The Arizona State Museum has reopened to the general public with a new exhibit, “Wrapped in Color: Legacies of the Mexican Sarape.”
For thousands of years, Indigenous people of the Americas have woven textiles on backstrap looms using local materials, including cotton, other plant fibers, and animal hair, a news release said. The sarape is particularly associated with the town of Saltillo (the largest and capital city of the Mexican state of Coahuila) where they were popular trade items from the 1600s to the 1800s.
The exhibit tells the story of the iconic textile through historic and contemporary Indigenous, Mexican, and New Mexican examples, including six woven by Porfirio Gutiérrez, a renowned Zapotec textile artist and the show’s guest curator.
Gutiérrez is based in California, born and raised in the historic Zapotec textile community of Teotitlán del Valle in Oaxaca, Mexico.
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Visitors will also learn about the cultivation of wild plants and insects for producing dyes and how the Porfirio Gutiérrez Studio is helping a new generation of weavers deepen their connection to Zapotec culture and embrace a path toward sustaining their identity for the future, a news release said.
Other related objects, photographs, illustrations and videos will also be on display.
The Arizona State Museum’s exhibit galleries are open Tuesday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. It is located at 1013 E. University Blvd.
For more information, visit statemuseum.arizona.edu.
