A few years ago, the Jalisco town of Etzatlán, population 13,000, was mainly known as the gateway to the fabulous silver and gold mines of Amparo, which were once among the most prosperous in Mexico.
Today, search for Etzatlán on the internet and you will be dazzled by countless photos of colorful tapestries accompanied by accolades from all over the world. Yes, the name of Etzatlán is now known in swank Dubai, 14,000 kilometers away.
This change came about due to the vision and resolve of two women of Etzatlán: veterinarian Lorena Ron and her 90-year-old mother Paloma.
A vet by profession, Ron now dedicates all her time to a craftswomen’s workshop called Cielo Tejido (Woven Sky). Its story, Ron says, began in 2015 when “the ladies of Etzatlán” decided to do something special for the feast of the town’s patron saint, celebrated the last week of October.
“At first we experimented with decorating the trees in the center of town, but then we saw pictures of a street in Tlaquepaque where they had created a canopy of umbrellas suspended in the air,” says Ron. “This got us thinking. Because all of us had long ago been turned on to crocheting thanks to my mother, María Concepción, whom we all call Paloma, we decided to crochet a canopy of circles made out of raffia. Not the traditional kind of raffia, but synthetic raffia made from recycled plastic bottles, because we wanted it to hold up in the worst kind of weather.”
The first attempts failed, Ron says, because the canopy was sagging in places. “It wasn’t smooth and tight. Then one of my brothers said, ’Try using hexagons, which we did, and after that we got just the look we wanted.”
Once the mayor saw what they had in mind, he offered to give the ladies support, and the project was launched.
Soon, the number of women participating expanded to 200, while the size of the canopy grew bigger and bigger, until in 2019 it had grown to nearly 3,000 square meters.
At this point, it occurred to the townspeople that this might be some sort of a record for a pabellón, as they call this sort of festive street canopy. Researchers discovered a Guinness World Record category for crochet blankets but not for an overhead canopy covering city streets. Eventually, Guinness decided that such a category needed to be created, and it officially declared that the world’s largest crochet canopy, measuring 2,832.98 square meters “was achieved by Maria Concepcion Siordia Godinez (Mexico) in Municipio Etzatlan, Jalisco, Mexico, on October 4, 2019.”
It took the 200 crocheting women nearly 25,000 hours to turn 825 kilograms of raffia into more than 8,000 hexagons, easily beating the previous record of 1,000 square meters for a woven canopy.
Because of this recognition, says Ron, Mexican artist Betsabeé Romero thought of the artisans of Etzatlán when she was asked to decorate the Mexican Pavilion for Expo 2020 Dubai (postponed due to Covid and currently running until the end of March 2022).
Ron was taken by surprise when Betsabeé called her. “I thought it was a joke. But when I hung up, I told my children; ‘Quick, go check the internet to see if she actually exists,’ ‘Yes, Betsabeé Romero is real, she’s a visual artist and a sculptor,’ they said.’”
Romero and Ron worked out a plan for the entire Mexican Pavilion building in Dubai to be wrapped in a crochet canopy from Etzatlán, representing “Mexican mothers hugging their country.”
After successfully completing their project in the United Arab Emirates, the ladies of Etzatlán gave themselves a new challenge.
“This year, we’ve made a pabellón three times larger than the last one,” says Ron. “All told, we’ve crocheted 24,000 hexagons!”
The new canopy had been scheduled for last October but the project was postponed due to Covid, until carnival time, beginning February 25.
Ron gives credit to her mother, Paloma, as the inspiration behind the project. “She has a kind of magnetism that brings people together. She loves to crochet, but after a while we told her, ‘Mamá, thank you for all these scarves you’ve been knitting for us, but we have plenty of them and we think you should try something else.’
“She had lost her husband and I had lost mine, so we decided to put our energy into the new project as a way of relieving stress, of turning her sadness into something beautiful.”
Appearing in the Guinness Book of Records has also opened new doors for the Etzatlán craftswomen. “Suddenly we are getting new work, and are even giving workshops on how to make dolls,” says Ron. “And we have our own Facebook and Instagram pages called Cielo Tejido AC.”
The new canopy will stay up until the end of March. If you go to Etzatlán, you may also want to visit the town’s excellent museum, located in the Casa de Cultura.
Etzatlán is a one-hour drive from Guadalajara and two hours from Lake Chapala. It is also only half an hour beyond Teuchitlán, home of the Guachimontones circular pyramids.