19 hours Ago
Faustino Flores Mendes is an independent artist and renowned weaver in Peru. In 1995, with the support of his wife, artist Mercedes Yauri Ataucusi, and their children, he founded an art collective and social enterprise called Hilos y Colores (Threads and Colors). The collective brings together weaving and embroidery traditional to the high-altitude region of Ayacucho where the family lives.
The collective’s goals are twofold: to preserve the region’s ancestral textile techniques, including embroidery and crochet, and to support local artisan communities. Today, more than 800 women artists from across 30 communities in Ayacucho are part of the collective. In total, Hilos y Colores supports some 600 families that have been displaced by the violence that shook their region in the late 20th century.
The collective helps create jobs and training opportunities, as well as secondary income opportunities, and offers leadership development and a social network to rely on. To take their impactful work to the next level, the collective partnered and built relationships with several organizations abroad, such as the International Folk Art Market. Yauri Ataucusi, who specializes in embroidery and crochet, now collaborates in her art with her daughter, artist Natividad Cibeli Flores Yauri.
Together, the mother-daughter duo have also been managing Hilos y Colores, representing the collective nationally and abroad, and have charmed and taken the 2019, 2022, and 2024 IFAM festivities in The City Different by storm. Their work and presence are so tremendous that IFAM — the organization behind the market — chose Hilos y Colores as the main collective to be represented at the first of its kind pre-holiday IFAM embroidery workshops and pop-up sale , which take place December 5-7 at the IFAM Center on Cerrillos Road. The pop-up sale is free and open to the public, but spots in the embroidery workshops — which Yauri Ataucusi and Flores Yauri will be teaching — are already selling like freshly baked Peruvian rosquitas .
IFAM Embroidery Workshops and Pop-Up Sale IFAM Center, 620 Cerrillos Road Pop-up sale 1-4 p.m. Thursday, December 5; noon- 4 p.
m. December 6; 10 a.m.
to 4 p.m. December 7 Embroidery workshops An Evening with Hilos y Colores (Gala) Cocktails at 5:30 p.
m., dinner and presentation at 6:15 p.m.
, December 6 folkartmarket.org/aneveningwithhilosycolores hilosycolores.com ; friendshipbridge.
org If you don’t get a chance to sign up for a workshop, fret not: On December 6, IFAM is also hosting a fundraiser gala that offers an evening with Hilos y Colores, during which Yauri Ataucusi and Flores Yauri will give a presentation and guests will have the opportunity to interact with them. “Our new team has really put an amazing effort behind this holiday pop-up, making it more than just a ‘Hey, we’re having an event,’” says Stacey Edgar, IFAM’s executive director. “They really made it special, bringing artists in from Peru and building a four-day program around their visit.
We’re also really excited to showcase this new way we’re going to do things at other times of the year.” The IFAM team chose to work with Hilos y Colores for this particular program for a very specific reason. “We wanted to choose an artist or a group that had expressed interest in being able to teach people their craft and the meaning behind their work,” Edgar says.
“We also wanted to choose an artist group with a large impact. We’re always trying to find more opportunities for artists who really make a huge impact in their community, as far as employment and cultural preservation, and who create opportunities that have a ripple effect. “Hilos y Colores also has a lot of woolen products, which are great for the wintertime but that are also bright and super festive.
So, we thought that Hilos y Colores was just perfect for this.” Edgar says that the artwork by Hilos y Colores, be it during the summer market or next week at the pop-up sale, is very popular. “They make these fabulous belts,” she says.
“They’ve even been in the Sundance Catalog. And they also make bags, table runners, and curtains, and just wonderful hat bands. “The base fabric for all of these is all handwoven from local wool, and then they do the beautiful embroidery on top of that.
It’s also that kind of Bucilla stamped embroidery that they will be teaching their workshop participants.” The IFAM pop-up sale also features artwork by Friendship Bridge, a collective from Guatemala with the goals of empowering women and eliminating poverty. The collective represents 18 women artists who weave baskets, textiles, and jewelry and create Christmas ornaments and colorful stocking stuffers.
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