Our artisan communities in Guatemala
All our ceramic-beaded™ earrings, bead-embroideries, beaded weavings, beaded bracelets etc., are made with our two main communities located around the famous Lago Atitlán.
In general, this is where you will find the most talented, Mayan artisans within beadwork and specialty weaving in Guatemala.
Most of these artisans prefer to work from their homes so they can take care of their family and household at the same time.
Below is the community in El Tablón in Solola. This picture is from a shared workshop where we gathered all the women together and co-created jewelry. Because of the pandemic, we haven't done much of this lately but it's something we want to do again soon.
Designer Don Jaime co-creating with the beautiful ladies of the Solola artisan community.
This group photo below shows the full artisan community in El Tablón. Lead artisan, Doña María, is standing to Jaime's right. These women need to be able to take care of their children while working so every communal workshop is "Bring your child to work"-day.
This is also why Doña María comes to Antigua every week with their beautiful work and then she goes back to her community with material for new designs and orders. She delegates the work and the women can make the jewelry from their homes.
This is why we don't want our artisan partners to travel to Antigua although many other companies in Guatemala working with artisan communities expect them to travel far distances to work. This makes it very hard for the artisans to sustain a fair work/life balance.
María below leads the group in El Tablón. She is very talented and we don't know what we would do without her! She is also very camera shy which is why you don't see that much of her in our content.
Go to the next blog post where we will talk about our market and festival activities in Guatemala and in the US.