artandfaithinthedesert

Update: Art and Hope, Asylum and Trump 2.0 at the U.S.-Mexico Border ~ Artisans Beyond Borders 2024

Maya Angelou famously said, “Hope and fear cannot occupy the same space. Invite one to stay.”

Gerhard Richter, the acclaimed and oft-quoted painter who came of age during Nazi Germany said that “Art is the highest form of Hope.” Sister Lika Macias, Mother Lika to countless asylum seekers on the AZ-Mexico border, says simply “Art is food for the spirit.” In these times and on this border, hope and a resilient spirit are more necessary than ever.

I stayed over at the migrant shelter la Casa de las Misericordia y Todas Naciones in Nogales, Sonora for a few weeks in November as the de facto writer in residence. The morning after the election, I woke to find my suspicions confirmed. Trump had won. What would the people that I had become close to at the shelter think about the fact that a man who explicitly targets them, asylum-seeking families, was now the President-elect of the U.S.A? Families had already been waiting months longer than usual at the shelter to legally petition for asylum.

New and old friends that I met on the grounds were as gracious as always but quiet and subdued. Many residents were frightened and nervous in the days and weeks leading up to the election. Now that the outcome was a reality, people seemed resigned. Families that make it to the shelter are no strangers to extortion, bodily assault, and grinding poverty. What they flee from is much worse than a soon-to-be U.S. president’s threats.

When I wasn’t writing at the computer, I held Mixed-Media Arts workshops for the on-site teachers and older kids at the shelter: designing textiles and cards, drawing and painting, printmaking and embroidery.

Mandalas

Our starting point in each workshop was the Mandala. Mandalas have the power to transform suffering into joy. Mandalas and other Universal sacred symbols are important touchstones in trauma-informed, healing-centered art practices, granting us a shared symbolic language regardless of cultural or religious backgrounds.

The very act of creating gives rise to anticipatory gladness, the blue sky feeling of expansiveness and wide-open possibilities, in other words, Hope. Hope is actionable. It’s process; choosing colors that delight the heart, rolling paint onto fabric, creating symmetry and balance, and mastering tools and materials.

Later, seeing contemplative mandalas and the mandala form in sunflowers hanging up on a line was deeply satisfying. As to the reality of the political situation, tomorrow would be another day. On days filled with Art, beauty and unity rule. In the future, whenever the maker runs their hands over their cloth, they can remember the freedom of their soul’s exploration that day.

Weaving Prayers

Inspired in part by the shelter’s Bordando Esperanza weaving program, a group of friends visiting from the greater Ohio area built a large vertical loom on the property. They invited residents to write their prayers on strips of cloth torn from donations of unused material, and then weave them into a large tapestry of prayers. Jan Alberti who led the group hopes to do more faith-based weaving projects in the future to help knit people and organizations together.

Chicago

In September, three amigas – Sister Lika Macias, Bordadora-Embroiderer Wendy Lopez Aguilar, and me, representing Artisans Beyond Borders, opened the exhibition Bordando Esperanza ~ Embroidering Hope in Chicago. The University of Illinois with Mellon Funding, sponsored the exhibition, which included a devotional embroidery workshop for students and community members at Casa Cultura near the University. In addition to a wonderful opening, we had a day between events to walk Chicago’s famous waterway and see the National Museum of Mexican Art. Mil gracias to the awesome Profesora Barbara Sostaita, from the Latin American and Latino Studies Dept. for coordinating everything. Thank you, Chicago!

In October, we were able to disburse modest grants to asylum seekers Wendy, Mayra, Carla, and Yandè, our former teachers at the shelter, now in the U.S., to help them survive while awaiting asylum and work permits.

Granting Asylum

In November, we rallied around Tucson-based artisans as they endured their harrowing asylum adjudications. We were overcome with joy and relief when, in the space of one month, our principal embroiderer’s family, along with one of our first weaving teachers at the shelter and her children were granted asylum.

Wins are few and far between on the border and friends and advocates celebrated into the night. At one such fiesta, which included three other newcomer families, I realized that a wonderful new network of friends and family had been born. Together, we are creating real community across cultures, and real community equals social justice. Separate us from each other, and you separate all.

Weaving and Embroidery at the shelter

We want to thank supporters Martin Dickenson from Washington D.C. and Mary Sheridan from Tucson for donating funds to Artisans Beyond Borders to cover on-site teacher stipends at the shelter through this Winter and Spring. The Embroidering Hope teachers step forward from the resident population, some with generational weaving skills like Carmen and her Mom from Guatemala, and some with pure can-do like Gabi who coordinates the construction of petite looms for teaching and making woven pulseras-bracelets.

ICE

Now in December, we’ve just learned that ICE has decided to “appeal” the Judge’s decision that granted one of our families asylum last month. So much for building a life in the U.S. without fear. Both parents work all the time since receiving their work permits; cooking, cleaning, and driving cabs while raising two little ones. Our principal embroiderer often works late into the night stitching cloth for extra money and has the calluses on her hands to prove it. In just one year, the family of four has moved from a tiny fifth wheel in a Tucson trailer court to a house, and like so many other young families, immigrant or not, they struggle to pay the $1000/mo rent on the least expensive house they could find. In her “spare” time, our embroiderer takes English classes and goes to business school. I am in awe of her family and many other families like hers throughout the U.S. This is what the American Spirit has always looked like to me. The idea that ICE could rip away this family that we love is beyond reprehensible. It’s a crime against all that is fair and decent in this world.

