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.