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Marta Turok Most of what you will read here about the amazing woman, Marta Turok, comes from an article Marta's Mission, by Susan Masuoka, Director of Tufts University Gallery. We thank her for allowing us to use this material. Although Marta Turok is widely known and has written extensively, there is little in print about the woman herself. Marta transformed her passionate interest in folk art into a thriving export business, with special concern for the environment and preservation of the native culture. As founder of the Asociacíon Mexicana de Arte y Cultura Popular (AMACUP), she became an advocate widely praised for her innovation and drive, winning, for example, the 1998 First Place Mexico City Export Prize for Crafts Export Enterprises. Her success reflects her unique ability to match market demand with craft sources, and to coordinate production, design and delivery. The greatest testament to the difficulty of this task is that no one else had successfully done it before-or has done it since. Although Marta was raised in Mexico City, her family roots are in Massachusetts. Her parents grew up in the Boston area and her father, Mark Turok, earned his undergraduate and graduate degrees in chemistry at Tufts (1933, 1934). After the war, the Turoks settled in Mexico City with their first child, Kipi, and Mark established a postcard business. Marta was born in 1952, and Antonio in 1955. Marta remembers always feeling at home in Mexico, but, during her high school years at the American School, she "bounced back and forth in identity." When it came time to select a college, the choice was easy: her father's alma mater. But when she arrived at Tufts, she grappled with internal questions on four fronts: being Mexican, American, Jewish, and a woman who wanted a career, "not a usual ideal in those days," she says. "But I knew that thinking of myself in the context of Mexico gave me a great deal of satisfaction." Thanks to Tufts' College Within program, Marta was able to explore her particular interest in native Mexican arts by designing her own course of study. Anthropology, her chosen field, was not yet an official concentration, and through the College Within, she could study what was closest to her heart: preserving traditional indigenous crafts. Marta also felt that before she went back to Mexico to begin a career, a comprehensive senior thesis would give her the kind of credibility that a diploma, course list, or grade sheet could not. She traveled to Chiapas to research her Tufts senior thesis and there experienced a startling insight. Marta and Walter Morris Jr., an anthropological researcher and a MacArthur grant recipient, were sitting in a Mayan weaver's kitchen in the town of Magdalenas, looking at a piece of handwoven cloth. They looked and looked and thought about what they were seeing. Then one of them said, "These designs must have a meaning. The meaning may be lost now, but there must be something they once represented." "I remember how powerful that idea was at the time," said Marta. "We had no evidence, no written record, but I just had a feeling that this was true." Subsequent research has indeed proved their hunch, that an ancient representational design system was embedded in clothing and ceremonial cloths. The findings support the belief that there is continuity between pre-Columbian Mayan cultures and contemporary Mayan practices. According to Tomás Ybarra-Frausto of the Rockefeller Foundation, Marta could have built a successful academic career by continuing this Chiapas research. "Instead," he says, "she opted to share this information with the people and pursue 'practical' anthropology, helping people make a living with what they do best." He added, "To me, what she did reflects the true and generous character that is Marta." In 1988 Marta first broached the idea of a new foundation she was thinking of starting. After Tufts, Marta had worked for a variety of government agencies in Mexico. She had stayed on in various capacities through three six-year presidential terms, developing innovative community projects. By age 32 she had risen to be the executive director of the Popular Cultures Bureau, the youngest woman named to a senior post within the Ministry of Education. Under her guidance, the bureau grew from 300 to 800 workers, handling an annual budget of $1 million and opening 17 regional offices. One of these programs involved publishing books documenting traditional practices in folk art and popular culture. Under Marta's supervision, the venture had grown tremendously to include topics such as purpura, a rare purple dye obtained from sea snails on the coast of Oaxaca; the tradition of street-performing organ grinders accompanied by trained monkeys; and Northern Mexican charro (cowboy) songs. Marta also developed another project that reached 500 isolated indigenous communities whose weaving and sewing traditions were increasingly threatened. In cooperation with a nationwide, government-subsidized food distribution system, she had the idea to provide these communities with fabric, embroidery thread and sewing needles. But Marta soon would no longer be able to continue these programs. With the inauguration of a new president, she would be released from her job, and, this time, she was not putting her hat in the ring for a new appointment. "These programs had been tremendously successful and I had great hopes for them," said Marta. "But I knew they would probably end up being reduced or phased out. I didn't want to see that happen." Marta's main concern was that many traditional arts, once handed down from generation to generation, were fast disappearing. Young people looked at the incomes they could earn in urban centers and immigrated to Mexico City, Los Angeles and New York. Marta honored the deeper meanings such traditional arts represented; as she knew, some go back to the great civilizations of the pre-Conquest era. She also knew that these beautiful objects could be useful and desirable in contemporary, cosmopolitan