Artisan Hand weaving
THE RFB JOURNAL

Field Notes

On craft, provenance, and living with handwoven art.

Every piece in the shop is the result of months of skilled work in a specific place — by a named artisan, using techniques passed across generations. This journal is where that context lives. Notes from visits to artisan communities, practical guidance on displaying and caring for handwoven art, and the occasional deep dive on what makes one tradition different from another. Read slowly. These objects were made that way.

Journal

What Is Yanchama? The Amazon Bark Cloth That Dresses Ticuna Figures
Yanchama is Amazon bark cloth made from the inner bark of Poulsenia armata. How Ticuna artisans prepare it and use it to dress ceremonial pucuna figures.
Two Colombian Traditions: Werregue Baskets and Ticuna Figures Compared
A comparison of two Colombian Indigenous traditions — Werregue basketry from the Chocó and Ticuna figures from the Amazon — and what they share.
What Are Ticuna Ceremonial Dolls? The Pelazón Tradition of the Colombian Amazon
A guide to Ticuna ceremonial dolls and the Pelazón tradition — the rite of passage they honor in the Colombian Amazon.