Rinsing Yarn: a Childhood Treasure
Hello! My name is Emily Trujillo and I’m starting to write for this blog. This is my first blog post for this page. Some of you might know me, and others don’t. I’m an 8th generation weaver and daughter of Irvin and Lisa Trujillo, master weavers and owners of Centinela Traditional Arts. I came back to Centinela Traditional Arts three years ago when I graduated from UNM with a double major in Ethnology and Psychology. I’m now 27 years old. My blog posts will be stories from my childhood and growing up with spinning, dying, weaving, tradition, culture and family....
Emily’s Triforce
Hello, everyone, My name is Emily Trujillo and I’m a 24 year-old 8th generation Weaver. I’m also the daughter of master weavers Irvin and Lisa Trujillo. It took me so long to start this because I had what I like to call a ’24 year teenage rebellion.’ You see, I grew up being asked if I was a tapestry artist by almost everyone, and I resented it (irrational, I know). Out of angst and a need to rebel, I played around with almost every other art medium: from jewelry to watercolors, tape sculptures to Photoshop. Though the day finally...
Notes on demonstrating spinning at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival
We were honored to be invited to participate in the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in the Arts and Industries Building on the National Mall in Washington DC. We shipped a loom out for Irvin to weave on, but they borrowed a wheel for me that is just like the one I use at home. I also brought a couple of scoured churro fleeces to spin during the weekend we were there. Most folks don’t seem to know what spinning is, what weaving is, or what a spinning wheel or loom is. People thought I was making thread, or maybe rope, working...
On Planning Things Out
The topic of sketching and planning our pieces comes up on a regular basis as I weave under the watchful eyes of our customers. The philosophy that Jake Trujillo passed on to us regarding this was pretty clear. Design at the loom and make each piece a unique work of art. So I don’t often sketch things out before I weave. This comes from a long history of not liking pieces that I have thought through too much in advance. I find that basing my work on something I have drawn out on paper as opposed to basing it on...
Rio Grande Saltillos
When Irvin and Lisa Trujillo got married, they went up to Santa Fe for their honeymoon. Not a great distance from Albuquerque, but nevertheless it was an important choice. They went to see a museum show about Saltillo weavings. Remember that Lisa was about to start her life as a professional weaver, and that Irvin had been weaving since he was a child. But neither of them had seen Saltillo weavings before. The show convinced them both that they were going to have to weave in this style. A classic 19th-century Mexican Saltillo weaving These beautiful textiles originated in Mexico. ...
The Old Warping Mill
This is a picture of Jake O. Trujillo finishing up a warp on his warping mill which was kept in the attic of Irvin’s grandmother’s house. This picture was taken in the early 1980’s, but he had built the mill soon after he built his loom in 1927. He’s removing the warp from the mill, “chaining” it up to bring it to his loom across the road. This is a picture taken a few years later of Irvin and Hosana Eilert putting a chained warp on a loom. The challenge is to have every thread across the warp...