Ixtle
An ongoing exploration of ixtle fiber for furniture and object uses. Lechugilla, part of the agave family, is used to produce alcoholic beverages and bread. Artisans craft ropes, shoes, brushes, and baskets from the fibers (ixtle). The fiber is sourced and processed from an ejido—farmer-owned land called Jalpa in Coahuila, Mexico. This project aims to preserve and document traditional techniques passed down through generations, challenging the monopolistic control of Tampico Fiber, which pays small producers minimal wages and profits by distributing and packaging the fiber elsewhere. The effort seeks to fairly compensate producers, prevent resource exploitation, and restore agency to landowners.
By learning the extraction and spinning techniques, I wanted to create my version of a silla de palo, a traditional Mexican chair made from pine square or round posts with a woven seat. The chair is crafted from turned aromatic cedar, and the ixtle seat was hand-spun and dyed with cochineal. To expand my exploration of Ixtle as a material, I created 3 categories of non-typological objects that accommodate the body for different functions:
separation of space, light, and rest. These objects can coexist in an environment without being too defined or strict in their use. The rejection of traditional typological attributes for objects rejects the idea of time and a visual timeline between ancient/modern and developed/underdeveloped. With the borrowing of language, from brushes and brooms for their “incorrect” use, the objects
will be both familiar and hard to place. I am accounting for the subtle cues in their affordances for interacting with the body.
As I started attaching and treating the raw ixtle as brush bristles, the methodology of using brushes and brooms as building blocks for furniture started. For the screen, designing a hybrid structure between a silla de palo and a long broom head, as a way to define space, made sense as many configurations accommodated the length of raw ixtle fibers that range between 8 and 14 inches.
The broom heads interlock with round posts alternating with the intersection in every other panel, allowing some light and visibility through the triple-paneled screen. The effect is one of overgrown bristles defining their own architecture; the screen is 6 feet tall and can relate to the body at different heights.
For the lights, I used the screen’s interlocking broomhead logic, with poles that determined the structures’ heights. The heights of both lights refer to a tabletop light and a floor light; the tabletop light is one tier higher than the floor light. The round, flat tops serve as auxiliary tables and can be used to place objects. I continue using Douglass fir for my structures as pillars
turned on a lathe intersect with CNC-cut round panels to create the brush heads that hold the ixtle bristles. For the floor light, I used the raw ixtle from Jalpa, which is longer and softer. I left it long so it brushed the floor. I also
introduced a third material and color. Outside of the pink pine and pale yellow ixtle, red cotton cord creates a turkey-wing motif, which is commonly used for fan fibers in brushes and brooms. Red is seen again in the cord and in the light switches. Red seemed like a natural choice for these elements. The color of blood. And the fruits and flowers that are yielded by desert plants after a heavy rainfall.
For the last piece, I wanted to consider simultaneous seating/resting for two people. Continuing the building language that I established with the previous pieces, the design landed as a hybrid of my screen and a silla de palo. The seat is long and rectangular with curved edges, suspended by 6 round legs, and bristles attached to it, creating a large brush head. The seat is divided in half by a wide broom head that serves as a back/armrest, allowing users to reconfigure their seating and mediate the space between them, sort of like a tête-à-tête interaction.
Redes
The "Redes" lighting series emerged from an exploration of how produce nets could be transformed. Molded colorful plastic creates intriguing shades for lighting. The bags were compressed, layered, molded, and sewn into forms inspired by bags full of fruit, ancient fertility figurines, and traditional Mexican woven plastic shopping bags. The vibrant colors of these bags comment on the waste generated by our artificial hyper-fertility and the unseasonal nature of our current food production systems.
This project also prompted me to research the origins of produce and who collects it. In the United States, prized items such as avocados, citrus, and root vegetables are often imported from Latin America and the Caribbean, including Mexico, Chile, Jamaica, and Nicaragua. The U.S. is very welcoming of this food, but not of the people who come from these countries, unless they are harvesting produce grown in American soil.
In collecting these nets, I have engaged with various participants within our food systems, including farmers, grocery store owners, restaurant operators, and individual consumers. By paying attention to this seemingly insignificant and disposable packaging and witnessing its transformation, I have created a meaningful impact on all parties involved.
This work aims to address the tension between natural and synthetic materials that is prominent in the visual culture of the industrialized Global South.
Rituales Para una Acequia is a speculative design piece that imagines a not-so-distant future where water is scarce, arguably the most sacred element for human life. Through diagrams using architectural drawing techniques, I thought about designing furniture for a home and community without traditional indoor plumbing. Residents would obtain water from underground aquifers utilizing a Qanat system. I find it fascinating how water can shape spaces and behaviors, as well as how certain places maintain autonomy over their resources in a world where many of us have to pay for access to water.
Furniture and tools were designed to encourage a mindful interaction with water, placing it at the heart of the home where people gather, much like a watering hole. One of the tools is a low table crafted from Douglas Fir, featuring an inset terracotta basin for handwashing and pouring, with a hole that allows unused water to return to the primary source.
On this table rests a candle/incense dish made from hammered copper, which reflects light and enhances the atmosphere while marking the duration of water usage. This dish also fits into the terracotta basin. Additionally, there is a second copper object resembling a chalice with a wavy spout that functions as a "slow sink." As water is poured into this copper chalice, it flows through the waves of the spout, landing in the terracotta basin for handwashing or pouring.
Lastly, the set is accompanied by two canvas cushions that invite people to gather around the table. All the objects are handmade and feature an organic design language inspired by river rocks and the shapes that water creates as it flows. The materials were selected for their natural origins, performance, and elemental metaphors, creating a harmonious palette of pink, beige, and orange hues.
Tamalli
Corn is ubiquitous in American culture, from the high fructose corn syrup that fills most sugary, sweet sodas to ethanol, which fuels a certain percentage of cars in the United States. But the ever-present, sweet, yellow grain is also symbolic of many of the issues perpetuated by the U.S.: mono-crop and industrial agriculture, for one, as the native varieties of the grain now only exist in Mexico, my home country. Corn represents the rift between my original and adopted home and the perspectives on land, indigenous knowledge, climate change, and consumerism.
Working with corn was an obvious choice. The influx of American industry into Mexico threatened local varieties of corn. Yet, it has become fashionable in the U.S. to eat blue corn chips and tortillas, despite the fact that U.S. land policy meant those varieties have long been wiped out in this country.
I thought of the Coca-Cola-branded monoblock chairs that seemed ubiquitous with street food in Mexico. I found myself in one of the most intense research processes that got me thinking about food politics in my home country. This research resulted in my experimenting with corn and meat production byproducts to make a stool that would replace the monoblock chairs and sponsor heirloom corn production.
Insulated chair
A lounge chair with experimental upholstery made from insulation materials and textile waste.
Bowed chair
Inspired by the tension that makes wooden bows work, the bowed chair was designed to optimize the materials used in bent plywood furniture. The gentle curve conforms to the body, creating a sense of lightness.