So, how do we maintain Hope? Networks, faith-based and otherwise, forming across the U.S. to support and protect our neighbors, are key. Our strength is in community. We are all working to raise money for lawyer’s fees and bail funds, which often run into thousands of dollars.

If you read this and want to donate to a Legal Fund for asylum seekers, you can do so directly on the ArtisansBeyondBorders.org website. All future donations will be prioritized to help these families with their legal expenses.

If you send a check, please write the check to Grace St. Paul’s Episcopal Church. On the Memo line at the bottom of your check, write Artisans Beyond Borders (ABB) Migration Fund.

Send your check to:

Grace St. Paul Episcopal Church

2331 E Adams St.

Tucson, AZ 85719

Also, anyone who has donated funds through the ABB website in the last year, or if you decide to donate now to help with legal fees please email Contact@ArtisansBeyondBorders.org with your physical address so we can send you a thank you. We want to thank you in advance for your patience, as we are all volunteers, and sometimes things can get lost in the shuffle.

*La Posada Navideña* reenactment of Mary and Joseph’s search for shelter in Bethlehem at La Casa de la Misericordia y Todas Naciones in Nogales, Sonora.

Volunteers with experience in craft are welcome to join us when we visit the shelter. Email Contact@ArtisansBeyondBorders.org. Spanish is helpful but not mandatory. Art and faith are the Universal languages of choice.

Early on, after the election, writer Annie Lamott wrote, “For now, we show up when we are needed with grit and kindness; we try to help, and we prepare for an end to the despair.”

Make art, stitch, weave, pray and rest. In the years ahead, it will take everything in our creative toolbox to help make it right.

In Border Peace,

V.L. James with Friends of Artisans Beyond Borders, Tucson, AZ 12/24

Gabi keeps the candle lit on the Altar in the craft room ~ en la sala de artesanias where magic happens.

Artisans Beyond Borders 2024 Spring/Summer Newsletter: Borderland Recuerdo Workshops, Exhibitions, Shelter News and more…

During the school year, students from across the U.S. often come to the Tucson/Nogales sector for Border Immersion studies. At our favorite workshop this Spring, a large group of students, guided by Shelley K. White, Associate Professor and director of Experiential Learning at Boston College’s Global Public Health and the Common Good, joined Bordadora profesora Wendy Lopez Aguilar and this writer for a hands-on Border Arts Workshop.

“…Your story and experiences were so moving! The art was beautiful, and so was our experience practicing it…” Emma. This transformative experience allows the participants to connect with the asylum-seekers on a deeper level, understanding their struggles and resilience through art.

“… participating in this restorative work, I found the art to be super healing and restful…” Miryam

The Recuerdos de la Frontera that each student created at the workshop inspired them to curate their own exhibition of storycloths “Presente: El Arte de la Humanidad.” back at Boston College. The storycloths they chose, hand-stitched by asylum seekers sheltered in Nogales, were then auctioned off by the students to benefit Undocumented students.

The students took the initiative to create a beautiful Instagram page, https://www.instagram.com/art.for.migration.justice/, to bring attention to the Storycloths. Check it out, and be sure to follow and forward. They set an example for all of us by using art and culture to move the needle forward and subvert the ongoing dehumanization of migration. We are so proud of them!

Bordando Esperanza Exhibitions in Boston and Miami

This Spring also, our exhibition “Bordando Esperanza – Embroidering Hope” mantas created by asylum-seekers stranded at the border from 2020 – 2023, opened at Suffolk University Center for Diversity and Inclusion. The exhibition was joyfully represented by Sister Lika Macias, Director of the shelter La Casa de las Misericordia y Todas Naciones in Nogales, Mexico.

After the Suffolk University exhibition closed, the exhibition went to the University of Miami. After learning about Wendy’s experience migrating from El Salvador with a child, students again took the lead and organized their own student-led bilingual guided tours of the exhibition.

We’re looking forward to September when Bordando Esperanza will be showing at the University of Chicago. Students will hang the show, and makers from the Borderlands—Tucson and Nogales, Sonora—will be in attendance to inform and hopefully inspire.

Shelter News

Never Abandon your Dreams

Embroidered by Ana from Ecuador, at the shelter La Casa de las Misericordia y Todas Naciones

The average wait to cross the border legally and petition for asylum is now 6-8 months. Families who’ve made it to the Arizona-Mexico Border are lucky to secure space in a shelter.

Now, after almost eight months of waiting in shelter La Casa de las Misericordia y Todas Naciones in Nogales, Sonora, our weaving teacher Carla’s number has been called, and she is leaving legally for the U.S.

As an artisan specializing in textiles, Carla is a phenom. She designs her own apparel, sews by hand and machine, embroiders, knits, and now weaves. Even more impressive than her textile skill set is the way in which she empowers others to learn. Carla is a wonderful teacher. She’ll be an asset to any part of the U.S. where she and her family settle.

