Creating a Connected Textile Community
We are delighted to announce that this year WARP will again offer Artisan Support Grants to textile artists worldwide who need help building healthy businesses inspired by handmade traditions. Donate by Feb 28 to have your donation doubled!
Are artisans also artists? This is a question that has been ruminating in my mind for a while now. It was triggered again recently when I attended the Weave a Real Peace (WARP) conference in Colorado.
INGLÉS/ESPAÑOL
Thank you to all who participated in WARP’s 2025 Online Auction! If you won an item, it will be on its way soon.
Potato chips – 2024. I boarded an Aeromexico flight to Mexico – on my way to visit Rocio Mena Gutierrez, a resident of Mexico City and my co-chair on the WARP Board. During my past few years of involvement with WARP, Mexico has suddenly begun to loom large on my radar. I’ve greatly enjoyed conversations with WARP members Norma Schafer, Kate Colwell, Diane Manning, and Lanita Busher, as they shared their passion for Mexico and Mexican culture. As a member of the WARP Grants Committee, I’ve learned about many Mexican textile artisans and the textiles they produce. Clearly, Mexico has become a country that I now hear about, read about, and reference quite often. I decided this would be an excellent opportunity for Rocio and me to get to know each other better, and for me to finally experience Mexico firsthand.
INGLÉS/ESPAÑOL
WARP is more than an organization—it’s a source of inspiration, opportunity, and connection. As the year comes to a close, we are called to reflect on the threads that bind us together: a shared passion for textile arts and a desire and commitment to improve the lives of textile artists worldwide.
I left Afghanistan on August 17, 2021, a date that will forever remain unforgettable. With twenty minutes warning, I left behind my beloved country, along with my life, my hope, my dreams, my world, my happiness, and my laughter. Today, as I stand here in Canada, a short way into a new journey, I hold on to the one thing that still keeps me going: my passion to support other Afghan women, to bring light to those who have lost their hope and are now living in darkness. ENGLISH/FRANÇAIS/ESPAÑOL
The sky in autumn is grayish white, it has been like this for several days, the drizzle falls timidly throughout the day and there is so much fog around us that it is impossible to see the sun. Moisture keeps the soil black and wet, the plants are happy. I find myself surrounded by mountains, in an indigenous community called Hueyapan, a Nahuatl word that translates as “over the big river” because fresh water is abundant here. INGLÉS/ESPAÑOL
Couleur Garance was born more than 20 years ago thanks to the unwavering will of a plant color enthusiast, Michel Garcia. It was created as an association initially, which included a botanical collection and different activities to promote natural dye knowledge. It was later on, in 2021, that Couleur Garance became a SCOP. A SCOP is a new business model set up in France where all employees have decision-making power. There is no hierarchy. ENGLISH/FRANÇAIS/ESPAÑOL