Lisa Trujillo·
19, 20, 21
19,20,21-Lisa Trujillo It has been a pandemic year. We have all gone through this year together, apart from each other. What we have felt, all of us living more isolated from one another, but interacting in whole new ways, is probably more alike than different. Our struggles this year have varied tremendously, from terrible suffering and tragic loss, to overwhelming fear, loneliness, or boredom, to an appreciation of things we were previously overlooked. We all had to make sense of things for ourselves. We had closed our doors to customers after one last tour group, on March 11, 2020. We...
Lisa Trujillo·
Weaving Before Your Eyes
There was a documentary project made long ago that sent a videographer to record us working. He talked about doing stop-motion photography for the project, and wouldn’t it be fun to do that with our work. He tried to explain how it would work, with a camera mounted on the loom and shooting frames on a regular basis, but I really didn’t think it was realistic thing for me to try to do. Since then I have learned some rudimentary video editing skills and have thought often about how stop-motion photography could work for me. I had been scheduled to...
Lisa Trujillo·
November Storm
Like every other piece I have ever woven, this piece comes out of the time I created it in. The yarns are all handspun wool, and most are either naturally dyed or are undyed churro. Most of the pinks and the wine colored yarns came out of a friend’s stash of handspun, naturally dyed yarns, that I had bought a year or two before I wove this. The undyed wools are probably all from my sister’s flock of sheep, although I have been known to buy fleeces from other sources too. The fact that I had very limited amounts...
Emily Trujillo·
Have You Heard About Wedding Blankets?
Big news! I got married earlier this month, so today I’m going to tell you about the Frazada de Boda, or, in English: the wedding blanket. I’ll forever remember the scratchy material on my bare shoulders as my father and father-in-law wrapped a blanket around me my now-husband. The sun was beating down on our heads and I closed my eyes to take everything in. It may have been a hot summer day, but my heart was warm from emotion. My dad had spent a month weaving our very own frazada for us, and only now were we allowed to see it. My dad...
Emily Trujillo·
What Makes a Winner
Friday, July 27th, 2018, Sun beams burst through grey skies, majestically illuminating the New Mexico landscape below. I had picked up my mom from my parents’ house in Chimayo and we were driving to Santa Fe through the desert landscape; my dad following close behind in his white Subaru. We were eagerly driving to the 2018 Spanish Market Preview night. My dad, Irvin Trujillo, is always the star of the weaving division. Mom and I were joking with each other: “what award did dad win this year?” “Someday he’ll give someone else a chance to be the superstar.” We started...
Emily Trujillo·
Rinsing Yarn: a Childhood Treasure
Hello! My name is Emily Trujillo and I’m starting to write for this blog. This is my first blog post for this page. Some of you might know me, and others don’t. I’m an 8th generation weaver and daughter of Irvin and Lisa Trujillo, master weavers and owners of Centinela Traditional Arts. I came back to Centinela Traditional Arts three years ago when I graduated from UNM with a double major in Ethnology and Psychology. I’m now 27 years old. My blog posts will be stories from my childhood and growing up with spinning, dying, weaving, tradition, culture and family....