In addition to mother and son, Maura and Venancio are teacher and student and have a total complicity with wool. She is 92 years old and is the oldest artisan participating this year – she has also been in other editions – of the Pinolere Regional Craft Fair, which closes its doors today.
In addition, Maura Padrón Acosta is one of those ‘living treasures’, honored within the framework of the exhibition, an artisan weaver who, in addition to using her hands to manufacture, teaches the techniques learned and inherited from several generations so that they are not lost and shares his knowledge with the best student he could have had: his son Venancio.
Maura is the youngest of seven siblings, they all learned to weave but she was the only one who continued with the tradition. From an early age she went to the loom “and her mother fought her”, she says relaxed, enjoying every memory of her.
A native of the town of Isora, on the island of El Hierro, she comes from a family of weavers for many generations and has always fought so that the tradition is not lost.
That was what motivated his son Venancio Acosta Padrón to dare with the loom. When Maura stopped knitting as she used to because of age and because her knees began to hurt, she asked her sister if she wanted to continue because it is a family tradition that has been passed down through several generations but she was not very interested so he decided to continue it.
He did not hesitate, although it is a craft more linked to the feminine world, Venancio grew up watching his grandmother and mother weave. He knows the treatment of wool inside out.
Venancio is a writer, the author of several books about the island where he was born, he was a senator for the Independent Herreña Association (AHI) in two legislatures 1991-1995 and 2000-2004. He is currently retired so he has time to dedicate to the loom because, moreover, much is needed.
“You have to start when the sheep are sheared, wash the wool and a lot of processes until you get to the fabric,” he explains.
They try to use the natural colors of the animals, but they use cochineal for the red and the skin of the avocado for the brown and a grass that was used in the past in El Hiero for the blues.
Sashes, rags, bags, saddlebags, Maura dares with everything that can be woven on a loom, although she also does it by hand, “for less suffering” and proudly shows a blanket of many colors that she made “from time to time” and that’s why you can’t calculate how long it’s taken.
In her case, she considers herself privileged because she has always lived from crafts, but there were times when all fabrics were used for the home and as tools for agricultural work.
Currently, the profitability of crafts is low because it is a very laborious job that takes a long time. “You can’t live off this,” says Venancio.
He also wants to follow his mother’s tradition of sharing her wisdom and so he is willing to teach whoever wants to learn and also be a ‘living treasure’.
surprised
The Pinolere Fair has returned to what it was. The manager of the Pinolere Cultural Association, Jesús García, confessed to being surprised because the number of visitors has been reached compared to previous years. On Friday, the day of the inauguration, 4,000 people visited it, and yesterday, in the early afternoon, this figure had been exceeded, reaching almost 6,000 visitors. In addition, García added, the artisans have shown their satisfaction with the operation and because they have been able to sell their products and that is not trivial for a sector that has suffered the consequences of the pandemic by not allowing the organization of events in which they could participate and offer your wares.
“A gastronomy craftsman had to leave at noon because he no longer had any more merchandise and had to go replace material for today,” declared the manager.
The demand of users forces to put a bus of 55 places
The large number of people who have used public transport to get to the Regional Craft Fair, in the Pinolere Ethnographic Park, yesterday forced the organizers to hire, with prior authorization from the Local Police, a 55-seater bus that adds to the two microbuses that since yesterday leave frequently from Sor Soledad Cobián avenue, in the center of La Orotava and that are also free of charge. Service hours are from 10:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.
