Tlaxcala, Mexico
Pedal Loom Textiles & Saltillo Serapes
Ignacio Netzahualcoyotl is a Tlaxcalan weaver from Contla de Juan Cuamatzi in the state of Tlaxcala, Mexico. He works out of the Taller Netzahualcoyotl, which his grandfather established a century ago, weaving on hundred-year-old looms using processes that date to the 17th and 18th centuries. While his most important focus is to continue creating traditional Saltillo designs and serapes, much of Ignacio’s work has stretched the boundaries of traditional Tlaxcalan textiles — earning him the title of Living Legend by the Grand National Prize for Popular Art in 2013, and the Grand Masters Award of the Craft Heritage of Mexico in 2021. He has also been recognized by Revista Quién as one of the 50 Cultural Motors of Mexico.
Ignacio has exhibited internationally and been recognized as one of the world’s top 50 textile artists at the VIII Biennial of Contemporary Textile Art WTA in Spain.
His work and cultural projects capture a reflective message in the interaction of history, culture, identity, and environment. His artistic-artisanal processes are represented in regional iconography and pre-Hispanic symbolism typical of the Nahua indigenous community of Contla de Juan Cuamatzi. Ignacio’s practice reinforces traditional techniques through a respectful use of natural resources — including the recovery of color extraction processes dating to pre-Hispanic times, the revival of pedal loom weaving, and a fresh interpretation of ancient sarape designs.
iXHUA
“So many days of disasters, of droughts inside me, left my rivers dry and me without a desire to breathe, but I am of strong roots that cling rather than perish, of traditions in a constant struggle”
iXHUA comes from the Nahuatl language. It means to sprout. Written by Ignacio himself, this statement is a rumination on the most recent stages of his life — the essence of roots and traditions in classical sarapes that have been part of his family and people for generations, intertwining past and present with subtle touches of creativity.
“In this stage of my life, I have been a seed that lived and reached its various stages of growth, ending a cycle and allowing itself to seek to sprout in new lands, to adapt, to yearn again to be part of nature, the environment, to walk in search of a new way of being, which, in its previous stages, left everything for the common good. I want to sprout, not to forget all the good, to take it up again to build toward a new stage, accompanied by the most important people in life, my family.”
— Ignacio Netzahualcoyotl
