The Color Red: The use and meaning in Contemporary Indigenous Textile Arts

Please join the Art History, English, Environmental Studies, and History departments for a lecture by Maestro Porfirio Gutierrez.

Porfirio Gutierrez is a California-based textile designer, artist, and natural dyer. He specializes in the weaving traditions of Teotitlán del Valle, Oaxaca, Mexico. He comes from a long line of traditional Zapotec weavers, and his art practice remains dedicated to the deep knowledge and spiritual dimensions of his ancestors. He grew up immersed in color, surrounded by the wildness of Oaxaca’s mountains, and with knowledge of plants as medicine. His work intersects with Indigenous knowledge and contemporary art practices, engaging a conversation around migration in a Native American context. 

His life’s work has been revitalizing and preserving traditional Zapotec natural dye techniques with a focus on reinterpreting traditional textiles and materials.