Today was a cool(er) and breezy day in Merida, Yucatan, Mexico. Our group, led by our fearless leader Senior Fogt, ventured over to the independent, local handmade paper company of Huun. Huun owner Mark Callaghan gave us the 411 behind the small company by showing us into his home, where he operates and produces his handmade paper products. From his business card: “Huun is the Maya word that means handmade paper. We use regional renewable resources of select plants like sanseviera and typhus latifolia. Our paper combines the oriental and the ancient Maya techniques.” Mark, an artist himself, began the paper company in the early 80s. He has been in Mexico for almost 30 years working as an artist and helping with local art institutes and students from all over the world. He uses a lot of local plants in his paper and in turn uses dyes and other produce to create textures for many of the products he sells, which includes paper (duh), notebooks and sketchbooks, wedding invitations, transparent light sheets for lamps, and dividers which contain hand drawn water stains. He is an expert on his corner of the art world and even showed us some ancient pounding stones recovered from the ruins of the Mayan civilization. These stones, which are carved by hand, contain a series of lines that run at shallow depths to give the paper certain texture by using line. All of his products follow the same philosophy of zero waste and are very labor intensive. Mark uses the sun for drying, and even old pulp is blended and reused for new paper batches. Mark proceeded to show us his studio and afterwards kindly escorted us home, an easy 15 minute ride in a VW bus older than all of us combined.
After our morning visit, we ate lunch and headed to the shelly sands of Progreso where we relaxed and soaked in some rays (and some cold beverages). Before relaxing, Brent rounded us up and we created a video in which we interrupted the normal walking paths on the beach near the surf by changing the line of debris washed up on shore from the tides. The video aimed at the reactions and interferences of certain pathways we all take for granted. A heavily crowded beach with a lot of walkers was the perfect spot to experiment and construct our ideas. Clay shot the footage and with a few gracious volunteers from the other class we created some human roadblocks in an attempt to deter foot traffic. After our video, we were set free and ended up staying close till sunset and the headed home, grabbed some pizza and ventured off to enjoy a pleasant Saturday night in Merida, Yucatan Mexico.
-Murphey
1 comment:
Hi-This is Senor Brent's sister writing from chilly 60 degree Chicago. The beach video made me want to hop on a plane and explore Mexico with you.
Of course I am biased, but you are in good hands with Brent-a well-travelled man who knows were to find a good cup of coffee, awesome art, and cheap eats. I am curious-wouldn't the cheap food of choice in Merida be...tacos and not pizza? Have fun and the Derks family (with 3 young kids) will enjoy charting your expedition in Chicago. Laura
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