News — baskets

QUESTION: What do you give the person who has everything?

ANSWER: Something beautiful made by some who has next to nothing.

When that gift you purchase helps to sustain a family, a culture, and the Earth, then we can all smile. I'm talking about sustainable crafts made by indigenous Mexican artisans.

No hay mal que por bien no venga."There's nothing bad through which good doesn't come". My original story about our pine needle baskets was written in March of 2019. This post includes some of that story-- plus an update. In the past 17 years I have bought and sold thousands of pieces of handmade artesania (crafts) from Mexico, including dozens of pine needle baskets. I’ve acquired the baskets various ways-- sometimes from the artisans themselves while I’m in Mexico and they happen to be selling in Morelia or Uruapan, and other times through my assistant who arranges a purchase for me...

I recently made another visit to a Monarch Butterfly Sanctuary in Michoacán, Mexico. The good news is that the numbers of butterflies in Mexico increased in 2018 and the efforts of conservation appear to be working. But there is another story that the millions of tourists who visit the area each year don't see. Because of the prohibition on logging in the forests to protect the endangered butterflies, many of the indigenous people who live there have lost their livelihoods, and they are barely surviving. I spent several hours with a few artisans who weave beautiful pine needle baskets, not far from the butterfly sanctuaries.The sale of the baskets provides much needed income for families, and helps protect the butterflies.