Workshop Series
Embroidery + Needle Work With Duende Textiles
Instructor: Richie Wilde Lopez
Dates: Sept 17th - Oct30th
This workshop series explores needlework/embroidery as a living cultural practice rooted in memory, migration, and creative resistance. Participants will learn foundational embroidery techniques while reflecting on the role of textile traditions in shaping diasporic identity and intergenerational knowledge. The series blends skill-building with storytelling, inviting participants to stitch their own connections between past and present, place and belonging.
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Embroidery is a widely practiced and deeply personal textile tradition with roots that stretch across Puerto Rico, Latin America, and beyond. Often dismissed as decorative or domestic, embroidery carries a rich history of cultural expression, political resistance, and intergenerational knowledge, especially within diasporic communities.
Unlike standardized techniques, embroidery traditions reflect the specific textures of place, memory, and migration. In Puerto Rican and Latinx contexts, embroidery has long served as a tactile language for storytelling, identity-making, and healing. From florals and figures to symbolic motifs, needlework connects makers to ancestral practices and to one another, stitch by stitch.
In this module, participants will be guided by artist and educator Richie Wilde Lopez of Duende Textiles, who brings together embroidery influences from across the Americas and the Puerto Rican diaspora. Drawing from diverse styles and cultural references, this workshop will explore embroidery not as a fixed tradition, but as a continuum of craft shaped by movement, memory, and creative autonomy.
Through hands-on instruction, participants will learn a range of embroidery techniques and experiment with building their own design language. The workshop will also include reflection on embroidery’s role in diasporic life, particularly in relation to gendered labor, resistance, and the legacy of economic shifts like Operation Bootstrap, which displaced many Puerto Rican women from home-based craft into garment factories.
Join us in Module Three as we explore embroidery as a diasporic language, honoring the legacy of traditional textile arts while embracing the evolving creative expressions of Puerto Rican and Latinx makers across generations.
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Module Three will be structured as TWO cohorts on either Wednesday Evenings or Thursday Afternoons.
Wednesday Evenings 5pm-8pm
September 24, 2025
October 1, 2025
October 8, 2025
October 15, 2025
October 22, 2025
October 29, 2025
Thursday Afternoons 1pm-4pm
September 25, 2025
October 2, 2025
October 9, 2025
October 16, 2025
October 23, 2025
October 30, 2025
Dates for the field trip and Artisano Salon will are TBD
Artisano Salón: Professional Development for Artists
All modules include the Artisano Salon, a two-day professional development workshop designed to support artists in advancing their careers. Participants will gain valuable insights into marketing, pricing, and sharing their work, as well as exploring opportunities for funding and professional growth. This salon provides a unique space for artists to develop the tools and networks needed to succeed in the art world.
This Module has passed.
Module 2 of Tramando: Mayan Backstrap Weaving with Trama Textiles of Guatemala
Instructors: Amparo de León de Rubio and Oralia Chopen of Trama Textiles Dates: Feb 5th 2025 - Early April (9 week session)
In Module 2 of Tramando, participants honored the ancient and sacred practice of Mayan back strap weaving, led by the artisans of Trama Textiles. This module offered a profound opportunity to learn and connect with a weaving tradition that has been passed down through generations, deeply rooted in the cultural heritage and worldview of the Mayan people.
Under the guidance of Trama Textiles, participants engaged with the meticulous process of backstrap weaving, a craft that reflects the intimate relationship between the weaver, the land, and the community. As students learned to create intricate patterns and designs, they gained insight into the deep cultural significance of this practice, which has sustained Indigenous communities in Guatemala for centuries.
This Module has passed.
Module 1: Natural Dyes & Fiber Spinning of Puerto Rico
Instructors: Leila Mattina and Beatriz Lizardi of Trama Antillana
In Module 1 of Tramando, participants immersed themselves in the art of natural dyeing and fiber spinning, learning essential skills from expert instructors. Over the course of the module, students explored the rich cultural traditions of textile art, experimenting with plant-based dyes and spinning fibers into threads. They gained hands-on experience with sustainable techniques that honor ancestral practices, while also learning how these crafts can be applied in contemporary contexts. Through shared learning and community-building, participants deepened their creative practices and connected with others who share a passion for preserving cultural art forms.
