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Published: June 26th 2008
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Today Lisa and Maia facilitated a workshop at Café Igaraí. I wrote about it last time, but Café Igaraí is a group of women artisans in the town of Igaraí, a few miles from the Fazenda Ambiental Fortaleza, about 1000 people. Some of the women who work and live on the farm also take part in the group: Rita, Rosangela, Roberta, and others who I don’t necessarily remember. Claudia, who used to manage the farm, co-founded the group with Silvia, a friend Tomás and the designer Renato Embroísi. Here is the story as Silvia told it to me.
Embroidery, crochet, and other artisanal crafts are very traditional in this area of Brasil (and many others). In 2006, Tomás connected the designer Renato Embroísi with Silvia and Claudia. Renato is more of a community organizer than pure designer; he is skilled in motivating, fostering and encouraging community groups to develop their own projects in a very holistic manner. He works on more than 52 projects all over Brasil, from the very south to the Amazon, from the desert to the coast, and even internationally in Mozambique. He also brings a whole team along, including a photographer (with a view
toward documentation and display of the products) and a historian (who researches the areas beforehand, teaches the community, and helps to document oral history and folklore). Renato is a spark, a catalyst, igniting an energy that already exists in a place; it is the responsibility of the group to keep the oxygen flowing.
Renato came to FAF for one day in April 2006 and along with Silvia, Tomás and Claudia discussed the possibility of a cooperative in Igaraí. Rosangela, who became one of the group’s leaders and most vocal advocates, rounded up more than 20 women by the end of the day. Renato gave them a challenge: to create something, anything, to communicate their identity as a community to him. The product had to arrive at his home by mail by a certain day, a month or two later. The group decided to create a book - which I saw today - that is fully embroidered, embellished, crocheted, etc. that tells the story of coffee in the region. (they chose coffee to be a common identifying theme in their work). The book was the “end” to a long process / “means” of developing a democratic, cohesive community: learning
to meet regularly and keep commitments, vote on ideas, be vocal about thoughts and opinions, elect group officers, experience defections and loyalty battles, and work together to define a common identity and represent it creatively - all within a deadline. Which they met!
With Silvia’s help, SEBRAE - Serviço de Apoio às Micro e Pequenas Empresas (Micro and Small Enterprise Support Service) - agreed to support Café Igaraí with a grant and training. I am not fully familiar with the work of SEBRAE but Silvia explained a lot. SEBRAE is a government agency that promotes development, giving courses for what we would call “professional development” and range from culinary to organic agriculture to medicine to technology. They also create supportive educational groups for rural communities. Recently SEBRAE has ventured into helping larger organizations, such as Silvia’s fazenda, as a way to promote the popularity and financial solvency of organic agriculture. FAF, for instance, is expanding its cultivation of organic bananas and will soon be planting organic sugar cane to be refined into sugar and cane syrup.
Back to Café Igaraí: Today, Claudia is the coordinator of the group and Lisa and Maia are working closely with
her to develop new products, reorganize and beautify the workspace and teach artistic workshops. Today was the second meeting between Lisa/Maia/Clauia/CI and my first. The meetings take place inside the Senior Citizen Community Center. When we arrived Brazilian country-style music was playing and a bunch of women were working on their embroidery, waiting for us. The workroom is set off the main room. Painted in a faded cream-yellow with high ceilings, nearly floor to ceiling metal windows and a variety of furniture arranged around the walls, the space is full of natural light but seems to lack the warmth and identity desired in a community gathering place. One of the projects the women requested is to beautify the space; Maia and Lisa will be presenting a proposal for that on Thursday.
About 10 women showed up to the meeting, not including us girls and Claudia. After going around with names and announcements, we started a drawing workshop. Each of us paired up with a partner and was given a sheet of paper, a pencil, and a piece of fabric. We covered our drawing hand with the fabric and were told to look our partner in the eye, drawing
only what we saw. The technique is called blind contour and is intended to help the artist translate only what the eye sees, not what the mind imagines. The drawings were crazy weird, Picasso-like, but the shared ridiculousness of the art seemed to break the ice.
We did a few blind contour drawings and moved on to sketching live models. Lisa and Maia took turns posing and we each had to sketch, again, only what we saw, not imagined. They taught us techniques like measuring their bodies by holding up a pencil and translating that measurement onto paper. After doing three or four exercises the women’s drawing improved considerably (mine still sucked!) and they started taking things more seriously. Maia and Lisa were really good at pointing out concrete improvements, providing suggestions and encouraging creativity and relaxation. After that we went outside, did some sketching until the rain started, and then ate yummy chocolate cake to celebrate the birthdays for the month of June.
So, perceptions: My first reaction was that Claudia was doing a lot of talking and the women did a lot of listening. So I asked Silvia about the group dynamic later and
she reassured me that Claudia really does do a great job of connecting and communicating with the women. Part of why she was doing most of the talking is that she was translating for Lisa and Maia. She was also skilled at encouraging the women to participate in the workshop and not get frustrated. I found myself wondering if the women were really into what we were doing, if they felt the workshops were valuable or if they were kind of going about it because they had to or felt they should. By the end it was clear that they enjoyed it, and they came up and thanked Lisa and Maia, and most were really proud of what they had drawn and were sharing with each other. Also, Lisa and Maia asked to keep the drawings if the women didn’t want them. One younger girl asked why, and they said that they didn’t want to throw away pieces of art. I think that Lisa and Maia’s affirmation of the women’s efforts was really important because no matter how much we try to put ourselves on an equal footing, the women are going to view us as outsiders and place some sort of value on that (what value, however, I wouldn’t begin to assume).
What really excites me about this whole effort is that Lisa and Maia are so completely genuine, aware and honest about their participation and what they hope to accomplish. They understand that they are only here at the bequest and invitation of Café Igaraí; they are definitely not coming in as experts (as I mentioned last time) to impose ideas or skills. They are drawing out (no pun intended) the natural capabilities of the women and celebrating their artistic capacity. In terms of decorating the space, they want to show the women a cool technique of stenciling that they saw at another project, and the women really want to make the space prettier and more inviting. I would liken it to Room to Read’s emphasis on making the children’s libraries suitable for children. The design and layout of the libraries is just as important as the availability of books in encouraging the children to read and enjoy learning. Similarly, the work area should reflect the identity of Café Igaraí, inspire the women’s creativity and foster their desire for both work and conviviality.
These reflections are getting a bit long…and we will be meeting with the women again on Thursday, so that will bring another 3 or 4 pages of writing. Please leave me comments and I will try to respond either via email or in another post. Lots of love!
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