Helping artisans survive and thrive in their new communities is a big part of our core mission as it has evolved over the last few years. Your donations to the Artisans Beyond Borders website will help Carla with the resources and support she needs to realize her lifelong dream of opening a shop.

Carla teaching embroidery, sewing and weaving to children and adults

Carla has passed the baton to our next on-site resident teacher: Yandé, a textile designer from Senegal who, like Carla, is multi-talented. Delighted to add weaving to her palette, Yandé now teaches other residents and visitors in the same subtle and patient way as Carla. Both of them are blessings at the shelter and the community at large. Artisans Beyond Borders can continue to pay the teachers a modest monthly stipend for as long as donations to Artisans Beyond Borders allow.

Yandé and Carla dressing a table loom together

This writer with Carla and Yandé, the shelter’s current teacher. Yandé holds up an intricately embroidered Guadalupe, the empress of the Americas, with the U.S. on one side and Mexico on the other. Every square inch of Yandé’s custom piece, a month in the making, is embroidered in chain stitch!

Casa Cardo

Thanks to the collaborative efforts of Artisans Beyond Borders and volunteers, an outbuilding at a new small shelter in Tucson has been beautifully transformed into ‘la Sala de las Artesanias,’ the craft room.

For resident solo women asylum-seekers and their children, the light-filled multi-use space is a santuario, a sanctuary for imagination and soul. Generous art and craft donations from the community have already provided opportunities and materials for weaving and healing, embroidering, sewing, and more. The Santuario is now fully stocked, so Artisans Beyond Borders gratefully accepts financial donations (only) on the website to cover healing-centered arts programming for the women and children.

And more…

After six years running, Artisans Beyond Borders will be taking a Summer Sabbatical in the country from June to September 2024. This writer, for one, is looking forward to days filled with flow, long-form writing, and weaving. We wish everyone a wonderful summer. See you in September!

P.S. If you are not already subscribed to this blog and you want to continue receiving good news behind the scenes, please hit the subscribe button. We need more followers to be able to grow into a more hopeful future here on the border and beyond. Thank you!

In Border peace,

Binational Friends of Artisans Beyond Borders

New Year 2024 – Un Regalo para Ti ~ A Gift for You

“We will see together a new Dawn,” embroidered by Carla

*God will not abandon us*
Embroidered at the shelter Casa de las Misericordia y Todas Naciones, by Lorenza

2023 was a dark time for displaced families around the world, yet against all odds, hope endures. As we move forward into 2024, let’s amplify these quiet voices of hope.

Magical Mariposas

When I think about hope, it’s Jhony’s face I see, a child from El Salvador, in a newcomer family, staring in awe at a mariposa alive in his hand. That day, at Tucson’s recent Migrant Memorial Service at Southside Presbyterian, Jhony tiptoed up to me, spellbound with enchantment, and opened his hand. Holding his breath so as not to disturb the fragile butterfly, he looked up and met my eye in silent wonder.

Each year, the Migrant Memorial service remembers and honors the hundreds of people who die each year migrating across our desert. Stones gathered from the desert, marked with the names of the dead are placed, one by one, at the base of the Migrant Shrine in the church’s courtyard. Most of the stones are marked desconocido, to represent the incredible number of unknown Jane and John Doe’s. After every stone was put into place, the Reverend Allison J. Harrington called all the children to her and presented them with a box. When the children opened the box, a kaleidoscope of monarch-colored butterflies swarmed the courtyard, and a collective Oh! rippled through the crowd.

In many cultures, Monarchs represent the souls of our deceased loved ones. For Mexicans, the monarch’s historically large migrations symbolize family unity reminding us that we are all family in the afterlife. According to Wikipedia, the same is true for Egyptian, Indian, Russian, and Irish cultures as well. Above all, Monarchs symbolize Hope, a gift for us all. I won’t soon forget this day and I doubt that Jhony will either.

*Transform your fear into strength and you will live*, Embroidered by Mayeli

Make and Give

In a world dead-set on destruction, the most radical response is to create and then create more. Wonder-fully. Fearlessly. Individually and together in solidarity. To create is generative, life-affirming, and naturally healing. To create is to hope.

Recently, Tucson’s Friends of Artisans Beyond Borders teamed up with high school youth to create Maker bags stuffed with healing-centered art supplies and activities for families legally waiting in line for asylum at the port of entry in Nogales, Sonora, Mexico. The youth, here from Bainbridge Island in Washington State with their teachers to learn about the U.S.-Mexico Border, were guided by educators at Globalroutes.org.

At the recently renovated Ward 6 conference building in Tucson, the students bagged supplies and materials for 160 comfort projects ranging from culturally aligned Bordado-embroidery Maker Bags & Mandala designs for adults, to Ojos de Dios – God’s Eyes and pulseras de Amistad – friendship bracelets kits, to backpack journals for school-age kids, and coloring packets for pre-schoolers. Students labeled each bag Un regalo para ti – A Gift for you and then added bows. The students were dedicated and organized.

