by Susan­na Starr

As I sit here in our home over­look­ing the Hon­do Val­ley  out­side of Taos, New Mex­i­co, with the back­drop of the San­gre de Cristos moun­tains alter­nate­ly shroud­ed in cloud cov­er, I real­ize that I’ve only been home from our annu­al three and a half month stay in Mex­i­co for a cou­ple of weeks.

Just lit­tle more than two weeks ago we were walk­ing the streets of the weav­ing vil­lage where I’ve been work­ing with the same weav­ing fam­i­lies for so many years. As always, it was won­der­ful being there, vis­it­ing with our old friends, who are real­ly the clos­est I have to extend­ed fam­i­ly, and see­ing all the changes in the year since our last visit.

This time John and I arrived with copies of our recent­ly pub­lished book “Our Inter­wo­ven Lives with the Zapotec Weavers: An Odyssey of the Heart” the beau­ti­ful mini-cof­fee table book that my part­ner, John Lamkin, and I col­lab­o­rat­ed on, with my sto­ry and his beau­ti­ful pho­to­graph­ic accompaniment.

In this day of imme­di­ate elec­tron­ic com­mu­ni­ca­tion, it wasn’t quite the sur­prise we thought it would be since it had already made it’s advance announce­ment on Face­book. But not every­one had heard about it, espe­cial­ly not the Line of the Spir­it weavers. But every­one seemed to be delight­ed with it. Many of the pho­tos brought hap­py smiles of recog­ni­tion but most impor­tant­ly, it was that spe­cial shared feel­ing of know­ing each oth­er, our fam­i­lies and the vil­lage itself over these many years that was so meaningful.

This new book of ours tells the sto­ry not only of my forty years of work­ing with the Zapotec weavers in this vil­lage, but par­al­lels their lives with my own, of the three gen­er­a­tions I’ve been involved with, my own being the first gen­er­a­tion, the chil­dren who are now adults and run­ning the estab­lished busi­ness­es begun by their par­ents, as the sec­ond gen­er­a­tion. All of these fam­i­lies have been and always will be a sig­nif­i­cant part of my life.
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But it’s the third gen­er­a­tion that real­ly excites me, the gen­er­a­tion of my own grand­chil­dren. These younger peo­ple who have already start­ed in on careers of their own such as med­i­cine, or are now at uni­ver­si­ties study­ing engi­neer­ing and inter­na­tion­al com­merce or attend­ing high schools in Oax­a­ca prepar­ing them for unknown pur­suits, are astound­ing. Their grand­par­ents, my old­est friends, were the tran­si­tion­al age, the one that rep­re­sent­ed the shift from the tra­di­tion­al ways of their par­ents and grand­par­ents to being immersed in the con­tem­po­rary world that includ­ed me and a num­ber of oth­er “com­pradores” (buy­ers) like me.

They passed the torch to the next gen­er­a­tion who con­tin­ued to build their busi­ness­es and their homes and pro­vide new oppor­tu­ni­ties for advanced edu­ca­tion to their own chil­dren, often shut­tling them back and forth to spe­cial­ized schools in Oax­a­ca on a dai­ly basis, for years, to pro­vide them with the foun­da­tion for cre­at­ing an alter­na­tive to the weav­ing tra­di­tion they had grown up in, to give them oppor­tu­ni­ties to forge their own way and often bring back new skills to the community.

Although these “kids” look like teenagers any­where in the same kind of jeans, tee shirts and sneak­ers with the same cell phones, there is some­thing spe­cial about them. Although very much a part of the 21st cen­tu­ry, they are still deeply steeped in more than 5,000 years of Zapotec cul­ture and tra­di­tion. They have nev­er suf­fered the west­ern “angst” won­der­ing who they are or what their place is. They have always known what their place was and con­tin­ues to be. From the time of their arrival they have been embraced by the strong ties of fam­i­ly and com­mu­ni­ty. They prob­a­bly go through many of the same thoughts and feel­ings of con­tem­po­raries any­where, but they are not lost. They step out into the world joy­ful­ly. And……every one of them that I know is beau­ti­ful, male or female. Every one of them is infused with lov­ing­ness. I know I must be get­ting old when I look at them and feel the tears in my eyes!

But not all of these young peo­ple are going on to pur­sue new careers. Many of them have opt­ed to con­tin­ue in the weav­ing tra­di­tion, already being fine weavers in their own right. And many more look for­ward to work­ing at home on the looms that have defined the life of their vil­lage, enjoy­ing the famil­iar tra­di­tion they choose to con­tin­ue, adding new ideas and visions to those they’ve already been exposed to.

Over these past forty years, we’ve spent so much time in the excit­ing city of Oax­a­ca, rich in its cul­ture, vibrant in its col­ors and rich in its cook­ing tra­di­tion (Oax­a­can chefs are some of the most famous in Mex­i­co as well as some from the vil­lage who have received inter­na­tion­al recog­ni­tion) and excit­ing in its atmos­phere. It’s still the excit­ing city it’s always been. But, this time John and I stayed out in the vil­lage with our friends and I still bask in the glow of being there.

Rather than shut­tling back and forth from the city, we enjoyed the qui­et and inti­ma­cy of being in the vil­lage, of walk­ing out at night and say­ing hel­lo to the neigh­bors, of strolling down the main street and not­ing all the new con­struc­tion and remod­el­ing and upgrad­ing that seems to be tak­ing place on every oth­er cor­ner. Many of the old dirt roads have been paved, street lamps light the way and won­der­ful slo­gans urg­ing peo­ple toward think­ing about recy­cling, mutu­al respect for gen­der, women’s rights and oth­er social issues, are writ­ten with artis­tic accom­pa­ni­ments on the walls. The sense of com­mu­ni­ty is pervasive.

There’s so much more to tell about, but I’ll save it for the next install­ment. Right now I can only cel­e­brate still again the rich­ness that has been part of my life through my con­nec­tion with the weav­ing fam­i­lies of this vil­lage. The time has come for me to close this chap­ter of my life, at least the gallery part of it, Starr Inte­ri­ors. I’ve been pro­cess­ing this time for the past few years and now that it has become clear in my mind that the next step for me is to pass the torch to some­one else that will build upon my rela­tion­ship with the weavers, I feel con­tent­ed. I’m quite sure that the right per­son will appear who will weave their own rela­tion­ships into a mean­ing­ful part of their life, find­ing the coun­ter­part of run­ning the gallery in the equal­ly beau­ti­ful moun­tain town of Taos, New Mexico.