Down a dusty road in Teotitlán de Valle, a small town outside Oaxaca de Juárez, the López family carries on the centuries-old tradition of Aztec weaving. The family lives and works in a collection of unassuming buildings centered around a shady courtyard. The courtyard is home to weaving looms, a natural dye workshop, animal stalls, a candle making station and a parking garage. Mr. and Mrs. López, along with their four daughters, their grandson and Mr. Lopez’s mother live and work in the family’s comfortable compound.

Mr. López offers visitors an explanation and demonstration of the weaving process regardless of whether they ultimately purchase from the family showroom. Long hanks of yarn in every imaginable shade and hue hang on the walls of the simple shed. A large basket wicker basket brims with wool, which the family purchases in its natural state from sheep herders living in the more remote, mountainous regions of Oaxaca.

The first step is to wash the wool, using a natural, pre-Hispanic soap. As Mr. López explains, his mother begins to demonstrate the next step, carding. She places a handful of the raw clean wool between two flat brushes with metal bristles and scrapes the brushes back and forth across the wool. With each pass the wool grows softer and more pliable. Mr. López offers a comparison between the raw and carded wool, showcasing the textural difference before adding the soft, carded wool to a pile ready for spinning.

With skillful precision, Mrs. López begins the next step, spinning the wool.  The spinning wheel  on the spinning wheel, her fingers expertly allow the cloud like wool to wrap around the pointed spindle.  To achieve the desired uniformity, strength, and softness, the López family repeats the spinning process at least twice.

The next step is using the natural dye process to achieve the full range of colors and hues of the hanks hanging all around. Off-whites, soft coffees and a range of chocolate browns are from the sheep’s original colors. The rest of the colors are made from a mix of plants, fruits and insects. While Mr. López lifts the baskets to show us the marigold used for yellow and nettles used for greens, Daniella, at 24 the eldest of the four daughters, comes to sit beside her father, pouring a small pile of dry gray balls onto a stone mortar.

The balls are the dried bodies of deceased cochineal, an insect that lives on the broad flat leaves of the prickly pear cactus, which Daniella grinds the a fine powder. Mr. López places a pinch of the powder on his palm and squeezes a drop of lime juice, making a bright red.  To one side of his palm, he adds a neutral baking soda, swirling it into the red and, like a magician, revealing a deep purple. 

Nayeli, the López’s third daughter, 19 years-old, steps to the foot loom, her preferred part of the process, to demonstrate the weaving process. Watching her work, it seems impossible that anyone could keep sufficient track of the number and color of the threads to make even the simplest pattern, let alone the intricate geometric designs found on the López artwork. The patterns the family uses have been passed down from their pre-Hispanic ancestors. Mr. López hand copied pages of patterns from his parents notebooks, which were hand copied from their parents hand copied pages. In this way, the family has passed down their weaving patterns for centuries.

Stepping into the showroom full of the square, rectangular and round rugs, wall hangings, and every imaginable size of bag and handbag it is hard to take it all in, especially knowing the extent of the knowledge, skill and effort that has gone into making each piece.  Quite simple, it is breathtaking. The deepest impression, however, is left by the unspoken rhythm of the López family. They work together in an ancient quiet. This is not to suggest that the López family is stuck in the past, Nayeli’s LA Dodgers jersey the most immediate evidence to the contrary. The López family is instead, as their business name suggests, perfectly Woven In Time.