These well-thought-out Arte y actividades projects (Craftways) were put together based on experience with families in trauma at Casa Alitas, Tucson’s main shelter for asylum seekers. As volunteers, we all agreed that it was time for the Craftway kits, good medicine for the heart, hands, and soul, to go directly to families waiting at the border entrance. With enough donations secured, we hope that our colleagues at Voices from the Border can carry the practice forward.

At the Port of Entry

At the De Concini port of entry in Nogales, tense families packed in shoulder to shoulder against one wall. At first, people seemed a bit unsure, but the more projects we gave out with no expectations, the more relaxed the crowd became, and the more smiles ensued. Families were surprised and delighted to be offered a choice of projects.

Linda, volunteering with Voices from the Border hands out Maker’s bags to families waiting for an appointment to legally cross the border, Nogales, Sonora, MX

Volunteers from Artisans Beyond Borders (ABB), Tucson’s Grace St. Paul’s Episcopal Migration Ministries, Tubac’s Border Community Alliance, and as far away as Marana teamed up with volunteers Pancho and Linda from Voices from the Border.

A woman waiting, seeking asylum, begins immediately embroidering with the new materials.

It was a special day for this writer. Separated by the wall and the pandemic, it had been forever since I’d seen Pancho, our first partner in Mexico. From the start of ABB, in 2019 when we volunteers first began to do arts outreach in the streets, Pancho, a frontline nurse at the border and a great friend to the people, was the first to jump in and help us organize, translate, and build trust. Whenever we felt like we couldn’t do enough, Pancho reminded us: “Poco a poco” – you do what you can.

Speaking of doing enough, the families that we served that day were under a roof and had blankets to ward against the cold while they waited at the port of entry. By contrast, families with little or nothing are being dropped off now by the cartels at remote areas along the wall. They are desperate. Every day, local helpers try to bring enough blankets, warm clothing, food, and water to families stranded at the wall. We all do whatever we can. Please consider donating directly to our helpers on the front lines:

The Green Valley – Sahuarita Samaritans

No More Deaths – No Mas Muertos

Tucson Samaritans

Humane Borders

Creative Community at the Shelter

After all of the Arte y actividades were passed out, we went to the posada celebration at the shelter La Casa de las Misericordia y Todas Naciones. Las Posadas is a traditional Mexican religious festival commemorating Mary and Joseph’s migration from Nazareth to Bethlehem in search of a safe place for Mary to give birth to Jesus. In addition to tamales and traditional drinks, shelter youth gifted all the visitors with sweet performances and dancing. Whenever I visit this shelter, I always leave feeling invigorated and spiritually replenished. It’s like drinking the purest water from a deep well of friendship and family.

The littles and their teachers for Las Posadas at la Casa de las Misericordia y Todas Naciones. Their costumes, including the girl’s skirts, were created from brown wrapping paper.

The shelter’s weaving studio Artisans Beyond Borders established in the summer of 2023 in collaboration with shelter staff, allows guests quiet respite, focus, and flow. Guests have learned the basic techniques and best practices for handlooming patterned mug rugs (coasters), Diamond Twill bookmarks, and more. One-of-a-kind and limited, some can be found for sale in the office at the shelter. They are also offered for donation while supplies last at ArtisansBeyondBorders.org website.

Hand-loomed Mug Rugs woven by guests at the shelter

Diamond Twill Bookmarks handwoven by guests

One of the coolest skills that guests picked up this year was backstrap weaving taught by Karen, an ABB volunteer from Marana who has studied with master weavers around the world.

Backstrap weaving at la Casa de las Misericordia y Todos Naciones Shelter, Nogales, Sonora, MX

We visitors from the U.S. come as guest teachers. As long as donations to ABB hold out, we can pay a small stipend to keep an on-site teacher at the community. Early on, after our first teacher rotated out, Mayra became the next weaving teacher. Mayra quickly surpassed basic skills and went on to teach guests to weave on handlooms and now backstrap weaving. Her patient and loving presence will be dearly missed when it comes time for her to leave for the U.S. The tradition “each one, teach one,” we’ve instilled at the shelter helps Mayra pass the baton to the next teacher.

Embroidering continues to flourish at la Casa de las Misericordia y Todas Naciones, and we are seeing more story cloths as time goes on. I believe we see more now because the makers feel truly safe at this gated shelter. They finally have the space to breathe and the support to have their feelings.

If they don’t feel confident enough to draw what they see in their imaginations, they feel comfortable asking for assistance from Director Sister Lika Macias, a painter, who can help them realize their vision. Similar to story cloths found in other conflict areas around the world, the embroiderer stitches her or his story of migration and loss, memory, and prayer. Deeply personal and true, the maker can begin to heal in the process.

*We will see together a new Dawn*, embroidered by Carla

Bordando Esperanza – Embroidering Hope Exhibition

If you are in the Tucson area and you are interested in story cloths, especially as they relate to the cultural history of our borderlands, faith, and migration, there’s still time to view the exhibition “Bordando Esperanza- Embroidering Hope, 75 individual mantas embroidered by asylum seekers, at Border Community Alliance in Tubac where the exhibition has been extended through January 2024. This Winter, the Exhibition will be at Suffolk University in Boston. We are planning for Miami University in the Spring and are reserved for the University of Chicago in the Fall of 2024.

