Piece by Piece

Kate: When we were talking before, part of your visceral reaction to the topic of sampling, it seemed to me, was about the nature of over-planning versus play in the practice. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit more about that.

Sandra: Even though we work in completely different methods and materials, we both have that desire that the actual making be as close as possible to our flow, to have nothing get in the way of playfulness. When things are over-planned, I think we both tend to feel that there’s a stifling quality to it, that I don’t want. I want ultimate freedom in my making. In fact, that’s one place in our lives where we absolutely have complete freedom. 

To protect that autonomy and the freedom and the flow, we both just have set that up as part of the way we work. Wence isn’t dying specific colors to make this piece. He’s dyed and done, playfully, for weeks, dying all kinds of shades, so that when he’s ready to make the choice, the choice is in the moment. It’s a flow, you don’t have to stop, set up all your dye stuff, delay for weeks, because you want to get the exact right orange. We don’t do elaborate sampling, and then mark down how much quantity of this or that made this color. In the moment we enjoy creatively responding to the moment. And then I think you feel that in the work. Because the work is not made according to a tight plan. There’s a general skeletal structure, and it unfolds, whether it’s in the painting or in the weaving.

Wence: I think that play with material, with the design, it’s always there without even thinking about it. Because, again, once I have all these colors, and you go to choose the color to weave this particular piece, then you start playing with the colors, like in some parts in this detail, it’s got two colors twisted together, two lines working. So that’s play to me; you forget it’s work. You think you’re just making, you’re having fun. So it’s always like that — weaving, dyeing wool, designing, even, it’s like that, because ever since we’ve had a computer, I’m able to take photographs of my work and take parts of one piece and come up with a whole different new piece. That’s playing to me; sometimes, it’s just too much of playing, that I think once I am done with this, I’m like, Okay, I need a break from this now. So it’s like, we have that flexibility that is incredible, but I don’t know, maybe most others can’t. But we do have a lot of fun.

Sandra: We protect it, too. We really have protected it strategically. So that we can say whatever we need to stay in a storytelling moment; we can go into all the detail we want to, culturally, or, in my case, empowering other people just to make stuff. Don’t worry about this, this is not precious. You can’t touch it, or you’re wrong, or you’re stupid, because you don’t understand the declarative nature of my work and what I’m trying to unpack to you, and you aren’t getting it. 

No, we want to release people to find their own joy in this activity. Because globally, forever, since day one, we know that humans want to make stuff, and decorate stuff, and play with things, to color their house, even if it’s cow’s dung and white lime, and those are all you have to work with — you want to decorate, you want to play. And so we are champions of reminding people that that’s a really good thing to do. Even in weaving, which can be a rigid format, Wence maintains all of that same play. 

And then that gets passed down to the assistants. We need you to learn how to play instinctually. We want to encourage you to trust yourself as you play with these materials. So we become the old-timers cheering on people feeling free and feeling entitled and empowered to explore their world, whether it’s what they’re making or what they’re thinking and learning about inside. 

Wence: Not too restricted, just free flow.

Sandra: Wence has started blowing up life-size photographs, lifesize to what the weaving would be. And a recent weaving that was a really well done one by our daughter and another computer-generated design of Wence’s so that the assistants can see in the studio, the goal: This is what we’re reaching for. It is so different from when we use a sample photograph this big to achieve a work big, this big and bigger. Now you’re looking at a life size thing. It has given everyone so much motivation.

Wenceslao: Because trying to explain to the assistant how I want the piece, where I want the change in this little tiny photograph, it’s difficult. But when you have blown up the size of the weaving itself, you can see, you can even measure how far you can go from one color to another color to blend the two together. So that’s another part that’s just new to us.

Sandra Jo: Oh, brand new. It’s only in the last couple months.

Wenceslao: Yeah, it also does the sampling thing.

Sandra Jo: Another sampling thing with Wence is that ever since we got a computer, somehow Wence has the tech genes. I’m terrible. And so when Wence really figured out that he could play around — because he’s also a photographer, so he knows how to do Photoshop and all that business — that he could play around with his own patterns and generate new designs off of that. It’s been an explosive opening for you.

Wenceslao: Especially because sometimes there are collectors that want to commission. And it’s a lot easier for them to see that I can put the design together — what the piece is going to look like. Because before then I would do it by hand, and people would be like, I’m not quite sure.

Sandra Jo: Non-visual artists have difficulty trying to squint at a graph drawing with colored pencil of a proposal. But when you take chunks of a photograph of weaving, and combine it so you know, hey, don’t don’t look too close. But generally it’s going to look like this. And they go okay, fine. Here’s your money.

Kate: So you’ve been using a sample that’s computer generated out of previous photographs of weavings.

Sandra Jo: Yes, especially because it’s a geometric design, a pattern design. So it lends itself to chunks.

