stick charts, maps, rebbelibs-tim koelle: February 2012

I first met Paulino in a small town south of Merida.

Paulino is a self-taught Mayan basket weaver, who learned to weave by carefully studying the illustrations and photographs of a book about American Indian basketry

I watched Paulino work and I appreciated his natural flair for weaving. I observed how he spun shapes and forms from local bajuco root. While the root was still moist and flexible, he removed the skin and wove it before it dried and stiffened. Paulino left the woven piece to cure just as he made it -- leaving it in its natural, undyed and untreated state.

Then one week, after looking at a straight piece of dried and rigid root, I returned with a copy of a Pacific island rebellib, or stick chart, first glimpsed in NYC’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. I asked whether he could copy one.

Stick charts were 18th and 19th century navigational charts used in the Marshall Islands. They were woven, abstract constructions of coconut fronds, documenting ocean swells, counter swells, currents, and even (some say) clouds, bird paths, flotsam, and the navigator’s particular requirements. In essence, it is a map of the maker’s known world.

Used as memory aids, they would be left onshore, private and protected, while the navigator guided the canoes by his sense of touch, feeling the motion in the boat. The map was understood only by its maker – who would pass his knowledge on to his son.

After that first attempt, we sat together, me sketching and expanding on the idea, with some occasional poor Spanish thrown in, while Paulino silently studied the rough drawings. Paulino was, and still is, a quiet man to begin with; he would ask a few questions about dimensions and colors, or suggest a detail, before he would start a new piece from the sketch.

We laughed about my bad language skills, but in fact, the drawings were the words, the language between us. And since I could not verbally explain all the details, he improvised, and came up with his own. This was how he taught himself his trade, by studying pictures—pure observation and craftsmanship—not by copying.

The directness of a simple drawing can sometimes trump verbal proficiency, especially when you are dealing with people who work with their hands.

stick charts, maps, rebbelibs-tim koelle

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