If you’d like to help support Wendy Lopez and her family, our embroiderer from El Salvador (now in Tucson) who created the central story cloth of the exhibition, visit our Direct-to-Artisan sales page: Her contemporary feminine work is super popular and she takes commissions. This is a wonderful opportunity to support artisan families to survive in the U.S.

To everyone who has supported the Friends of Artisans Beyond Borders throughout 2023, mil gracias – thank you! None of this would have been possible without your support.

May Peace prevail in the year to come.

V. James and Friends of Artisans Beyond Borders

1/1/2024

Focus on Creativity, Color and Calm, Summer/Fall 2023

This summer, Friends of ArtisansBeyondBorders.org (ABB) teamed up with La Casa De Las misericordia y Todas Naciones – The House of Mercy and All Nations shelter in Nogales, Sonora, to establish a Weaving studio and program for asylum seekers who are often stranded there for months.

Staff and guests at the shelter cleaned out the storeroom and painted and tiled the floor to make space, a rare thing in a shelter. With the aid of two modest grants from W.A.R.P. (Weave A Real Peace), and THSG (Tucson Handweavers and Spinners Guild), we friends of Artisans Beyond Borders were able to buy tables and shelving and spools of cotton and wool to weave with.

With grant funding, we were also able to purchase the lumber to make our own weaving tools (sticks and shuttles). Men from the shelter cut, shaped and sanded each tool in preparation for classes. Members of THSG donated frame looms for larger projects, and we were able to find frames for smaller projects.

Every other week, ABB volunteers visit the shelter with donated or purchased supplies and teach basic hand loom weaving to guests, some of whom quickly graduate to become onsite teachers themselves. Our first class was inspired by indigenous Mapuche weaving.

Our first onsite teacher emerges ~ Maura from Guatemala, an indigenous weaver with generational skills.

Staff, volunteers, and shelter quests begin to weave together. Classes focus on best practices in weaving so everyone can have a successful experience.

In one class we focus on the colors of the rainbow.
It just makes you happy.

Students create small satisfying projects like mug rugs to keep or to sell.

In addition to choice embroidered mantas, completed weavings will be available for sale at the in-person Opening of the Exhibition Bordando Esperanza ~ Embroidering Hope, November 18, 2023 (in time for the holidays) at Border Community Alliance in Tubac, Arizona. More details coming soon…

For updates, follow Artisans Beyond Borders on INSTAGRAM and FACEBOOK

The Women Embroidering Hope, Sé Fuerte-Be Strong, Spring 2023.

Abby Martinez shares her original“Sueño Americano-American Dream,”
surrounded by supporters from the Arizona Episcopal Diocese and *La Casa de Misericordia de Todas Naciones Migrant shelter* in Nogales, Mexico.

In the summer of 2021, after waiting a lifetime (seventeen years), Abby legally crossed the U.S./Mexico border to be reunited at last with her mother in Phoenix. Now in her twenties and a mother of her own, she is ready to share her story. Abby is gracious and soft-spoken but not afraid to tell the truth. Like John Keats’ “Beauty is truth, truth is beauty, Abby’s beautifully embroidered “Sueño Americano” speaks to the reality of many who’ve traveled through hell and back again to make it across the border to the U.S., only to find food, rent, and the most basic services, frighteningly out of reach.

“Sueño Americano” Copyright 2023 by Abby Martinez

On this Good Friday 2023, the opening night of the group exhibition “Bordando Esperanza” at Phoenix’s Olney Gallery, Abby’s paisano-countryman hangs on a crucifix in the center of Sueño Americano. On one side of the cloth, we see the wide open green of mountains, cheerful houses, and flowers, and on the other side, an imposing blood-red border wall with crosses that dot the foreground and mark the dead. In contrast to the embroidered prayers and memories in the exhibition, Sueño Americano is the other side of the coin.

The priority of the traveling exhibition is that it be shown first in the U.S. communities that the participating artisans are now in so that they can represent their own work and share their story in their own voice if they choose. In Phoenix, Abby represents the exhibition and offers for a donation, original mantas that she’s currently embroidering.

One of the most popular pieces on display in the exhibition is Abby’s “Sé Fuerte,” completed during the year+ that she and her children waited at the shelter in Nogales, Sonora, Mexico for the legal opportunity to cross and petition for asylum. Two of Abby’s other pieces in the exhibition have her signature Xray transparency: an eagle with outstretched wings titled “Volemos Alto”- We Fly High and a howling coyote titled “Loyal and Lonely,” both with an entire desert ecosystem embroidered inside their bold outlines.

“Sé Fuerte” copyrighted 2021 by Abby Martinez

Bordando Esperanza – Embroidering Hope Exhibition – 75 Embroidered Prayers and Memories by Asylum-seekers stranded at the U.S. Border from 2020-2022, at **Trinity Cathedral’s Olney Gallery, in Downtown Phoenix,** **April 1 – April 27, 2023, Open Mon-Friday 10-3, Sunday 8-12**

Bordando Esperanza -Embroidering Hope exhibition is traveling through 2024.
Email Contact@ArtisansBeyondBorders.org for information and booking in your community.

