Mexchic tienda in Oaxaca is reopening next week!

I am finallyyyyy reopening the Mexchic shop in Oaxaca next week!!! It’s been closed since May for a light renovation but also I thought why not also close for a few months and take a mental and creative reset. Oaxaca is a seasonal touristic town and tends to be very, very (very!) slow from May until August, so a creative reset was had and a tienda re-do was done! I spent a few months feeling out what I wanted to do with the space, it’s been open now for three incredible years but the ancient adobe walls holding up the high arched roof contain much humidity leaving the white paint peeling and messy, my delicate handmade papier mâché clothing racks and hangers (made by a local piñata maker) were also looking ragged from so much use and I was really just ready for a drastic change. BTW I am that person who rearranges the furniture in my house every year for a new POV and energy… Aquarius vibes ;) It felt good to push my own boundaries of taste and color uncomfortably far ultimately setting in motion a new energy for myself and the shop, … and basically as you will see in the image below, I went to the dark side, unleashing my inner goth.  Bahhhh hahaha!

I began thinking about a wall I fell in love with inside Texere’s textile shop around the corner from my studio. It’s a lovely turquoise color, Caitlin one of the partners of Texere, has innately exquisite taste, if she ever started up another project it should be Interior design. Anyways THAT wall got me thinking of color. If you’ve visited the Mexchic shop before, you’ll know it’s a teeny store and the exquisite clover leaf designed, sage and white antique handmade paste floors are the main event and why I rented the space initially. But the search for matching my desire for a dark impactful wall color while preserving and complementing the floors was something of an Odyssey. I began looking into natural wall paint made from earth, mud pigments… ground rocks and minerals, lime wash! Caitlin generously shared the contact of Maria from Tierra Origen an architect who runs her own earth pigment making studio and met up with me to show me some samples. They were lovely but were more textured and rustic than I was envisioning for the space, I was looking for a deeper richness of color something a little more sleek. So I met with two other local business who also making earth pigments and lime wash but still not the right colors so in the end I found myself desperate and at Home Depot. I wanted to see if they could help me get a color matched from a deep plum hued dried orchid flower I had saved (I hoard beautiful objects) and literally within 20 min voila! The color I had envisioned brought into reality. The paint expert who helped me was so wonderful and patient, I truly love giant crafty stores like Home Depot, which allows you to dream big about making literally anything, I find myself there often and not just because there are lots of cute helpful men walking around :) As a rule I always prefer to support local and smaller businesses but sometimes the bigger store has what you need.

My goal with the dark walls is to have the space feel more intimate, less like a store and more like a sanctuary or a womb, thinking much about the work of Mexican Architect Luis Barragán and how he plays with color, light and reverence. The last few months were also spent planning and working on a new collection of textile works and one of a kind clothing pieces, I will be adding them into the IRL tienda in Oaxaca and also the tienda online. The process to make the clothing pieces was extremely complicated but soooo enjoyable, working with silk and natural dyes to create a unique vibrant color palette along with some gorgeous new shapes. I’ll be sharing more about this process here in The Library once I get the shop open next week! The hours in August will be Thursday, Friday and Saturday 10am - 6 pm (close from 1:30-2 for lunch) and Sept we will be open in 4 days x week… days are still TBD. Come for a visit!!

I have created a new incredible new Spotify playlist for the tienda, a mix of work I LOVE - old and new … moody femme is the vibe, give it a listen and a follow! Speaking of moody femme, you MUST watch The Decameron on Netflix, ufff! It also made me desperately want to go to a renaissance fair ... which reminds me that I need to watch that weirdo renaissance fair doc too!