Meet Marlies Gelens. An artist and industrial designer who in 1999 migrated from The Netherlands to San Agustinillo, a tiny settlement on the Pacific coast of Mexico. Marlies and her (then) Dutch partner began to sell their homemade European-style bread to neighbors, and eventually set up the beloved restaurant, Apa Pan. Marlies remodeled the existing structure, designed the furniture, and baked the delicious bread that brought lines of grateful customers for years to come.
In 2016 Marlies left the coast and moved to San Sebastian Rio Hondo, a remote village on the Mountains of Oaxaca, to begin her dream of working with textiles. She had been making pillows with ribbon, but now she wanted to use cotton and wool to make ceremonial garments and work with local women. When she shared her vision with me last year, it became clear that she was the perfect person to inherit my mom’s textile raw materials.
As many of you know, my mother was an incredible textile artist. She was a master knitter who dyed her own yarns and designed one a of a kind sweaters. For decades, she worked with dozens of women from the neighboring towns to make fabulous knits that she would export to the United States, and sell in her boutique in the Bazaar Sábado, in Mexico City.
A year ago, as my mother struggled with the later stages of Alzheimer’s, I explained to her that her fabric, yarn, dyes, and tools would soon come into the hands of many women whose lives would be enriched by her gift. She understood, and was so excited that for months she kept asking about the beautiful dream of the women and the textiles.
Since then, Marlies continues to develop the vision and moving parts of her project. Here she is in Durango buying her first batch of merino wool from a local farmer. She will soon wash it and turn it into felted pieces, spun yarn and exquisite fabric.
The Setting Sun Necklace will ground and inspire her as she creates ceremonial attire for life’s most transcendent moments.
This was my mom at work, and some of her finished pieces.
