Day 8: Works of Art

Yesterday, some women outside the jewelry class came over to observe what the class was making and, as they talked about which pieces they liked and why, one woman looked up from her work and said, “These are works of art.”

I want to take a minute to talk about value. When I started Ruraq Maki in 2009 the women were undervaluing their work. In 2011 we did a formal cost analysis and discovered that they were pricing their items for less than the cost to make them. This was partially due to a knowledge gap about pricing, but also due to an undervaluing of the craft and skill that went into their products. Over the years, I had had the privilege of watching the women’s journey towards a genuine sense of value and pride in their work.

Embroidered pendant by Lucila

Embroidered pendant by Lucila

The woman’s words yesterday, “These are works of art,” is another step in that journey. Something is shifting and the women are seeing their goods as something larger than what they do day in and day out. As they push the boundaries of how they use their skills, they are seeing the art, the craft, and the expertise that they bring to their work.

 
Why is this important? Because this shift in viewpoint happens on a larger level. The deeper appreciation of their work leads to a deeper appreciation of themselves. They are no longer just women in prison, they are artists. Though the International Folk Art Market, they became global experts and technicians in the Ayacuchan embroidery. Through the jewelry making, they become creators of works of art. They are becoming something more than they thought, but what they have always been. Embracing their intrinsic value as artists, mothers, women, and humans paves the way for possibility, for the capacity to dream, and for their future.

Day 6: Flourishing

We finally got underway with the jewelry making class with our embroidered pendants. Real talk, there are times I create class projects that don’t turn out as I expect. It either has to do with the women’s skills not being fully developed or the technique is too technical for them. The pendants are the opposite of this problem. They turned out even more beautiful than I expected.

The pendants showcase the women’s skill with the embroidery. You can see that the women use different techniques to accomplish different looks. Before today’s class, my knowledge of embroidery was woefully lacking. I knew the women were talented, but I thought there was just one stitch. I was wrong.

Emboridered Butterfly Pendant

Embroidered Butterfly Pendant

As I waited for the women to finish their embroidery circles, I listened to them swap advice and ideas for how to accomplish a different look. “Is that *stitch I’ve never heard of*? I like it.” “Try *other stitch I’ve never heard of* to get it to look like this.” Clearly, the women are the experts in embroidery. They know what they are doing technically, but also understand when to apply the various stitches and techniques.

Flowers and butterfly by Elizabeth

Flowers and butterfly by Elizabeth

At one point they asked me to try to embroider something. I did so reluctantly, sitting next to master embroiderers, and I learned this- it is a lot harder than it looks. My piece looks like a child did it and even though the women were encouraging, my work was not up to par.

Pushing the creative muscle- yin yang pendant by Lia

Pushing the creative muscle- yin yang pendant by Lia

One thing I love about the pendants is they also gave the women an opportunity to be creative with their embroidery. Often the women are embroidering the same manta motifs day in and day out. These pendants let their creativity loose. There were many designs that didn’t make the cut (they insisted they weren’t good enough) but even those designs were a creative outlet. They stretched the women’s creative imagination and that is catalyst to growth.

What do you think of these pendants? Which is your favorite?

Day 5: Fresh Ideas

I arrived at the prison this morning geared up and ready to start our embroidered jewelry class. Unfortunately, today we hit a glitch because of a health fair in the women’s area of the prison. Doctors, who previously had come to take blood samples from the women, were back with the results and talking with the women about their health. Due to this, it was impossible for us to have our class today, although, I think tending to one’s health is the best reason to miss jewelry making class!

Even though we didn’t have class, I still showed the women the sample piece for today. My sample is a manta pendant, however the class project is actually an embroidered pendant (since I don’t know how to embroider I brought the manta to show them the general idea). I also brought them a sheet of pictures of other embroidered pendants so they could see the project in context. I was shocked at their enthusiasm!

To say they were excited is an understatement. The prospect of making embroidered pendants was thrilling to them. I bought natural colored cloth for them to embroider on but they swiftly suggested also using black so the colors would pop. They also spoke amongst themselves about the different techniques in the photos and what they thought would be most stunning on a pendant. One woman said, “You always bring us new and interesting ideas. This is really beautiful!”

We agreed that I would leave them the supplies and they would work on the embroidery over the weekend. On Monday we will construct the pendants and start our Monday project. This afternoon they are getting together to cut material and work together on their designs.

Although personally I am sad about not spending much time with the women today, I am happy that they are working together in a group independent of me. This gets them in the habit of working collectively and self-sufficiently, which is ultimately more sustainable. For this reason, missing the class today is actually good news!

After I left the women’s area I submitted my revised Education Plan to the administration and received my updated permission document. While we are having the leather working class, the previous professor is ill and we will be working with a new one. Yesterday I visited his workshop and we outlined the class projects and went to town to buy materials for the class.