Rev. David Chavez, Episcopal Canon for Border Ministries, and Arizona’s Episcopal Bishop Jennifer A. Reddall bless every piece and their makers including one discovered in the desert.

Rose Commission, copyright 2022 by Abby Martinez

Abby accepts embroidery commissions now and is happy to work from drawings or photographs that folks provide. Originals in the exhibition are not available but limited cards and posters of Sé Fuerte and Abby’s other designs may be available going forward with donations to Abby’s small Artisans Beyond Borders start-up grant.

If you would like to commission Abby to make an original embroidery, **text her directly at WhatsApp: 1(602) 505-7825**

To support Embroidering Hope’s artisan start-ups across the U.S., donate directly to www.ArtisansBeyondBorders.org. By helping these artisans gain a foothold, we support healthy families and resilent community, peace, and beauty.

To support the Migrant shelter La Casa de Misericordia y Todas Naciones in Nogales, Sonora, Mexico, donate to Cruzando Fronteras.

Valarie James, friend of Artisans Beyond Borders, 2023

Lifelines

Instead of the word “Deadlines,” (this March 2028 Maker day takes place tomorrow), it’s time to re-frame last-minute opportunities as “Lifelines,” especially for the most marginalized among us. If this lead volunteer opportunity here is posted too late for your schedule, there are 2 more Maker Days scheduled through May when we adjourn for our Tucson summer sabbatical (June, July, and August). The next Maker Day is April 21. The final Maker day is May 26.

Hope to see you!

Other Lifeline opportunities from our favorite sister organization W.A.R.P. -Weaving a Real Peace:

Dear Friends of WARP, We are pleased to announce applications are now open for WARP’s 2023 Artisan Support Grants. Textile artisans from any country are welcome to apply.WARP is offering one-time grants of up to $500 for individual artisans and up to $1,000 for artisan groups. This year, we are providing two grant options: one for Basic Needs and one for Development. This reflects the fact that while many artisans may still need COVID or other emergency support, others are transitioning out of an emergency situation and now have needs that are more development-oriented. The application deadline is March 19th, 2023. The link to the electronic application form is below, with details about this year’s grant program. Please share this announcement with any textile artisan or artisan group you think would benefit from this grant. For any grant-related questions, please contact Diane Manning, WARP Grants Committee Chair, at dkmanning@gmail.com.Best wishes, WARP Grant Committee

In Border Peace,

Friends of Artisans Beyond Borders

“Beauty is not a luxury but a strategy for survival”

“Beauty is not a luxury but a strategy for survival”–Terry Tempest Williams, Finding Beauty in a Broken World.

In these desperate times for so many on our border, Friends of Artisans Beyond Borders (ABB) couldn’t be more grateful for our national textile arts community’s ongoing support of asylum seekers’ familial and cultural arts. It goes a long way in affirming these families’ humanity and dignity.

Donations from across the U.S. mean that we can stock “Maker Bags” with embroidery and weaving supplies for newly arrived asylum seekers in COVID quarantine at Casa Alitas, Tucson’s Lead Migrant shelter. The healing and grace that these kinds of trauma-informed arts and activities provide for families in isolation, who arrive sick and stressed to the max, cannot be underestimated. What a joy it has been this season to be able to help our new families have a moment’s peace and agency, a moment to breathe just a little easier. It has felt like the best gift of the season.

“The maker bags were such a delight for many of our adult guests, especially the single women that were staying with us. It is lovely to see the adults’ faces when they received a little gift along with the kiddos. … and kid-friendly kits keep the kids entertained and also give them the ability to bond with their parents with these crafts. Thank you so much to the volunteers for the love and care put into each of these kits and for thinking of our guests.”–Casa Alitas Staff Site Lead

Cash donations from International Textile Guilds like W.A.R.P. and local Guilds like the Saddlebrook Fine Arts Guild and the Tucson Handweavers and Spinners Guild allowed us to send end-of-the-year supplies (traditional manta cloth & hilo/thread) from Mexico to our bordadoras/embroiderers and tejedoras/weavers now in the U.S. awaiting asylum adjudication.

Tucson Friends of Artisans Beyond Borders now have a standing reservation to compile Maker bags at Tucson’s City Council Ward 6 building, on the third Friday of every month going forward in 2023. Steve K. has been a long-time and continuing supporter of Casa Alitas and other migrant agencies here in Tucson. Scroll down to see the photo, etc.

https://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/AZTUCSON/bulletins/33ce6a1

Here are the 2023 dates volunteers will meet: 1/20/23, 2/17/23, 3/17/23, 4/21/23, and 5/20/23. You are welcome to join us anytime between 9-4 that day. Email Contact@ArtisansBeyondBorders.org if you would like to participate.

Many Hands Make Light Work

Longtime ABB Volunteers Kat and Mary planning

Magda and Emily compiling donations into Maker Bags for Casa Alitas Guests

Gael Cassidy volunteering with Tucson’s Iskashitaa Refugee Network. Generous donations mean that we can also disseminate handwork materials and supplies to other refugee groups in our area.

