So let's look at the art of the women of Morocco, presented by
First in Morocco as a Peace Corps volunteer in the 80s, she returned as a scholar and researcher, with her photographer, credited in an early slide, to assist the artists in securing fair pay for their work. They were selling already, but the middlemen took a big share of the income, leaving the artisans with only a marginal return.
They're now selling on the internet, you see a slide where women are uploading their images to the sales site. They're hugely capable of everything from raising multiple children, to milking cows, to creating all kinds of textile arts, and supporting themselves and a family.
She's in search of a successor, a woman from the region with the technical and art background, so that she can give up the role of foreigner directing them, which she doesn't approve.
You can see their range, rugs -- see the crazy quilt style rugs -- to clothing, to buttons and braids, beautiful embroidery -- that work in progress makes me want to stitch -- and best of all, it's not just the older generations.
Young women are very much involved, and developing their own market for their work, embracing the technology as needed.
It's all in good hands.
I hope there is a good future for them. Happy weekend to you.
ReplyDeleteOh, how I loved the picture of the woman who is "productive in children and in weaving"!
ReplyDeleteSuch beautiful work!
ReplyDeleteWhat beautiful faces those women have. The textiles are fabulous. Encouraging that they're finding fair trade opportunities, and that younger women are seeing a future in this.
ReplyDeleteChris from Boise
I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Morocco as well -- in the early '90s! It's cool to see how this woman has helped improve these weavers' access to the global markets.
ReplyDelete"Doing agriculture on terrorists fields" -- yikes. An unfortunate subtitle mistake! (Should be "terraced," I'm sure.)
Yes, the captioning is as hit or miss as usual but it's right across the visual information, so sometimes I couldn't crop it out!
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed seeing not only the art but also the faces of the artisans themselves. There's something so wrong with the fact that the artists don't get paid fairly for their work but I suppose that's the same in any form of art (at least for most of us).
ReplyDelete