---

The Artisans of Tierra Amarilla
by Barbara Gerber
as first appeared in local flavor magazine, May 2002

A lamb is born, and a hand-woven tapestry is cut from a loom. What happens in between is the story of Tierra Wools. From the land, from the grass, from the unrelenting work of Antonio and Molly Manzanares and their children come the flocks of Churro sheep. Hundreds of these hardy sheep, the direct descendants of those brought to the New World by the Spanish 400 years ago, each year produce a small mountain of certified organic wool.

This wool--nourished by the land of the Chama Valley and surrounding highlands, heavy with lanolin and suffused with the earthy smell of sheep--arrives each spring at Tierra Wools, a handweaving shop in the tiny town of Los Ojos, just a few miles from Tierra Amarilla. It is washed and scoured by huge machines, air-dried and spun into yarn--sometimes by hand but most often by machine. It is hand-dyed into hundreds of shades, and then woven by people who are nourished by the same land on which the sheep were raised.

The shop, which has a commanding presence on Main Street, is stocked with a huge selection of weavings that nearly pulsate with color. Tapestries, pillows, jackets, ruanas, table runners and skeins of yarn fill the shop, which was once a general store. Wood floors, high ceilings, adobe walls and the aroma of wool make simply entering the shop a deeply pleasing experience.

"People come back again and again," Tierra Wools general manager Robin Collier said. "Every weaving is unique. People want to touch and experience them. They meet the weavers, the dyers--it becomes very personal."

This intimacy is the lifeblood of Tierra Wools. You don't click on one of these hand-wopven rugs and add them to your cyber-shopping cart. You don't paw through them as you would a huge stack of cheap blankets from Oaxaca. Rather, you meet these weavings the way you would a human being--in person, and with respect.

Even the colors are personal. With hand-dyed wools, Molly Manzanares explained, a weaver has a nearly unlimited palette. While most of the yarn at Tierra Wools is dyed with synthetics, about 10 percent is done with natural plant dyes. Native plants such as chamisa, cota and yerba de la negrita overflow from cardboard boxes, waiting their turn to be steeped in the steel tubs. A tub of indigo, hours into its mysterious bacterial processes, gives off the smell of ammonia.

"It's intoxicating," Collier said of the natural dyes. "It's seductive. When I'm out walking I don't see plants any more--I see dye colors.

That this shop and its worker-owned company, Los Ojos Handweavers, LLC, exist at all is because the people involved have decided to live their lives in a deeply personal way. About 20 years ago, a group of people determined to stay on their ancestral lands formed Ganados del Valle ("Livestock Growers of the Valley"), a non-profit agricultural and economic development corporation. Ganados' mission was to ensure the continuation of sheep herding as a way of life by making it economically viable; Tierra Wools was one of its first projects. The Manzanareses, who had a small flock of sheep at the time, were two of Ganados' earliest members. (They now own Shepherd's Lamb, which sells organic lamb throughout Northern New Mexico.)

Today Tierra Wools supports 17 worker-owners and 25 employees (most are part time). It also offers classes on weaving, spinning and dyeing through its School of Rio Grande Weaving Traditions.

But "support" is a relative term. On a recent March afternoon, Manzanares--who has held many positions at Tierra Wools over the years but currently serves as treasurer--and Collier discussed the hardships that must be endured to keep this venture alive.

"The worst thing is getting through the winter," said Collier, describing how the shop spends most winters robbing Peter to pay Paul.

"It really hasn't gotten any easier in all these years," Manzanares said. "It's tiring." She explained that in especially bad years employees are laid off and worker-owners don't get paid. And every year, no matter what, the cost of health insurance is crippling. "The health plan is killing us," she said.

Collier, who commutes 160 miles round trip each day from his home in Taos, said, "To keep agriculture going up here--it's really people like us struggling. It's hard to imagine that Antonio and Molly work as hard as they do."

"It's sort of in your blood," said Manzanares. "I wanted to rear our children on a ranch. It's a good life--the kids have responsibilities, we have to work together. Both of our families live here--the extended family. I think that's really important."

For Manzanares, as is true for many of the weavers at Los Ojos, that's what the struggle is all about--staying on the land and living near family. And it's what the art is all about, too.

"Once a piece is done there's a wonderful feeling," said Manzanares. "There were times when I had time to meditate on what I might do and that was pleasurable, but there were lots of times when it was just work. We were always making it to the next paycheck."

But what about artistic inspiration? What about the creative self?

"We were creative in that we made the thing happen," Manzanares said plainly. "It's a lot of hard work but it's very satisfying."

"We weave so we can raise sheep," Collier explained. "We weave so that the pasture lands, the acequias, the village, the church and the family endure--to nurture a way of life that is so important to all of us."

Visit Tierra Wools at 91 Main St., Los Ojos. Phone them at 888.709.0979, or visit their website at www.handweavers.com.