Angel Donors

Donors to ABB demonstrate time and again how more alike we are than different. We, humans, create better circumstances for ourselves and our families with our own hands, ingenuity, and creativity. Familial arts like embroidery, sewing, and weaving are homemaking traditions we all share.

Terry Italia and her son Vinny from New Jersey personify the souls of our donors. Terri was the daughter of Italian immigrants who came to this country with little more than the clothes on their backs.

Always creative and enterprising, Terri first started a cake decorating business with a friend – “I can still taste the lemon filling and icing of those cakes,” Vinny writes. She then moved on to knitting and crocheting blankets (an interest shared with her Mom) for family and friends. After her kids got on their feet, Terri worked in a local craft store. There she learned about crewel/tapestry yarns and embroidery floss. She was eventually recruited by DMC, the supplier of the world-famous thread and embroidery supplies. Terri excelled as a DMC representative at trade shows and conferences around the country for over a decade.

Like so many women, Terri retired early to become her mother’s caregiver until her mom’s death. All along, though, Terri had multiple projects – embroidery, quilting, sewing – going at the same time. As her own health slowly deteriorated, “she would repeatedly ask me not to throw her inventory away after her passing,” writes Vinny. “She wanted things to go to a good cause and continue the benevolence she lived her life by.”

Terri’s is the largest donation ABB has received to date. The multi-colored crochet thread alone is an amazing gift for indigenous weavers in the U.S. who cannot afford the thread they need to complete their work.

After Terri passed, Vinny contacted an old friend from college, Mary Hahola Rosell, for help in getting his Mom’s huge stash into the hands of weavers and embroiderers. Mary, who “learned to weave in the early 1990s with Deb Chandler’s seminal book “Learning to Weave,” and helpful fiber friends, contacted WARP, an organization that has always been an inspiration to her. WARP put her in touch with Artisans Beyond Borders in Tucson and the shipping began! The postage needed to send such a large amount was daunting, but Shore Fiber Arts Guild in Ocean, New Jersey, where Mary is a member, raised funds to help defray the costs.

Vinny writes, “I hope that ABB can use the materials and supplies to create many items which will bring a smile and joy to the faces of the people you are helping. Terri would be very happy.”

More donations from long-time supporter Anita Tokos, also hailing from an immigrant family. Friends from her parish in Ohio added more and helped with the cost of shipping.

And this year, The West, a non-profit needlework and gift shop in Tucson that from 1981 – 2019 gave over $2.3 million to Tucson charities serving women and children, donated extra wool yarns to ABB. Thanks to their generosity, materials for up to three projects with kids can be included in each maker bag.

“Beauty scatters the seeds of Hope,” Joan Chittister

Our Etsy shop Bordando Esperanza is now officially closed as we focus more on service and education but you may find handcrafted items made by asylum seekers for sale through other border organizations tabling at the upcoming annual Common Ground on the Border conference, January 12-14 at the Good Shepherd Church in Sahuarita, AZ. Online, you can find wonderful original embroideries at Salvavision’s new shop benefitting the Esperanza Shelter in Sasabe on the Arizona-Mexico border.

Please continue to support our sister border organizations in Nogales, Sonora, Mexico that actively promote agency and dignity, beauty and hope: Casa de la Misericordia y de Todas Naciones, Voices from the Border, and Kino Border Initiative

Wishing you and your families a healthy, safe, and secure New Year,

Tucson’s Friends of Artisans Beyond Borders

Spread the Love Shop Closeout

Hospitality Mantas embroidered for you by asylum-seekers

Artisans Beyond Borders announces a Christmas Close-out with reduced prices on all inventory (just refreshed) at our BordandoEsperanza Etsy Shop. On Jan. 1, 2023, we close shop. We thank you with all our hearts for your support, which has made our success possible.

Going forward, the Friends of Artisans Beyond Borders are centering our efforts on service and education. Upon request, we may offer limited originals at in-person presentations and exhibitions. To have our Bordando Esperanza/Embroidering Hope exhibition shown in your community, church or seminary, university, or guild, email Contact@ArtisansBeyondBorders.org for info and booking.

As we continue to back trauma-informed arts and activities at the U.S./Mexico border, it remains our mission and our joy at www.ArtisansBeyondBorders.org to promote asylum-seekers as they launch their own small arts businesses in the U.S. Stay tuned for updates on their progress here at www.ArtandFaithintheDesert.com.

We hope that you will also continue to welcome our new neighbors from the global south by directly supporting their artisanal arts as they settle into their new communities. It was the love and generosity of individual supporters around the world since 2020 that gave the artisans hope and made the Etsy shop such a success.

Blessings to all/Bendiciones para todos y todas,
Friends of Artisans Beyond Borders

Invitation to the exhibition Bordando Esperanza/ Embroidering Hope

Please forgive duplicates but it has come to our attention that the Invitation for the exhibition did not come through on people’s emails. If you are in Arizona, the exhibition is also scheduled for the Trinity Cathedral’s Olney gallery in Phoenix in Spring 2023.

Dios nos bendiga a todos/God bless us all,

Tucson’s Friends of Artisans Beyond Borders.