A peek into our leather trainer's workshop

A peek into our leather trainer’s workshop

The new leather work, Alberto, is a wonderful artisan. He even has had his products sold at the International Folk Art Market with a group of Ayacuhan artisans (he couldn’t attend due to money). He participates in artisan fairs throughout Peru and internationally in other South American countries. My hope is that he can share his experience with the women of these events to help them understand how large fairs work and give them a greater sense of the Peruvian market.

We start leather class in 1 1/2 weeks!

Day 3: Dreaming a Future

I mentioned in yesterday’s post that during my meeting with the women we did some work envisioning their ideal production model. I used a group coaching model called GROW which is a very simple, yet effective process, where we go through various aspects of a single topic. My role was to present the questions and document the women’s answers. The discussion was very generative as it enabled the women to specifically envision their future and discuss their options.

Here are the result of the discussion, in the women’s own words:

Goals for a production group:

“Our goals for the production group are to learn new things, have more orders, and create products in distinct product categories like jewelry, leather, embroidered clothing, and knit headbands. If we meet this goal, we would be able to work in a group, improve our art, improve the quality of our products, and increase our quality of life. What is most appealing about this goal is that with more work, we will earn more money, which we can use to help our children and benefit our families. Also, we can learn new things that we cannot learn after we are released. We will value our products more. The most important thing about this goal is having money to provide for our family. When we can give money to them, we feel good about ourselves. A successful production group would make us feel proud and would enable us to start a business. Success would look like having 4 orders a year (every 3 months) and earning enough to provide for our children and save money for ourselves and our release.”

Reality (current situation):

“The current situation is there is no work in the prison. Right now, drug trafficking is down. This affects the Ayacuchan economy. When there is no money in the jungle, there is no money in Ayacucho and no work for us. When there is work, we received partial and delayed payments. The current situation makes us feel bad. We are worries and stressed about money. This stress causes us to feel sick. When we work, we forget about our problems and being here. What we need most is work, work that pays a good wage and work that provides us with capital to use. The resources we have available are manta and some of us have inventory capital so they are prepared for  an order. Our challenges is the market in Ayacuhco- it is too unstable.”

Options:

“Some options for us are to focus on our local market, focus on having more buyers, and produce smaller, lower cost items. As a production group, we want an equal pay model. Well, actually it depends. Not everyone does the same work, so payment will be different for group work or individual work. Some work, that is group work, everyone should be paid the same. For other work, like personal work (like the embroidery), the person should be paid individually. And we want to have different prices based on the quality of the embroidery- if you embroider really well, you are paid more. In forming our group, we need to have people with different skills, like women from the sewing workshop and women who embroider really well.”

Way Forward (what’s next):

“For future trainings we want to learn about quality control, how to administer money in a group model, and how to cost our products- for ourselves so we earn enough and for the market.”

 

Note: this is a narrative summary of my notes of the group discussion and the points they agreed upon

Day 1: After They Leave

Today was my first day back in the prison since February and getting in was a breeze. No pleading with guards, no explaining myself over and over again- I had my golden ticket (my previously approved permission letter) and waltzed right in. It helped, too, that most of the guards on duty were people I knew. In fact, one guard giggled as she searched me, going through the motions of the pat down and line of questioning, knowing full well I didn’t have a cell phone, chip, or USB.

Entering the women’s area I surprised the women. Apparently my message that I was coming didn’t make it, so my entrance was a shocker. Today was a short day as I explained what we were doing this trip and very briefly recapped the International Folk Art Market in Santa Fe. What’s on the agenda?

Tomorrow I will kickoff this trip with a meeting with the women involved in the Santa Fe order. This meeting will recap the event, talk about the successes, some of the issues with the order, and begin discussing how we want to move forward with a production chain. One big thing we learned from Santa Fe is that the women need to be more organized in their production. Ultimately, we want to women to decide how this is going to happen, so tomorrow will be the first step in doing this.

Next I will teach a jewelry making class. I was pleased to hear that the women were excited about my plan for embroidered jewelry. In fact, they had some ideas of their own, which is good since I don’t know how to embroider. My hope is, since I cannot bring fully realized samples to the class, that this class will be a collaboration of skills- my knowledge of jewelry design and their knowledge of embroidery. To be honest, I’m not sure how this class will turn out, but their enthusiasm gave me hope that we can create beautiful art together. The last week we will have the very popular leather working class.

Catching up with the women today, I asked about two women who were released earlier this year. One, who had chronic health problems, is doing much better! One of the challenges to her health was the thin air in Ayacucho (we are 9,000 feet up) and she was in and out of the hospital with an oxygen mask. After her release she moved to Lima to be with her children and the lower elevation has drastically improved her health.

The other woman who was recently released is having a harder time. Her husband is still incarcerated so she visits the prison often. She told one of the women that she wishes she could come back to the prison because work is harder to find “in the street”. This is incredibly heartbreaking as she is an extremely talented seamstress who is a dedicated hard worker. I have her telephone number and I hope to meet with her and see how Ruraq Maki can help her with the transition.
The first day is always a reminder- some years of how much we have done and some years of how much we have left to do. Today was a mix of both, the joy of furthering our collaborative model with the women and the heartbreak of seeing where we need to provide more support.