved, outlining the six-petaled flower with 3-strands of the dark green yarn and filling in two of the petals with the same color took 5 hours. I have a whole new appreciation for the Huichol artisans. I’m hoping to have the whole piece completed by the end of this coming week. Fingers crossed;)
