This Is Magic. Step on In!

I spent six weeks in Oaxaca, walking through the artisanal markets with a very specific kind of attention. For the first four weeks, I only entered shops or spaces that pulled me in energetically. I was scanning. Reading the field. If a space had a clean signal, I stepped inside. If not, I kept walking. Toward the end of the trip, I allowed myself to enter more spaces that didn’t initially pull me. Some of them were beautiful—overflowing with color and craft—but the density and visual overwhelm made them hard to linger in for long.

One thing became very clear: the artisan clothing economy is saturated. The spaces are packed. And if the only people "allowed" to wear artisanal work are the artisans themselves, or tourists who manage to signal just the right amount of cultural awareness, how does the market survive? Paintings can be bought and hung. Jewelry can be collected. But clothing—because it comes from the South, because it’s made by hand, because it holds cultural codes—is burdened with guilt.

In my work in Panama, I collaborate with Guna artisans. I commission work, I purchase pre-existing pieces, and I pay fair rates. Then, I integrate those works into garments made by local seamstresses using traditional construction methods and materials. These are living traditions, not costume. This is employment, not exploitation. The work is circular. The artists thank us. They ask what they can make next. They’re proud.

What is missed in the appropriation argument is the direction of the relationship. This is not theft. This is response to invitation. Reciprocity. Field-based engagement. It's not taking. It's carrying.

So when someone—often a privileged North American—asks, “Isn’t that appropriation?” I hear fear disguised as ethics. I hear the discomfort of witnessing abundance in the South without knowing how to relate to it. And I hear confusion about where permission lives.

One woman recently told me she has a Guatemalan huipil but doesn’t wear it because she’s afraid of being called out. “I have it packed away” she said. And I thought—what a loss. Not just for her, but for the fabric, the lineage, the colors. These are not static artifacts. They’re living transmissions. They’re meant to move.

When I show my collection, I tell people to choose the piece that calls them. “These are magic,” I say. “They want to be seen.” I’ve imagined classrooms full of elders or children, just sitting with these pieces, letting the color do what it does. I don’t always want to sell them. Sometimes I want to share them. Sometimes I give them away. But always, I listen to the field.

The deeper truth is this: if the North wants to relate to the South, it must learn to receive. Not extract. Not appropriate. But also not avoid. This work is an offering. The artists are offering it. The land is offering it. What’s needed is a kind of permission that moves beyond guilt and into reverence.

Wear the work. Bless the work. Carry it with dignity. That’s the bridge.