1 2 3 4 Creating handcrafts is a sublime act combining knowledge and techniques that have remained throughout time. Our artisans’ creativity is as diverse as our cultural wealth. The historical background and hard work converge in the elaboration of these magnificent crafts, in which- undeniably - the artisans’ soul is embodied. Their skillful hands and patience transform raw materials that are mainly found in nature into crafts that are admired all over the world. Such is the beauty of these crafts that we do not know whether we are seeing a handcraft or if we are in front of a piece of art. 5 Therefore while we admire them, we feel breathless with weaving of ecuadorian toquilla straw hat, natural dyes woven in the fibers of the shawls (macanas), as well as the design of molten silver and golden threads. I invite you to rediscover a piece of our culture through this exhibition that takes us along every detail of the beauty of the crafts done with the sensitivity and love of our artisans. Rocío González de Moreno CREDITS Lenín Moreno Garcés Constitutional President of the Republic of Ecuador Rocío González de Moreno President of the Inter-institutional Committee of “Toda Una Vida” Plan Patricia Cepeda Vásconez Cultural Management Director Norka Denisse Guevara Sipión Fredy Revelo Vizcaíno María Gabriela Villacrés Martínez Research and curatorship team Alex Carrera Apolo Fredy Revelo Vizcaíno Juan Andrés Sotomayor Ruiz Museography team Carlos Agüero Marrero Pablo Espinosa Crespo Gabriela Lemus Hidalgo Gabriel Ortega García Mario Sánchez Cruz Daniel Velasco Mora Photography Danilo Manzano Vela 6 Video Alfonso Ortiz Crespo Mery Jacqueline Campo Olalla Norka Denisse Guevara Sipión Luisa Martínez Chávez Editorial staff Janinna Cabezas Bucheli Mauricio Mena María Ormaza Cortez Graphic Art team Verónica Arias Palma Augusta Armas Miño Roberto López Fonseca Erick Noboa Santillán Deysi Pacheco Cajas Adriana Paredes Llantui Daniela Puruncajas Jérez David Ruiz Zambrano Fredy Quintanilla Castillo Juan Carlos Sisalema Sevilla Logistics and operations team Don Bosco Printing house Showroom Artesano Artista Government Palace August, 2019. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS To the institutions, artisans and designers who, with great enthusiasm and pride, opened the doors of their collections and workshops, so that we can learn and understand the laborious work behind each handmade piece. Pumapungo Museum and Inter-American Center for Handicrafts and Popular Arts - CIDAP, Municipal Museum Casa del Sombrero in Cuenca, Municipal Museum of Chordeleg, Archdiocese of Cuenca, Anthropological and Contemporary Art Museum - MAAC, National Institute of Cultural Heritage, Center for Artisan Training of Pile and the Civic Center City Alfaro. Private Collection of Libertad Regalado Espinoza, factory of Homero Ortega, Andrea Tello, Adriana Landívar, Juan Neira, Flavio and Manolo Jara, Eloy, Jorge and Wilson Lituma, Carmen Maldonado Pérez, Carmen 7 Orellana Rodas, José Jiménez Ulloa, Johanna Amalia Guillén Maldonado, María Eulalia Mora “Cuka, Art and Design ”, Jhonny Chávez, Simón Abel Espinal, Cenovio Ídolo Espinal and María Clorinda Espinal. To the columnists: Libertad Regalado Espinoza, Tamara Landívar Villagómez, María Tommerbakk Sorensen, Fausto Ordonez, Rosángela Adoum and Francisco Valdez. To the important support of the Azuay Governorate, Manabí Governorate, Municipal GAD of Chordeleg Canton, Ministry of Culture and Heritage, Ministry of Tourism, Ministry of Defense, National Telecommunications Corporation, Pro Ecuador and Municipal Tourism Foundation for Cuenca. To the staff of the Cultural Management Directorate of the Presidency of the Republic. CONTENTS PRESENTATION 1 Rocío González de Moreno INTRODUCTION 2 THE THREADS THAT WOVE OUR HISTORY 7 Libertad Regalado Espinoza WEAVING THE FINE STRAW HAT IN MANABÍ Libertad Regalado Espinoza 16 BRIEF HISTORICAL SYNTHESIS OF THE PRODUCTION OF STRAW HATS IN CUENCA 8 María Tommerbakk Sorensen 41 WEAVING DREAMS AND MEMORIES: THE MAGIC OF IKAT TECHNIQUE IN GUALACEO SHAWLS 63 Tamara Landívar Villagómez GOLDSMITH AND ITS TECHNIQUES 83 Rosángela Adoum Francisco Valdez AUSTRAL FILIGREE 91 Fausto Ordóñez Almeida LIVING TRADITION 99 SHOWRROM 100 “Handcraft does not want to last millennia nor is it possessed by the rush of dying soon. It passes through the days, flows with us, and disappears little by little, does not seek death or denies it: it accepts it. Between the timeless time of the museum and the accelerated time of the technique, handcraft is the heartbeat of human time. It is not only the useful object but it is also the beauty; an object that lasts but ends and resists itself to end; an object 9 that is not unique like the work of art and that can be replaced by another similar but not identical object. Handcraft teaches us to die and thus teaches us to live. ” Octavio Paz “El uso y la contemplación” (fragmento) INTRODUCTION Ecuador is the cradle of several artisan Artisans and artists techniques, which presents us an inexhaustible ancestral cultural wealth, admired for its history, On this occasion, the Art in Palace project beauty and complexity. presents in the house of all the Ecuadorians, the Artisan-Artist exhibition, focused on these Thus, when traveling through our geography, three techniques: the laborious fabric with the names such as Jipijapa or Montecristi not only toquilla straw, used to make fine hats; the ikat refer to places, but to fine hats of toquilla straw technique, with which beautiful “macanas” fabric, which since an early nineteenth century, shawls are made, better known as Gualaceo have captivated locals and foreigners, who with shawls; and the filigree technique, which with pride began to wear on their heads the tradition thin metal threads achieves delicate jewelry and talent of our artisans. and decorative items. 