The Women of Ajkem'a Loya and their breathtaking creations

Additional view of Mayda's sizable beach tote

Mayda showcasing her accomplished beach bag.

Catharina modeling Ruths bag

Additional view of Sandra's bag

Sandra's intricate Bag with leather accents and inserts

Closer view of Catharina's bag

Catharina's fun and colorful handbag

Close view of Hilda's gorgeous bag

Hilda with her creative textured pouch.

Telma's neutral toned handbag

Romelia's beautifully handcrafted bag w/leather strap and bottom

Back view of Gloria's bag

Gloria and her beautiful bag

sewing the bags

The women of Ajkem'a Loy'a finishing the bags they designed. 

Mayda takes charge concerning the patterns and the sewing

Rebecca sewing Romelia's bag

Hilda and Gloria finishing their bags, 

the women made three sizes of the same kind of bag, 

Hilda and Gloria are both finishing the smallest version

Sandra assembling the bag she designed

Mayda cutting the pattern for the bag of Catherina

Hilda finishing her bag

Catherina 

Romelia showing the fist bag that is finished,

Gloria Raxtun's bag

Muestras Finales de tejidos

Barco

La evolución de los productos esta llendo muy bien en el segundo grupo, Barco. Ahora que tenemos terminadas las muestras de los cubrecojines pasamos a formalizar los tamaños. Hemos escogido dos tamaños de los más vendidos en el mercado americano 18”x18” y 12”x18”. Es una fortaleza que este grupo este trabajando con teñidos naturales porque los colores son muy combinables.

Tenemos aprox 15 muestras que queremos combinar en cuatro cojines, dos del tamanio grande y dos del pequeño. Junto con las mujeres hemos escojido y nombrado las siguientes combinaciones:

1. Flor Cafe : pequeño (combinacion de Rosa con Virginia)

1. 
2. 
3. Paz : grande (Combinacion de Eufemia con Mirta)
4. 
5. Chilca : Pequeño (Combinacion de Eufemia con Teresa)

1. Luisa : grande (Combinacion de Teresa con Mirta)

Una vez terminadas las muestras en los tamaños reales hemos trabajado con ellas las costuras que se van a utilizar para unir ambas partes del cubrecojin. La parte de adelante es distinta a la parte de atras es por eso que la costura es muy importante para que el producto sea armonico. Las sugerencias de las mujeres nos han servido mucho para unir las dos partes exitosamente . Otro punto importante son los costados del cubre cojin, hemos trabajado 2 acados distintos (maya y red). El ultimo paso para terminar el producto es desarrollar un cierre apropiado que posiblemente sea un lazo hecho de hilo negro.

Al mismo tiempo de ir desarrollando los productos estamos trabajando con los costos. El primer reto es que las mujeres registren los tiempo que invierten en terminar una paño del cojin. Para lograrlo se ha descompuesto el tiempo total invertido en los siguientes: Enrrollado, tramado, subida y tejido. Esto ha ayudado a sacar apropiadamente los costos y ha que ellas tomen en cuenta el hilo invertido y el tiempo que tienen que tener para terminar el producto.

Ajkem´a Loy´a

Después de casi 3 semanas de trabajo con la asociación Ajkem´a Loy´a finalmente tenemos las muestras de los tejidos y diseños que formaran parte de las carteras. Existen 3 tamanios de carteras distintas: Playa, Mediano y pequenio. Estas carteras consta de varias paños que se coserán a mano para conseguir los acabados requeridos.

Tejido de Mayda para la cartera tamaño Playa

Tejido hecho por Sandra, con aplicación de cuero

Tejido hecho por Caterina

Tejido hecho por Gloria

Tambien se desarrollo un modelo distinto de cartera de forma rectangular, hecho de solo dos paños y unidos por cuero.

Tejido hecho por Romelia

Parte de atrás de la cartera, también hecho por Romelia

Giving Indigenous Girls in Guatemala the Chance to Reach Their Full Potential by Supporting Their Education

Mayan girls and young women in Guatemala are triply disenfranchised by their youth, their gender and their ethnicity.

At the age of 12 they are taken out of school to work because their families cannot afford their education.

Given the opportunity of an education, girls hold the key to breaking the intergenerational cycle of poverty.

$100 a year can be the decisive factor on whether an adolescent girl flourishes with opportunities or languishes in poverty.

Help us support the education of girls in the communities we collaborate with by donating to our scholarship fund or purchasing a photograph. If you are interested in donating to the fund or purchasing a photograph, please contact me at fberdiel@gmail.com.

Sonia would like to sell her photographs in order to pay for her education. Each photograph is $50 (minimum donation). The sale of two photographs will cover the cost of 1 year of school for Sonia.

One more thing . . .

Sandra's experiment weaving the logo of Ajkem'a Loy'a

Experiments and Inspiration

Last year in June, in San Lucas Toliman, we worked with a much larger group of women then the group of women that is currently assembled under the name of Ajkem’a Loy’a.

Students and faculty from The New School conducted workshops in business, marketing and design. The women of San Lucas Toliman taught us how to weave, bead, and dye threads with natural dyes. The group we worked with wasn’t an organic group, it was a group of women who previously participated in workshops initiated by CARE, workshops dealing with (among other things) health, family planning, and the empowerment of women. In the past year, the group of women that we currently know as Ajkem’a Loy’a became a tight group that is now slowly developing their own products. They take pride in themselves as designers and are very ambitious to create their own designs. Their product development over the past year has been amazing !

 Nonetheless, there are other women in San Lucas Toliman that are very gifted weavers and that benefited from our workshops last year, but that are not included in the association Ajkem’a Loy’a. We as faculty and students got really involved in the work and the lives of the women we worked with last year, and coming back this year, as an extension of the New School, it didn’t seem right to only continue working with the women of Ajkem’a Loy’a while excluding the other women from the opportunity to learn and grow with us in the month that we are here.

 Thursday a week ago we talked with the women of Ajkem’a Loy’a explaining to them that being here as students and faculty of the New School, an institute for teaching and learning, we didn’t want to exclude anybody from the opportunity to work and grow with us.

 We already noticed in the first week that the women of Ajkem’a Loy’a preferred to work in the morning, only a few or none would come in the afternoon. In the morning the sun is out and the air is dry, in the afternoon it rains, the air is very damp, which makes it harder to weave. We agreed with the women of Ajkem’a Loy’a that we would continue to work with them in the mornings and that we would invite other women to work with us in the afternoon.

 Friday a week ago was our first day to work with two groups. The second group is a group that formed itself around a few of the other women we worked with last year, it is not a real group yet, but they seem very dedicated to working together and developing new products. The products that they shared with us in the afternoon were beautiful, they immediately radiated a very different energy and we imagined completely different possibilities for products then with the women of Ajkem’a Loy’a.  

That morning, with the women of Ajkem’a Loy’a we evaluated the experiments all of us had been working on during the week. The women showed how they translated the inspiration images they chose into their weaving and we shared our experiments with forms, seams, patterns and finishings for bags.