In 2019 I learned about Maximo Laura, his tapestries, and his tapestry workshops in Peru. An image search and information on the web let me know that this was quite possibly the workshop for me. I immediately got ”to work” on registering for a workshop scheduled for May 2020. By this I mean that I also pulled together some professional development funds form work, booked my airline tickets, hotels and AirBnB, planned for the high altitude meds, had a health review for traveling broad and of course researched the food of Peru, etc. Then Covid arrived….

For two years I (along with others that planned the same trip) waited out the virus and the vaccine. I knew I would get there eventually. In 2022, fully vaccinated and with borders open for travel, I set out in late September for my first excursion to South America and Peru. Rebooking air travel, hotels and AirBnB fell in to place very easily and I set out to meet 20 other workshop participants, Maximo Laura and his family, and the people of Peru. My itinerary: 3 nights in Lima, 4 nights in Cusco and 12 days in Urubamba and the Sacred Valley where the workshop would be held.

Close up of a fragment of embroidered fabric from the Amano Pre-Columbian Textile Museum

I set out on my own and flew from Nashville to Miami and from there to Lima, Peru. In Lima, I stayed in the home of Peruvian artist/sculptor Victor Delfin. Victor still lives and creates in his studio on the property, but the house has been turned in to a boutique style getaway and gallery for his work. Second Home Peru turned out to be a great retreat after a full day of flying and a great neighborhood of restaurants, markets and shops to introduce me to Lima and Peru. I had a wonderful experience staying here, the staff is wonderful, the home sits on the cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean and the rooms are wonderful. You can learn more about Second Home Peru at https://www.secondhomeperu.com. The experience was so wonderful that I booked the final night in Peru at this hotel before flying out early the last morning.

While visiting Lima, I headed over to both Pre- Columbian museums in the city. The first stop was the Amano Pre-Columbian Textile Museum. Traveling alone and with no schedule to follow at this part of the trip, I relaxed and spent a good two hours, maybe longer, looking through the museum and taking photos. Yes! They allow photographs! I had a little experience with Pre-Columbian art, but I have to admit to being blown away by the history and the work presented in this museum. The museum is set up as a self guided tour with lots of information and so many textiles to view I have no other words but “This is Amazing!” The Amano Museum is online at https://artsandculture.google.com/partner/museo-textil-precolombino-amano. I spent another 2 hours at Museo Larco which has an enormous collection of Pre-Colombian pottery, ritual vessels, more textiles, metal and jewelry including the knives used to sacrifice human offerings to the gods. Creepy right? In a low lit museum that is fairly quiet and walking alone, I felt like I took a step back in time for a moment. And I remembered that what I was learning also happened all over the world in one way or another. Creativity has certainly been around all of these centuries and so has different approaches to dealing with the gods or spirit realm. Interesting two facts: early civilizations in Peru held weaving and fiber art in such high esteem that they actually burnt offerings of their finest woven textiles, 2) it wasn’t slaves or the prisoners that were offered as human sacrifices but often some of their most outstanding citizens found themselves on the losing team and were therefor sacrificed to the gods. There was actually a game or sporting event between two teams and the losing team members were sacrificed. Museo Larco is also one of the few museums in the world to have their collection vault open to the public. So after my curated museum experience I took the time too walk through room after room of very high shelving units holding stacks and stacks of Pre-Colombian pottery and effigies. It’s a collection that spans centuries, but I was still blown away that a society was so productive in the clay works. https://www.museolarco.org/en/

I took tons of photos everywhere I went, over 1000 pics actually. From the food or snack of the moment to all the art in the museums and at Second Home Peru, I took pictures. But I’m not a travel or food writer, at least not yet, and this blog is about the tapestry workshop with Maximo Laura.

