It All Began With Dalia

© 2005 By Charlotte Meares

Photography © 2004 Lorran Meares, All Rights Reserved

In 2004 Lorran and I had the great privilege of sponsoring folk artist Wounaan master weaver Alina Itucama of the Darién Rainforest of Panamá to participate in the first Santa Fe International Folk Art Market. Alina literally became the “cover girl” for the Folk Art Market magazine, the image of her stitching an exquisite basket (three years in the making) drawing thousands of visitors. (Please see our link to this fascinating story at the bottom of this page.)

This year we introduced to the folk art community a woman who, unknowingly at the time, “started it all” and helped to initiate the transformation from a women’s cottage industry of weaving uninspiring tourist baskets to a dynamically evolving art form that is garnering appreciation and collectors around the world.

For her outstanding contribution to the Wounaan culture and its indigenous craft, Maria Dalia Negria de Zarco (she prefers “Dalia”) was the choice of her “sister” weavers to represent them in the United States at Santa Fe International Folk Art Market 2005—for which she was enthusiastically invited from hundreds of applicants..

While the present-day baskets created by neighboring tribes (including the Colombian Wounaan) have evolved very little in technique, materials, and color palette beyond those pictured above, drastic evolutionary shifts in design and purpose began to occur in Darien Wounaan basketry, starting in the mid-80's.

“A stitch in Time” is an appropriate phrase to describe Dalia Negria's visionary experimentation and break about two decades ago with the simple geometric patterns that had adorned Wounaan and neighboring Emberá people’s basketry.

Inspired by her surroundings and encouraged in her first attempts to incorporate rainforest flora and fauna by devoted Panamá City gallery owners, Llori Gibson and Elle Gale, Stuart Warner, an early importer of baskets to the U.S., and missionaries Ron and Kathy Binder, Dalia brought a barely recognizable, angular macaw into being with her needle and “chunga” palm fiber.

“You could tell it was embarrassed to be called a macaw, because it was so crudely designed,” Dalia tells us, laughing at the memory. “But it enabled me to get $10 for a basket that would have otherwise gotten only $5. Once I had improved my technique a bit more, I shared my designs with my sisters, Christina and Miriam Negria. Other women quickly caught on and "rainforest menagerie" fever began to infect the artform.

It didn’t take them long to start weaving different kinds of birds, butterflies, and even bats into their baskets. "We could not believe how the baskets would sell so much better. With a little more work, we were getting as much as $30 for our baskets in the market!”

That small step—or stitch—for Wounaan womankind, created an artistic and economic revolution. Dalia gestures as she speaks in Spanish, the second language for the Wounaan, “All the women in our community wanted to know how to make birds and flowers and butterflies, so they could help feed their families by making beautiful baskets to sell to the tourists.

Each stitching refinement led to another. More and more colors emerged through experimentation with the known dye-plants growing nearby. Her sisters, Christina and Miriam, experimented with butterflies and macaws, too. Before long the Negria sisters’ baskets were hot items in the marketplace. Other village women were eager to learn how to better support themselves. In workshops throughout the Darien Rainforest (even in remote villages), Dalia and a core team of master weavers unselfishly passed along their skills.

“First, I taught a select group of weavers who were already creating nice geometrics, like Alina Itucama and her sisters."recalled Dalia. "Alina learned easily and quickly became a master weaver herself." Requista Pena stumbled upon a beautiful "roja" (magenta) color when she crushed "Teca" (Teak) leaves between her fingers noticed that the vivid stain lasted for days. Boiling the "blanco" chunga in this new and brilliant brew started all forms of experimentations with natural dye-stuffs and color inducing elements. 'Then, together we started giving workshops and teaching others the techniques…even in the distant villages,” Christina pipes in.

Now, women in remote villages as well as those clustered in tiny communities within an hour’s drive of Panamá City, weave as often as possible in the company of female friends and relatives—laughing and joking to pass the time. While these women are competitive, they are not proprietary about new techniques they’ve stumbled upon while trying to solve a weaving problem. Sharing ideas for creating finer and more artistic baskets financially benefits individual weavers as well as their communities.

We are greatly rewarded that Dalia Negria de Zarco’s humble first birds and flowers and her unselfish commitment to empower Wounaan women by sharing her newfound skills was recognized and rewarded by the International Folk Art Market Review Board. Word of this honor is filtering back to the women of the 20 or so Darién villages who have directly benefited from her gift. It is a tribute that will last for lifetimes and, perhaps, be the catalyst for a whole new generation of young women who dare to envision themselves having a financially stable future as artists—an alternative to a lifestyle where children are bearing children.

Since the early ’90s, Dalia and her small core of master-weaver teachers have worked tirelessly—navigating rainforest rivers that they shared with crocodiles, poling from village to village in a dugout canoe to reach Wounaan women who were eager to hone their technical and artistic skills. This empowering gift enabled weavers to transform a craft into a primary income source for many Wounaan families.

Basket money buys outboard motors for canoes, books and uniforms for their children, medical care beyond the reach of their curanderos, pots and pans, PVC pipes to bring water from the river into their huts, concrete blocks to build homes that afford greater protection in an increasingly more dangerous world.

Little did Dalia know that the weaving techniques she muddled through back in 1983 would transform the handiwork of her culture into a thriving tour de force among a world community of buyers and collectors.

As a couple committed to cultural and environmental preservation, and as two people steeped in photography and art, we are fortunate to frequently spend quality time in Wounaan and Emberá villages, documenting the lives of weavers and their families, getting to know them personally and bringing their best creations to the attention of those who love and appreciate the painstakingly patient work involved in coaxing a basket toward museum-quality completion.

To enable families to bridge the financial gap between the sale of one basket and the completion of the next, we not only place deposits with them, but also make regular installments. Sales of these exquisite baskets help to continue the circle of Wounaan economic development, as we return proceeds back into the hands of weavers, directly impacting the quality of their families’ lives. Further, the cycle of purchasing, marketing and again infusing the personal economies of families also serves as feedback to artists and translates into the creation of finer and finer work.

Were it not for Dalia and a handful of masters such as she, we would not have experienced the rare opportunity to pull together the largest and finest known collection of museum–quality hösig di baskets in the world.

Our love of this Latin American culture and its folk art has been the impetus for us to join forces with the Los Angeles Craft and Folk Art Museum to mount a major exhibition of these compelling pieces and tell the story of their historical perspective relative to their significant economic importance to the people of the Darién Rainforest.

As for Dalia, she is creating her own legacy. She tells us that she has passed her skill along to more than 110 “future teachers” in 20 Wounaan and Emberá villages throughout the Darién Rainforest . She says that if she “could have the opportunity, she would share her art with the world and be always a helper” to anyone who needs her guidance. But also, she says, she is “open and eager to learn new designs and shapes.”

Her dream? “To keep helping the weavers and giving workshops.” That will “be a good way to satisfy myself.”

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