Festival de Manualidades

Community members gathered at the Brownsville Parks & Recreation facility on Saturday, October 5th for “Festival de Manualidades,” a daylong knowledge share featuring workshops in printmaking, embroidery, paper crafts, and indigenous textile traditions.

Presented as part of our Taller de Permiso project, the festival celebrated the creative sensibilities of the RGV community, and helped carry on the tradition of artisan crafts through community led collaborative learning.

The day began with an embroidery workshop taught by Maria Mejia, one of our Taller de Permiso business incubation fellows.

Community partners, Rosa San Luis and Dina Nunez from Fuerza del Valle, taught us how to make large floral decorations and floral crowns using paper, ribbon, and crafting wire.

Magda Vaszquez, another Taller de Permiso fellow and local seamstress, guided eager learners through a sewing project. After careful measurements, cutting, and taking turns on one of the three sewing machines lent to us for the event, participants tried on and modeled their self-made A-line skirts.

Our co-founder, Celeste de Luna, led a workshop for printmaking on fabric. Community members drew and carved out their own designs, or selected blocks designed as part of our Reportistas summer program, then printed them on strips of fabric with Celeste’s guidance.

Maskoke artist, Eve Billie from Alabama, led the final workshop of the day, teaching community members some textile patterning used for making ribbon skirts and other traditional garments in her culture.