Xenia writes us:
Last December I traveled to El Salvador with Aid to Artisans and ceramic designer Jill Rosenwald. We were commissioned to work with the artisans of La Palma to design a new line of decorative products for the North American market.

The artisans of La Palma are known throughout Latin America for producing wood objects decorated with naïve, folkloric images. The La Palma style was created by El Salvadoran artist Fernando Llort who came to this mountain village in 1972 to escape the political unrest in the rest of the country. Inspired by the setting and people of La Palma he developed a simple iconography of birds, animals, trees, adobe houses, and religious themes that the people of La Palma are still using to decorate wooden crosses, nativity scenes, ornaments and various other decorative and functional objects.

Typical La Palma imagery found on a door.

Jill and I had 5 days to develop preliminary designs for new products and another 5 days on-site to complete them. We were commissioned to create at least 3 collections and at least 15 new items each. The finished products were presented a month later at the New York Gift Fair. Fortunately we had some help from local designer Raquel Giron and local marketing coordinator Iris Huezo who translated for us and generally took care of us.

We e-mailed our designs ahead and wood blanks were prepared from our sketches before our arrival.

Besides creating new designs, I tried to introduce hand painting techniques that would make the artisans’ work more efficient. For their present line of products the design is drawn with a black line and the colors are filled in by hand. This is a very laborious and time consuming process. I tried to use some of the same techniques I use in my own line. First paint a background color, then add the rest of the elements on top. Try to use simple dashes, dots and brushstrokes as much as possible to make the designs easy to reproduce repeatedly.

The workshop we worked in:“El Madero de Jesus”.

Leti working on one of the new designs.

Monday: Xenia’s trip with Aid to Artisans to El Salvador, Part II

Sarajo writes us:

“Hi,
I just received a copy of Justin Robert’s new CD, “Jungle Gym”. This is the fourth CD of Justin’s that I created artwork for. The package design is by Ned Wyss, who always does such a beautiful job integrating everything. The New York Times did a feature on Justin Roberts “An Indie Rocker Finds His Inner Child”,and USA Today has called him “the Paul McCartney of kids’ music”.

Friday: Xenia’s trip with Aid to Artisans to El Salvador, Part 1

Mati McDonough’s tee for Patagoina spotted at Wild Child in Arlington, MA.

Wednesday: Sarajo’s New CD cover for Justin Roberts: Jungle Gym

Sarajo Frieden writes us:

“June greetings!
this event is all ages and open to everyone…hope to see you there!”

Sarajo tells us about an another event also happening on Saturday, June 5th:

“hi all,
here is my entry “green wave”, in this year’s Stoked Sessions art benefit and auction. Stoked Mentoring is a non-profit action sports organization for at risk youth. It will be held during Culver City Artwalk, June 5 from 12 noon to 8pm, 8870 Washington Blvd. 90232”

Monday: Mati’s t-shirt seen at our local children’s apparel shop

Susy Pilgrim Waters and Sian Rees enjoy a good laugh at our booth at Surtex. God only knows what those two lovely rascals are up to.

Friday: Sarajo Book-Signing at ReForm School

My friend Susan just came back from a trim shop in NYC, Cody’s Tassels and Trim, and brought this back for us to make necklaces with beads on like we saw at Nordstrom’s recently.

Here are pics of the trim shop:

Friday: Sarajo Book-Signing at ReForm School

I wanted to share these images of today’s bouquet from my garden.

Wednesday: NYC Trim shop