(gentle piano music)
- When you connect your mind with your heart
and with your hands,
that's how you express yourself in your weaving.
You are giving yourself,
giving part of your soul, part of your heart
in your weaving.
(gentle piano music)
I call it dancing on the loom.
(gentle piano music)
Because you're moving your whole body
and the loom is your partner.
(speaking in a foreign language)
(gentle piano music)
(speaking in a foreign language)
(gentle piano music)
(speaking in a foreign language)
- [Narrator] Francisco and Laura Bautista
live in Sandy, Oregon,
where they create meticulous hand woven tapestries and rugs.
- These designs they've been in my culture for centuries.
We weave them 'cause they represents my ancestors.
We sign our pieces with four dots,
represents the four generations in the family
that also represents my family here in Oregon.
My wife, my daughter, and my son.
- [Narrator] The Bautistas hand-dye most of their wool
using materials like English Walnut,
Marigold, and Tansy wheat.
But the dye that creates the most brilliant color
comes from the cochineal bug.
- It's an insect who lives on a cactus and they collect them
and let them dry and we grind them.
We use this powder to make reds.
It's a magic when you're working with cochineal.
I really enjoy it when we put the yarn into the dye pot
and we can start seeing how the yarn is changing the colors.
Every time that we are hand dying,
you will get a unique color.
And that's very important to me to create all the time.
My wife and I, we were born in Oaxaca, Mexico,
a small town called Teotitlan del Valle.
90% of the people in my community know how to weave.
You will see a loom on each home.
And when you walk on the streets,
you can hear the looms working.
It's a beautiful sound.
I learned when I was seven, eight years old,
my dad introduced me to this beautiful world of weaving.
- I started weaving when I was like 16.
When I finished my middle school.
I was excited
because I always watch my dad and my older sisters.
- My wife and I, we moved to Oregon in 2003.
We have family here.
I have two uncles that they've been here in Oregon
for 40 something years.
And the people of Oregon's very welcoming.
They really appreciate my weaving.
We sell our weaving mainly in art shows.
We do shows here in Oregon and Washington.
I love to take my loom.
(people chatting)
Thank you so much.
Because that's the best way to share this weaving tradition.
They're very welcome to feel it,
to weave a little bit on that if they want.
And now weave it.
See?
This is how we create this kind of-
- That's a lot.
- This loom that you see here,
on this loom, my dad taught me how to weave my first piece
and when we immigrate from my hometown to Oregon,
I brought it with me and I named El Aventurero
because every time when we attend our show,
I always take it with me.
So now I'm teaching my daughter how to weave
on this loom too.
(playful music)
- It's a tradition on both sides of my family.
So some families might teach it one way.
Other families might teach a certain design and other way.
So having two parents that know how to weave,
I get like from both worlds.
When I do become more advanced,
I do want to start incorporating more things into it.
I really love to paint people.
So what I would love to do
is start putting some of my paintings
and recreating them as weavings.
And that's obviously going to be a lot more complicated.
- I first started to weave
when I was about seven or six years old.
And my dad first taught me for the very first time.
And I was very excited to finally learn how to do it
because I was very inspired about my dad.
It was kind of complicated at first
because I didn't really understand it.
But I wanted to keep on working harder
so I could master it and do harder designs.
When I finish the design, I feel proud of it.
Very proud.
And I think, wow,
this is a design that I made
that I wove.
I have a show in Hood River,
out of 30 small pieces into one big rug.
My very first gallery show.
- I think I'll keep weaving until I can't do it anymore.
I feel like it's an art form that shouldn't be lost.
I really want to be able
to keep it going through generations.
(speaking in a foreign language)
- Watching my two kids now weaving,
I have no words to describe how,
how happy I am,
how I feel.
My language, my culture, our traditions in Mexico,
I'm teaching them everything that my grandpa taught me,
I want to pass it to the next generation,
the fifth generation in the family.
(speaking in a foreign language)