homes. Marta took an optimistic approach. She assembled a Board of Directors for a new foundation and defined its core concepts. That step was the beginning of Asociacíon Mexicana de Arte y Cultura Popular, or AMACUP. Taking a cue from the purple dye project, she not only began looking at how to preserve traditional native practices, but also gave serious consideration to sustained environmental survival and economically viable work for the people. Recognizing the weak link in Mexico between production and market demand, which had a critical impact on artisan income, Marta was determined to bring the goods produced in the countryside to the shelves of international specialty stores such as Esprit and the pages of museum gift catalogues. Incorporated in 1989, AMACUP reaches out to shops in Mexico's tourist centers, such as Cozumel and Puerto Vallarta, as well as The Cabos in Baja, California to carry goods that Marta has developed and coordinated and AMACUP exports to the United States and abroad. The journey has not always been easy. Marta's convictions, combined with her genuine friendliness and openness, have been allies in helping her convince others that Mexico's traditional arts are worth preserving and could bring precious revenues to rural communities. But that could only happen, she noted, with sophisticated marketing and planning. "I talked to dozens of people about my ideas, and many were skeptical that I could bridge the gap between these tiny pockets of creativity and the world market," said Marta. "But I knew that many people, particularly consumers in the United States, were drawn to the beauty and the colors of Mexico and its culture." Marta's persistence paid off. Over the course of a decade, AMACUP has been aided by grants from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the US-Mexico Fund for Culture, and she is currently working with the InterAmerican Development Bank (IDB) to expand her efforts. AMACUP has also been a rousing success, as attested by the 1997 National Contest Award of First Place in Marketable Products, and a 1998 First Place Mexico City Export Prize for Crafts Export Enterprises. While many of us are in a general state of anxiety, restless with concern about the state of world affairs, the suffering of others, Marta searched for a path and she is still on it. She invented the phrase, 'act locally, think globally.' Among the most popular AMACUP products are gourds carved in assorted designs, such as the whimsical shapes of colorful animals. Handwoven products include sisal nested boxes, rayon-silk shawls and pillows, and vibrant placemats and napkins made of foot-loomed cotton. While Marta's enterprise might be considered small-scale, it is increasingly attracting wide attention. She also sees young people learning these crafts as well, whereas, 25 ago, only senior members of communities were taking up these trades. "It's been greatly satisfying to see the concept thrive." Marta explains the significance of the products and how they have been developed from traditional practices. "Take this bag," she says, indicating an open-weave shoulder bag about twelve inches square in a luscious orchid pink. "This was made by women who hand spin and then weave stiff ixtle fibers. They used to weave the cloth into inexpensive scrubbing rags and sell them to local markets, but with the shoulder bag, we found a more elegant and more marketable use for the woven pieces," and, she proudly continues, "they're able to command a much higher price selling to us." Some summer beach totes in lime green, yellow, natural beige, and orchid pink were another example. Each bag was fastened with a round, hand-carved button cut from a gourd. Gourds, grown on fallow fields in order to bring back non-productive lands, offer artisans an inexpensive means to carve decorative objects such as the patterned buttons that accented the rustic bags. "This is one of my favorite stories," Marta says, pointing to dozens of small candleholders carved from squat gourds. Their glossy lacquer finishes are produced through a traditional Mexican process that uses the oil extracted from chia seeds to create finishes in warm chocolate browns, forest greens and blood reds. "The families that produce these," Marta explains, "have been so successful financially that the men have not needed to emigrate in order to send money home, like some of their neighbors. We affected the familial stability by giving them a means to keep together. The men do not want to emigrate elsewhere if they can avoid it. They are very happy to be able to stay in their villages. Lou Casagrande, an anthropologist and director of the Boston Children's Museum, attributes AMACUP's accomplishments to this unusual versatility. "Marta's a tricultural, trilingual activist/anthropologist," he says. "She's also a regional genius for the arts through her extraordinary advocacy for something that enriches many lives. You don't often see these talents brought together in one person." Adele Simmons, dean of Jackson College from 1969 to 1972, and, from 1989 to 1999, president of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, concurs, adding, "Marta takes initiative. She has a great deal of energy, passion and ability to make things happen." Marta's efforts to throw a lifeline to Mexican communities have led her to Feria Maestros del Arte, a yearly indigenous and Mexican folk art show held in Chapala, Jalisco, Mexico. In 2008, Marta came as a speaker. In 2009, she has helped put together a "Rebozo Feria" within the Feria itself, bringing her knowledge and artisans who produce the highest quality and oldest styles of Mexican rebozos with her. For more information and contacts, visit AMACUP's website . Marta has written several books including: Marta has acted as a contributor to several books including:
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For information on Feria Maestros del Arte, contact Marianne Carlson at 011522 376 765 7485, mariannecarlson@gmail.com or Donna Williams 01152 376 765 5937, wms.donna@gmail.com. |