To me, working with amate paper is a prayer. I first came in contact with it around 2013, when I arrived in Tonala, Jalisco, Mexico. At the time, there were multiple vendors of multi-colored amate paper, but we knew of one particular vendor who was family-run and owned that we chose to work with. I have learned many teachings from this ancestral recipe of paper, and I have drawn on it in pencil and ink, painted on it with acrylic, and cut it into shapes to do stop-motion videos. My vision with this creative body of work is to create artworks that uplift Nature. I also seek to amplify and generate renewed interest in this ancestral technique in such a way that directly contributes and supports Indigenous knowledge keepers, artisans, and families.
