Glass bead Pillows: The women that produce these glass bead pillow covers for us belong to the Quiché Maya linguistic group and live in the mountains high above Lake Atitlan. They are members of an artisan cooperative that also produces jewelry, pouches, and belts using Czech and Japanese glass beads. Typically, the women work at home in small family groups consisting of mothers, adult daughters, and their sisters-in-law. By pooling their labor they are able to jointly care for infants and perform their traditional tasks while earning up to three times the standard wage for women in rural Guatemala. While the use of beads to adorn textiles has a long history in Guatemala, beading accomplished on looms is a craft that was introduced to the country by an American artist in the 1960s. Communities all around Lake Atitlan rapidly became adept at producing flat weaves, and soon began to develop new freestyle needle techniques for producing more sculptural designs and multiple layer panels for use in jewelry. Today, beading has replaced weaving as the primary income source for young indigenous women in the lake basin, and earns them many times the income that subsistence farmers in their communities produce, meaning that their children are better nourished and better educated than previous generations
Glass bead pillow cover, 100% cotton upcycled fabric on reverse 16" x 16".
