Maya Wool springs from a comprehensive collection of antique woolen blankets and other weavings in wool, maguey and cotton gathered and conserved by four generations of one family between the mid-1880’s and the early 1950’s. The collection originates from three Mayan communities in the linguistic groups Mam and Qui-ché and Kákchiquel within the cloudy sheep-farming regions of the Guatemalan highlands. Maya Wool is also an experimental venture springing from existing projects devoted to the philosophy of appropriate development through education and rural libraries.

A society of narrow purpose, we want to offer unusual non-commercial grade traditional blankets (and other pieces) of woven wool made by hand, often outdoors, by Maya weavers at home just a few steps from the sheep which sustain their lives in the ‘alti-plano’…highland plains near the timberline.

We address modern shepherders and tenders of sheep, collectors, and lovers of pre-industrial weaving, all of whom are aware of the allure of traditionally woven wool. They would ideally weave their own wool, and be able to travel to remote parts of the globe where they can join the people who never wandered from their weaving traditions and materials. For those who aren’t weaving and traveling to remote markets, a limited number of accurate reproductions of what are known to be classic traditional styles of blankets from the last century will be available, through us, to aficionados and others who love the pure aesthetic of ‘lana rústica’ (rustic wool). Lana Rústica is natural and mostly uncombed wool yarn spun and woven by hand. Lana Rústica retains all of its lanolin and is woven for usefulness, simplicity and longevity. ‘Lana rústica’, rustic wool, is not overly combed or fluffed up after being woven. (Such combing creates initial cosmetic lushness which later on hastens the loss of fiber, retention of warmth and structural weakness in a blanket.)

There is a recognition that stabilization of a weavers cooperative focused on reproduction will be more likely to retain wool weaving methods and designs recently used by ancestors before the body of weaving expertise and memory of craft would be lost. Some techniques are now already in disuse, if not forgotten….methods which can erode from memory if it were not for the existence of artifacts to refer to, and combined with a new motivation to re-learn and revive these methods. Production of narrower thread width, use of some earlier natural sources of dyes, shade of colors, changes of warping, then compositions and symbols, geometry and iconography are all under scrutiny for their merit to revive.

Under particular consideration is an idea from an Anthropologist (..and intimate observer of one weaving town..) to ask modern Maya weavers to experiment with their own contemporary versions of antique patterns to encourage more expression of their innate creativity over past millennia. The result would be new works of a truly unique sort, a continuing step in sync with their already ancient process of evolution in woven artistic expression.

Combining these three observations, is it a viable idea to establish a permanent home for an archived and conserved collection of some of the best blankets and other weavings of wool within the wool-weavers own community? Should there be a time capsule for the wool weavers to refer to? Presently the nearest large public collection of cotton and wool antiquities from 1880-1902 is at Berkeley. Another collection at Museo Ixchel del Traje Indigena in the Guatemalan capitol which documents wool in clothing, and is less strong in the area of other woven wool objects. Both are handy for anthropologists but remote from the very weavers who never left their valleys...the same weavers who do not travel further away from home than their regional capital. Worse, as elders die off, weavers in Guatemalan highlands are at risk of being accidentally divorced from both their oral culture and craft tradition. A logical result of this progression of loss through death would be a final separation and deep divide between the body of weavers and their foreign market in which there is a highly informed international grasp of Mayan artistic accomplishments.

Among the direct beneficial spin-offs of having a permanent home for collected wool antiquities, after archiving and exhibition, could be a lab for reviving forgotten techniques and materials….testing them for their worth to adopt again, then to restore nearly-lost weaving traditions into the repertoire of today’s modern weavers. In such a center for study, changes in design and possibilities of meaning, measurements of width of thread, material colors and depictions inserted within some earlier compositions can all be resources used to establish keys for dating weaving trends in wool through the end of the twentieth century.