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Taxco de Alarcón, Gro. CP 40200 México |
(USA FAX number - |
| Artesanas Campesinas (ARTCAMP) is a rural womens' artisans cooperative founded in 1991 - 1992 in the wake of the collapse of the local handcraft jewelry industry occasioned by broad changes in fashion in the United States and by the inexorable price pressures forced upon the humble handcraft producers of Mexico by the crushing market "globalization"of the 1990's. In the nineteen-seventies and eighties there was more of an appreciation of "handcraft" in the U.S. and Canadian markets. Then, the village artisans labored to ingeniously carve the shell mosaics on the edge of carborundum wheel. Cottage industry jewelry production was thriving in the Municipality of Taxco. When the wheel of fortune turned by angry wrenches, and when the fierce competition from the East Indians and the Chinese, the Thais, and the Javanese came into the traditional markets of the Mexican artisans, in the 1990's, the local handcraft jewelry producer community was devastated. The villagers of Tecalpulco, of Taxco El Viejo, of Dolores, and Paintla, of Santiago Temixto, Tlamacazapa, Cerro Gordo, Itzala, Mezcaltepec and the others were stranded on the desert of post-industrialism; the value of handcraft simply plummeted in the new globalized market. The countryside of Mexico has undergone a profound economic recession during all of the 1990's The country people of Mexico have been grievously affected. Today, the largest employer in the villages is the United States. According to the comisario of Tecalpulco about a third of the adults are in the USA. The second largest employer are the silver mines. Most all the young and active men of the villages have left long ago for "El Norte" - across the Rio Bravo. It is THE one way for the strong and industrious to get ahead. The migrants travel to the Sonora border by bus and cross at a place they call Piedra Negra near Sonorita Sonora and Douglas Arizona The coyotes charge $700 to $1500 usdollars to deliver you inside the Immigration Checkpoint Wetbacks live twelve or fifteen to a two bedroom apartment. Laying low for the most part when not working. Their paychecks are garnished for U.S. Income Tax and Social Security salary deductions they never receive the benefit of. Illegal aliens are usually paid under the table in cash. The wetbacks have no rights, supposedly, under the US Constitution. And when they transfer their hard earned money down South to the family, Western Union and Electra Take 20% of it as financial service fee! Tecalpulcans and Taxco El Viejans are all over the USA In Arizona and North Carolina; in Chicago, in Oklahoma living in a stateless limbo ' riding out the crisis at home. The women in the villages and the children are the victims of the NorthAmerican labor migrations of the nineteen-nineties. The boys and girls of Tecalpulco are often married in their teens and young children are at home when the men leave. When the men are gone a long time and since it is not very easy for them to go back and forth, they have frequently established liaisons with women encountered at their U.S. work and living places. In northern Guerrero, single women supporting the family is extraordinarily common. In response to the desperate dislocated economics that mark these our times for the Mexican campesino, women from Tecalpulco joined together to form Artesanas campesinas in a bid to re-create a renaissance in the local handcraft industry. The women have developed: original model making capability, Centrifugal Rubber Mold Casting technology mastered color matching and crystal resin making; tasked their daughters to learn HTML programming, Manage Excel spreadsheets and Quiken; Nurturing and educating her children, Participating in civic and familial obligations in village life, in processions, and working at handcraft jewelry production when work is available. Eating corn, and beans, and chile. See her in the dry season; carrying laundry on her head, tots in tow, kilometers down to a dusty water hole beating the clothing articles clean on the rocks carry them home clean, with the children. It is rough now in Guerrero, really hard. Modern country people have cash expenses: Food, clothing, school, transportation, electricity, gas, medicine.... Girls from Tecalpulco work in the silver shops in Taxco polishing silver Six days, ten hours a day * Weekly pay : 30 usdollars! Malnutrition is common across modern rural Mexico that explains why people will work for so little money A few years ago, colera and dengue fever were unknown Now there are frequent hepatitis and typhoid fever cases Campesino Mexicans have walked the plank for the ends of "globalization" and it is in a virtual life and death resistance to the "Africanization" of rural Mexico that the abandoned women of Tecalpulco joined together in a faithful expression of agapic native life energy, conditioned by the transcendental motives of traditional religion, and the strong physical and psychological quality of their indigenous blood. They have survived and have established themselves as a unique design-development original-modelmaking resource And they are managers of village cottage industry production for the fashion markets of the Twenty-first Century! Design Original line art customer approval version Original line art final version Scanning and Digital Camera Adobe Photoshop and MS Powerpoint HP855C Color Printing Original Model constructed cut-out patterns with jewelers ' saw. Wirework Soldered overlays Waxcarving for .925 Silver lost-wax method. Casting Room Temperature Vulcanize Silicon Moldmaking EpoxiClay sculpture for RTV Silicon or Black Rubber Molding Reproduction Original Model Cast Original Production Models Clean up Original Production Models with Files and Dremel Tool etc. Production Mold Vulcanize Cut Channels, Gates, and Vents Test Cast Centrifugal Rubber Mold Casting in Production Electric Melting Pot Rhode Island CRMC Technology Color-Making Understanding of the Color Wheel Manage Pigments Disbursed in Crystal Resin Match to Pantone Number Cottage Industry Management Organization of the labor-intensive production in the village home workshops Break-up big orders into parts Distribute the castings to the artisans for inlay, sand-down, polish, and buff. Receive finished pieces from village production Match it all up to the customer's original order. Establish artisan per-piece rate of pay. Make Quality Control determination of standard or original. Close review of all finished merchandise Ongoing technical training of the artisans Production Documentation series of Excel spreadsheets marks the flow of production generation of reports & reveal patterns of production activity Accounting legal and fiscal requirements Cost-based pricing tables Export requirements; NAFTA and GAAT documentation DHL and UPS International shipping. US Bank account to facilitate payments |
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