Fall/Winter Artisans Beyond Borders Newsletter

Bordando Esperanza Exhibition, Devotional Arts workshops, U.S. start-ups, and more.

Bordando Esperanza/Embroidering Hope

If you are in Tucson, we hope that you can join us for our home church exhibition of contemporary retablos/religious and spiritual embroideries independently stitched by asylum-seekers at the border.

“Few can deny how powerful and enduring the role of faith is for individuals and families caught in forced migration. Bordando Esperanza/Embroidering Hope brings their stories to our communities, so that we may see and feel what is true and sacred for our neighbors.” from the viewer guide.

Paty’s hand-embroidered retablo of Jesus from the group exhibition of devotional embroideries.

The core group of embroiderers in the exhibition were stranded together for over a year and a half (2020 through 2021) at the shelter La Casa de Misericordia y de Todas Naciones in Nogales, Sonora, Mexico, where they found safety, solidarity, and peace in embroidery.

Maker’s Program at la Casa de Misericordia y de Todas Naciones

Friends of Artisans Beyond Borders support guests to embroider, sew, and weave in the shelter’s dedicated maker space. Esther, staff extraordinaire, facilitates embroidery and teaches guests how to use the donated sewing machines.

Recovering Spirit through the Arts

Shelter Director Sister Lika with Administrator Consuelo at the shelter. On the wall is a grand textile embroidered by the guests and gifted to the shelter. Guests also embroidered the mantas/servilletas available on the table. Next to Sister Lika is a print of her hand-painted Icon of Guadalupe. On this day, Sister Lika wears a huipil woven at the shelter by Cecilia, an indigenous weaver featured in this recent WARP blog post..

Creating ‘Emancipatory spaces and searching for well-being’ in the shade of the mother tree at the shelter.

This summer Artisans Beyond Borders (ABB) was pleased to provide material support (along with grant funding from the UofA) for Elizabeth Gaxiola’s expressive arts project: La Casa de Papel: El Ruido de Tus Voces/Creating Emancipatory Spaces and Search for Well-being in our Borderlands. It was a great opportunity to have Liz working with the guests at la Casa de Misericordia y de Todas Naciones and also at the Kino Migrant Aid Center, as she attended to wounds of the heart and soul.

Liz Gaxiola facilitating trauma-informed expressive arts at la Casa de Misericordia y de Todas Naciones. Photo courtesy of the artist.

On the U.S. side ~ Devotional Border Arts Workshops

In keeping with our educational mission, with advance notice, ABB volunteer art facilitators can provide hands-on engaged contemplation (linking Art, Faith, and Social Justice) for visiting delegations and student groups here for border immersion. In contrast to the bleak politics of the border, Devotional Arts affirm, nourish, and empower.

Devotional Border Arts Workshop for visitors at Tucson’s Shalom-Mennonite Church

“People were so into it, they were working on their projects even in the airport while they were waiting for their planes.” Kat Smith, MCC Border Outreach

Un recuerdo/a memory of one’s own. The personal is political.

With the aid of a grant from the Mennonite Central Committee, which has a history of supporting community handwork that benefits the whole, we’ve been able to provide some of the embroiders waiting for asylum now in the U.S. with start-up funds to develop small craft enterprises. With donations to ABB, we can also source and send culturally aligned made-in-Mexico materials and supplies.

Most bordadoras/embroiderers have already suffered through their first year in the U.S., not being allowed to work. Now that they’ve been here a year and are able to legally be employed, the cost of work permits alone remains cost prohibitive.

Authentic manta cloth from Mexico stacked and ready to be shipped to bordadoras in the U.S.

The holidays give us all more opportunities to support hand-made fair trade and their makers by purchasing their wares wherever they’re sold in the U.S., or in Mexico. Artisans Beyond Borders offers original mantas (when available) at in-person events and exhibition openings, and also on the ABB website for donation. Volunteers with Voices from the Border also sell hand-embroidered mantas weekly at La Posada Farmer’s Market. Online, Salavision has opened a shop that includes beautiful hand-embroidered bags and mantas, and if you are in Ambos Nogales, in Mexico the Kino Border Initiative is now supporting the people’s hand-made arts through their Migrant Aid Center.

To host the exhibition Bordando Esperanza/Embroidering Hope and/or to inquire about Devotional Arts Workshops email: Contact@ArtisansBeyondBorders.org.

If you are interested in being a Friend of Artisans Beyond Borders: compiling maker bags from donated materials, helping to table, or part-time as a volunteer arts facilitator on either side of the border you can also email us at Contact@ArtisansBeyondBorders.org Spanish is helpful but not mandatory.

To keep trauma-informed arts and cultural craft programming going at the border and also invest in new families’ heritage skills here in the U.S., donate directly to www.ArtisansBeyondBorders.org.

La Casa de Misericordia y de Todas Naciones: an Inclusive shelter that welcomes all

To help with basic needs at the shelter – Food, clothing, staff – you can donate directly to the shelter:

To long-time supporters, we thank you! None of this could be possible without you.

Dios te bendiga/God bless you,

Friends of Artisans Beyond Borders