Wenceslao: Yes, yes. It’s been very helpful for me and for the clients.

Kate: It’s very interesting. I also have another question. Why did you choose to make the scale of those images bigger? Or what led to that decision?

Sandra Jo: Oh, you mean, the sample photos we’re doing.

Wenceslao: Because like I was saying, to explain to the assistant, that this is how it should look. Versus when we’re looking at tiny photograph, you know, I’m saying this, we have a mock up of just lines.

Sandra Jo: It’s called a cartoon, it’s an outline on a blank piece of paper of the main lines where the weaving is going to be divided up and notes. But that’s a big line drawing. And then the photographs we would use, you know, we could only get eight and a half by eleven. So how did you come up with going giant with the photos?

Wenceslao: Well, the way I thought about it — I’m having a hard time explaining to my assistant, that I’m thinking, okay, what if I blow it up to the size, then you can actually see really when the color starts changing and how it changes because sometimes it’s so subtle that you can’t see, you can’t really see. But some of these colors up here have already started integrating from the beginning, just a little lighter here.

Those are the things that are learned in school in Mexico City when I went to weaving school. So then blowing this up, it’s a lot easier for me to communicate with the person. Then I only have one part to explain, the technical part, how to do it. But they can see where the change is, where to do it.

Sandra Jo: You know, now that weavers can go right up to it with their hand and go, okay, how much? How wide is this? You know, you don’t need elaborate tools. It’s like, oh, okay, I can see that.

Kate: You split your time between Door County and Santa Fe. Is that correct? Between those different environments?

Wenceslao: I do split my time between Santa Fe here, just go here for a couple of weeks. And then we’re heading off to Wisconsin where we have another gallery in Door County. But because winter’s so harsh, I’d rather be in Mexico, I have another studio. So that’s where I work in the wintertime. And also it’s a lot easier to source my yarn, my materials and stuff.

Sandra Jo: Our home studio in Oaxaca is in Wence’s native village. So it’s home. It’s on the side of the sacred mountain in Teotitlan del Valle, it’s beautiful. But we’ve had the gallery in Wisconsin for twenty-nine years. We have to keep that going because we want to throw the 30th party — so plan ahead next year. And then Santa Fe, this is our fourth year. So I mostly stay here to run Santa Fe, which is more year round, pop in and out of Oaxaca. Wence will pop in and out of here. I’ll pop in and out of Wisconsin, hopefully this season. But much to our surprise, we are now really stretched.

Wenceslao: The other big part of me being in Oaxaca is that I work with the spinners, because a lot of the material I use is handspun. And you know, I’ve been buying material from this village since I was a kid. So I have at least forty years of going back and forth. And I become a part of the family sometimes, you know, they’ve invited me to have a cup of coffee with them. And talk about life, like their family. So far last year, I think I lost three spinners because they’re getting up there and COVID came and lost quite a few over three years. Some of the material, like natural black and brown, is getting hard to find. And also, the material itself is getting hard to find because the younger generations are not going into spinning.

Sandra Jo: There’s so much weaving that gets done in Wence’s home village, Teotitlan. But a giant proportion of that is done with mill-spun wool, in many cases even pre-dyed. Because material is expensive. And to use handspun wool, it’s logistically difficult. And there’s so much more washing. It’s more difficult to dye, the processing of it, the unevenness of it, the different tones — you get a whiter sheep, a yellower sheep, a grayer sheep. And so when people are really living on production, they need to get it done so they can be paid. The lesser materials are easier to source. The spinners that Wence goes up in San Baltazar Chichicapam this is a big effort. But it’s a familial, connected relationship of support that Wence and we take very, very seriously. We want to support them. It’s a beautiful, ancient relationship.

Wenceslao: They expect that from me, and I do expect the material from them, too. So it’s a mutual thing that we help each other. It’s just something that I’ve always thought about since I was a kid. The kind of work I do has the integrity of using 100% handspun Churro yarn from Oaxaca. You can’t find any other piece that’s made out of all handmade materials and handed-down everything. Even the tools I use, they’re handmade.

Sandra Jo: Even the looms are handmade. It’s a beautiful thing for us to keep that legacy route because it feeds into all the conversations that we have in the gallery with the end users of this work. It brings a depth of understanding of how many hands, how many humans and how ancient this beautiful — and weaving is a global legacy. So it opens their minds to all of this connectivity, and it makes for a really warm opening of their hearts towards indigenous cultures in general, by just repeating to them that we hold this material and process so precious that we’re committed to these things.

Wenceslao: Yes, but also we’re lucky enough, fortunate enough that we have collectors that support that work because otherwise we won’t be able to do what we do.