10 Once we go to the highlands, the skin These techniques have been the subject of suddenly feels a change of climate, which important national and international recognition. requires warmer clothing and yet, our Thus, the traditional weaving of the Ecuadorian 10 sight discovers the exceptional colors of toquilla straw hat was declared an Intangible the Gualaceo shawls, made with the ikat Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO in waving technique that include birds, snails, 2012; the ikat weaving technique from canton landscapes, roses, bunches of grapes, Gualaceo was declared an Intangible Cultural even coats of arms and awards, that merge Heritage of Ecuador in 2015. gracefully in free fringes, which together make up garments loaded with symbolism. Likewise, Carmen Orellana´s macanas received the UNESCO Artisan Excellence Very soon the sun rises and gives us heat. The Award in 2014. Similarly, the toquilla straw hat mountains acquire the shine of gold, the lakes of weaver Domingo Carranza gained a place shine like silver, and filigree also emerges, a in the exhibition “Items: Is Fashion Modern?” technique used in the traditional jewelry of MoMA (Museum of Modern Art) of New York, Cuenca and Chordeleg. Metal threads are curated by Paola Antonelli in 20171. On the woven to create earrings such as candongas, other hand, UNESCO and the Mincetur (Ministry chamburos or tendrils. of Commerce Exterior and Tourism of Peru) 1- Editor´s Note: Carranza´s toquilla straw hat was one of 111 items exhibited at MoMA, considered as one of the products that transcended. in time and significantly impact fashion during the twentieth and twenty-first Centuries. awarded the “Filigree comb” of the designer, Ecuadorian artisans live from their creations, goldsmith; teacher and researcher specialized which is their way of living and at the same in filigree, Andrea Tello, as one of the best time transmit the inheritance of their ancestors regional crafts in 2011. to the future. Artisan-Artist takes place in the Government Despite the accelerated pace of today´s Palace, and presents the history and process society, “we strive to find identities in tradition, in of these three techniques, in which, indistinctly search of cultural aspects that refer to the past woolen threads, toquilla straw, gold and silver and to less valid forms of life”; (Martínez2, 2007: threads are woven. Here you will find the 14)3. At the same time, those identities allow dedication and skill of Ecuadorian hands giving a voice to a task as old as persistent, that carry in them the ancestral tradition of which not only has to do with the visible and each community. The exhibition is presented tangible of a jewel, a hat or a shawl, but above as a journey through the creative endemic all with the complex and unimaginable of some production of our homeland. techniques created in a remote period of time, 11 that represents the realities in constant 11 That is why the creators not only seek the transformation, that have remained throughout practical purpose or contemplate their articles, time and are still alive, as tradition continues, but they wish to market them and receive a recreating itself in memory, in the aesthetic fair price. Although its greatest reward is that contemplation of its art and, without a doubt, in consumers value their work. the hands of each artisan. 2- EN: Juan Martínez Borrero. Main teacher at the University of Cuenca. Master in History of America from the Pablo de Olavide University, Seville, Spain. Doctor of Education Sciences in the specialty of History and Geography from the University of Cuenca. Professor in Education Sciences in the specialty of History and Geography. He is also a specialist in virtual learning environments by the OEI, tutor in virtual education at the University of Mendoza and research fellow of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Spain. Among his publications are the books: The popular painting of Carmen, identity and culture in the eighteenth century; Popular culture in Ecuador (co-authored with H. Einzmann); Behind the Image, a study on popular iconography in Azuay; He is co-author of the work From the divine to the profane, Cuenca art of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (in charge of the study on the eighteenth century), among others.