Title: What is sustainability to you?
Size: 150 x 80 cm
Materials: Wool, Natural dyes, Cotton.
100% Natural Recyclable and Compost able
Gestation: Jan 16th - 31st July 2007
This is the last rug I wove in my Zapotec Indigenous community in México.
The first line at the bottom is a smile; we have within us with everything we need to know and everything we need to be happy even the medicines! Shamans of ancient Mexico discovered that when we simile our body generates vibrations that heal itself! What do we really need and what do we really want?
The next thing I wove are the most cultivated grains in the world, when tourists visit my studio in Mexico I joke with them saying that my ancestors selected varieties of corn to feed humans, then the industrialized farms start feeding corn to their cows and recently industry is trying to feed corn to the cars! Certainly corn is the most cultivated grain in the world but the way in which is done raises questions about the way we relate to the land and mother earth, farmers teach us that our best legacy to the earth is how much top soil we create.
The next part is a tribute to the ancient grasses from which most of the previous grains come from, primitive humans by picking up the seeds of this grasses developed a symbiotic relationship that has lasted for thousands of years and by cultivating them we have dramatically changed the entire surface of the earth.
The next thing you see is just plain raw wool resembling clouds over the ancient grasses, I just wanted to point out at how after developing irrigation we started to disconnect with the natural rhythms and cycles of the water.
Next we have a chain of mountains that end up in the form of the hockey stick to resemble the CO2 famous graph with a hockey stick shape. I want to say that we shall not only focus on CO2 emissions yes they are contributors to global warming but the planet has gone through repetitive cycles of cooling and warming years before industrial revolution. The problem is that we are creating epoxies in the ocean our pollutants are increasing the acidity of the water threatening the coral reefs and plankton at the bottom of the food chain, species disappearing, top soil being depleted and unknown substances that bio-accumulate in the environment are a few other things that we also have to think about. The mountains also remind us of how our ancestors did not use to live in cities and towns, they were scattered in the mountains it was only after the conquest of Mexico during the colony that the towns were created, this concentration made the people vulnerable to diseases and violence they also became dependant of a feudal system of agriculture that transformed their diet, diversity and redundancy was lost.
The next things I wove are fire, wood, stone, more fire, metal, oil and a microchip design to represent the materials we’ve used for the pursue of “progress” the next element proposed in the form of a tufted green patch of wool is plant material that can be used and transformed to make all the products we need to satisfy our needs, plants use current solar energy, create oxygen, sequester carbon, create microclimates, soil and provides habitat to hundreds of species.
The main part in the middle represents the revenge of a Zapotec Warrior against the physical and spiritual Conquest of his land and his brothers. The cross is upside down with Jesus Christ Crucified naked, The warrior is wearing a cape with the life cycle symbol around it, he wears a Eagle mask to represent his heavenly nature and his arm is transformed into the wisest animal on the surface of the earth, the snake which represents his earthly nature.
There is a bid diamond in the middle of the rug, this diamond shape represents God’s eye: once we balance the energy of the four directions we are able to see the world through the eye of god, only then Wisdom comes to us, we shall not look for wisdom but look for ourselves and when we are ready wisdom will come. Numerous butterflies flying around God’s eye represent the wisdom each butterfly is of a different color, size and pattern because that’s how humans are and you may be able to identify with one of the butterflies in the rug.
The biggest challenge to sustainability is knowing who we are, what do we want and where do we want to do, Unless that doesn’t happen there will still be people killing each other for stupid reasons making their lives very unsustainable not to say what the relation to the earth and the children of other species might be like if this attitude continues. The question here is why our technology has advanced so much since the discovery of fire but our consciousness has not had the same exponential growth?
The next part is just another chunk of raw white wool to say, erase and start over again on a white sheet. Then I had the idea to weave with my eyes closed in order to develop a more intense connection to my inner to my intuition, but since the rug was getting too stretched in then I decided I wanted to see again but that I should stop thinking in my weaving, just doing whatever I wanted to do, in the next stage I just relaxed and wove simple plain lines of color and at the end I finished with a transformed design of the life cycle symbol woven in the cape of the warrior. We all have a different learning process and we may arrive to different patterns at the end of the life cycle but the most important thing is to start the journey!
