I met Maria during her artist residency in Texere where she was hosting a workshop on this particular day. Maria’s workshop on natural dye was creatively playful and very interesting to know the processes involved in dying. “There is no line in my way of creating. In fact, I don't consider myself an artist or a creator. I first started to introduce myself to the world of natural dyes four years ago, when I was living in Antigua, Guatemala. I worked directly with women artisans for three years and during this time I was very close to their weaving processes and techniques and I became passionate about natural dyes.” Maria then began to study and experiment with raw materials such as cochineal, pericón and flor de muerto (merigold) and fell in love with the process, “It is a slow process that takes time and is never the same. You always get different results. It is a technique where the results speak for themselves because every time you dye everything around you is part of the process; the ph of the water, the fermentation of the dye bath, how fresh the leaves are, how wet the fabric is. Everything counts and that is what I like the most. The interaction of one with the whole.”

“What inspires me to continue experimenting is that there is never an end to learning, every time I do a dye bath, every time I teach a class or experiment with another fiber, there is something new and it is not a linear learning process, it changes and transforms over time. I learn from different communities, different people who have other techniques and share knowledge. Understanding where what belongs to us comes from is a unique way of relating to what we have and makes us more aware of what is really valuable. It is an active pause among so much chaos.”

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