Here is a preview of Mira Talbott-Pope wearables. She will have a booth at the Chico ART Festival, May 10 & 11, 2024. The festival is held at outdoors on the St John’s Episcopal Church grounds on Floral Avenue, in Chico. Hours are Friday from 4 pm to 8 pm and Saturday from 10 am to 4 pm.
“After 30 years of living and working in the Chico/ and Cohasset area, I moved to Guatemala in 2008 and have had my workshop there every since. What a pleasure to find myself able to weave my love of Guatemalan textiles and painting with the art and social ambience of Chico with coming to the Chico ART Festival.”
“For nearly 12 years I have been designing and making clothing that repurposes the art of the original Guatemalan handweavers and embroiderers with an ease-of-wear fitting to California culture. “
“The fabric is recycled, and fashioned by my crew of talented Guatemalan tailors into pieces that you’ll love to wear, that will lift your spirits!”
Nearly 10 years ago, Mira Talbott-Pope started Creando Mi Futuro, a program in San Pedro la Laguna, Guatemala to benefit “the poorest of the poor” – mostly single mothers and their children. Everyone speaks their mother language – Tz’utujil – and none of the mothers have graduated from high school; some have no schooling at all, tho they speak some Spanish.
The kids attend Saturday art classes in the program, and during the week the mothers participate in crafts groups, beading, crocheting, knitting and weaving. The kids receive public school supplies and tuition; the families receive a food basket each month.
In the classes they create beautiful beadwork – bracelets, earrings, hairclips – as well as some woven or crocheted items which Mira bring to California to sell to benefit each artist, personally, as well as a small percentage to the program to pay for supplies.
This allows them to work at home or in this lovely social group, with their children playing around their feet, to aid their family’s economy.
Some of the young men are learning to paint with oils, in the Tz’utujil tradition; their paintings will also be for sale.
For the sales of these items, 70% goes to the artist or maker of the item and 30% goes back into the program to help reach the program goals and continue to sustain the classes.
Beaded earrings by the girls and mothers of Creando Mi Futuro
It’s refreshing to know part of the proceeds Mira’s sales subsidize scholarship funds for Creando Mi Futuro, a project she created in Guatemala that makes it possible for children to finish high school.