Sandra Jo: We really find that a lot of our work, all the artwork you do, is combined with all of your life experience and all the other things that you do. Because thirty years ago, where we lived, no one wanted to put craft in a fine art gallery, and no one knew what to do with my abstract automatic drawing stuff on paper. So we opened our own gallery, and we are also our representatives on the floor. So when you come in and talk with us, you’re getting a cultural download that is much deeper than the actual object in front of you. Because when we get our work as artists in front of the viewer, and that circle is closed, and someone’s looking at it, we want that not just to end with that’s a cool thing I want to see in my living room, we want it to also be something that opens your heart and advances your curiosity and your warmth towards people you don’t know, stories you couldn’t imagine, which is how I felt about it.

Wenceslao: Yeah, I think most of our collectors have that kind of relationship with our work, because they have met us, and a lot of them became friends. And they want to know every time they come and visit the studio gallery, they want to know what’s going on in our lives, how our kids are doing. We have created a really nice relationship with our clients.

Sandra Jo: And it’s another part and parcel of being an artist. I think you need to not be afraid of commerce, you need to not be afraid of promotion, of telling your own story, of finding a way to get out. Because you need to and you can do it. We did it. If we can do it where we were, anybody can do it.

Kate: Yeah, amazing. Thank you for that. I’m curious that less people are going into spinning. Did you mention that?

Wenceslao: Yes. The younger generation are not really into it. I mean, I dealt with families, and their daughters, especially because it’s mostly women’s work. So I go to the house and say, do you have anything? No, my mom passed. And so no, we don’t. Actually, they’re selling their tools now. Because they’re not interested in getting into it.

Sometimes I buy the yarn, and it comes in balls. You see on the outside, it’s really beautifully done. And then I take it back home and make it into skeins, so you can wash it, and dye it, and then find inside that the yarn is a lot thicker. That used to frustrate me, because I’m thinking there’s cheating. But now, lately, I’ve realized that somebody new is trying to learn how to spin. So, I think it’s a wonderful thing, because now I feel encouraged. That’s fine!

Sandra Jo: Somebody’s learning! It’s a good sign!

Wenceslao: We’re not gonna lose all of them. So that’s what’s happening. It’s less and less people who are spinning now. I used to go to the village, we’re talking about thirty-five years ago, I wouldn’t have enough money to buy everything I needed. And now sometimes I can only find two or three pounds. So it’s like, okay, you know, and then when I can find ten, and I’m talking about going house to house —

Sandra Jo: There’s no store.

Wenceslao: I go house to house — five different families, six different families, sometimes they have one ball, sometimes they have nothing. And sometimes I’m lucky to find somebody who has three pounds, like it’s really a good day when I find that.

Sandra: This village is an hour and a half drive up into the mountains from Wence’s weaving village. And you know, so for a spinner to really have ten balls of wool that they need to sell for extra grocery money, they’ve got to take a bus and spend their entire day on a difficult trip, no cars, of course, to get to the weaving village to sit at the corner of the market and hope somebody’s going to buy some handspun wool. Most of the weavers in the village are not really using that high-level material, so it’s a really tenuous relationship right now, and one that we are concerned about.

There will always be people, I think, who want to do some level of this. But what we’re seeing is a cultural shift from subsistence farming, and spinning a little wool on the side for cash, like in Wence’s village, subsistence farming and weaving, honorable, culturally-derived patterns, but tourist market weaving. It’s always something people do on the side for a little extra cash. But there isn’t as much of a drive to buy it from them from the village as there used to be. Now we just feel concerned about that shift, because you build a relationship with these people and these other communities that are involved.

Wenceslao: We depend on each other. They depend on me going to buy from them. I depend on them. It’s getting a lot easier though. Even though the ladies, some of them don’t speak Spanish. We speak our language, Zapotec. But Zapotec is a different dialect. So we can’t really understand each other, but they have cell phones these days. And then they can communicate with the granddaughter. Is Grandma home? Does she have anything? That’s how I can communicate with them.

Sandra Jo: It’s such a beautiful thing to have an eye-to-eye relationship with the beautiful human who spun the yarn. You’re not in a store. It’s the same way that collectors say they feel when they come in and they talk to us directly. You’re talking to the person who’s making this. It’s a beautiful thing. I once, you know, because I’m the outsider — went along with Wence to the village, and we go door to door to the houses that he knows and nobody has anything, but it’s been a big long day of getting there, so we go to the town’s corner store and pay a fee for them to do a loudspeaker announcement all over the village: “Hey, there are weavers here from Teotitlan and they’re looking for gray wool.” All of these women come flooding out into the streets with baskets. They’ve got two balls of wool, three balls of wool. They all come flooding to us in the center of town. There’s not one ball of gray wool. But we bought everything because of course, you’re going to buy everything. But it’s incredibly potent for me, as a Midwesterner from an apartment building, to be that close to a person who’s taking this time to do this spectacular thing that is going to get all the way through all these other things and become this thing. It’s beautiful to be so deeply, humanly connected.