So after 3 nights in Lima I flew up to Cusco. Here I spent 4 nights still relaxing, adjusting to the highest altitude I’ve ever experienced, enjoying a restaurant in the same courtyard of my AirBnB and of course sightseeing and shopping. I also started to meet up with different people coming in for the workshop. The first person I met is the delightful Anne Martin from the UK. In Cusco, Maximo Laura has a two story gallery and museum of his work as well as a floor loom with a work in progress. I visited the gallery three times in that visit and the first time I had a private tour (because no one else was visiting at the time) with the gallery director. The second time with new friend Anne and we met Maximo that trip. The third visit was on a tour with the workshop cohort and I was still amazed at all that I was seeing.

We also made several visits to the Centro De Textiles Tradicionales Del Cusco. This center has a small museum, really wonderful gift shop of handwoven items and to our delight the hands-on and dyed yarns created by artisans from 10 different communities. And they have women from each community come in daily to demonstrate weaving on a back strap loom.

The loom in the Maximo Gallery and Museum

Maximo Laura speaking with the workshop group and yes in front of one of his award winning tapestries.

The workshop was held in Yucay which is in the Sacred Valley about an hour outside of Cusco. Our first day was a walking tour back in Cusco with an amazing tour guide, Nilo, and his sister. With a wonderful sense of humor and a tremendous respect for the history of Peru, Nilo led us through Cusco to see ancient sites, shopping the Laura Museum and more.

Yucay is also home to the Museo Yucay. This little gem is almost like walking into a living and breathing village as your guide/host takes through around a courtyard of rooms with various parts of the process a village goes through to raise the alpaca and llamas, spin the wool, dye it and then weave it into cloth. We also saw examples of village style crafts including jewelry. And we stepped back in to reality once inside the large and contemporary gift shop.

In traditional clothing of her village, our Yucay Museo tour guide is showing us about the drop spindle.

An assortment of the natural dye colors that can be achieved with plants and mordants typically gathered in the region. Part of the display at the Museo.

Now begins the workshop….

The Sacred Valley is surrounded by these mountains. Imagine waking up everyday to views like this!

Soooo much yarn!! These are the “packages” of yarn with blended color bundles of super fine alpaca for us to use in our tapestries.

Maximo Laura speaking with a student after his talk about the weaving and the color blending.

The workshop was made o up of 20 people from the USA, other countries in South America, the UK, Crete and Australia. Experience levels ranged from beginner to professional. This was quite a wonderful and supportive group of people which was greatly appreciated as we all had new challenges in weaving to face. Each student had a pipe loom, a color pattern or cartoon to follow, and of course all that wonderful alpaca yarn. We were given 1:1 lessons on each section of our cartoon which were technique based and also about following the color gradations in the design we were given. Each section was a different technique and I think mine held 10 - 12 techniques. Instructors from the Laura studio were patient and kind and worked the room beautifully. Every student worked at their own pace and at times there was some negotiating around the design someone was given. The cartoons varied and even two similar designs could have a different color wave. Some techniques in my cartoon included basket, twill, and double weave. Some techniques came from embroidery, others were variations on sumac, and there was a great technique on dealing with slits. Everything was done on the loom so even embroidery found a way to become part of the actual weaving process and not a post weaving task. My brain “hurt” some days with all that I was learning.

My cartoon and the color wave of yarn just for the border of the tapestry.

Maximo Laura’s samples for each of the cartoons shared in the workshop.

The start of my tapestry. Sections are marked out in ink and the cartoon is a guide to the side.

After 9 days of weaving, everyone cut their tapestry off the pipe loom and these were loosely basted together to create one large tapestry. Which was an amazing end goal for a workshop like this!

Team Laura! from left to right: Giancarlo, Billy, Paola, Maximo and Jimmy. Not only a great team but a wonderful family as well.

So much learning and so much unweaving and reweaving to try to get new techniques learned in a short period of time. There weren’t any handouts and I tried taking notes. But upon returning home I set about to get a few samples done and decided to work more on technique and not color.
So many possibilities and I am excited to see what my hands learned and how some of this is going to find it’s way into my own work.