What’s the difference between a coaster and a cocktail napkin? Not something Cesi thinks about a lot - until ibu commissions hundreds of handwoven cocktail napkins from her. When ibu founder, Susan Hull Walker, met Cesi last December, she had traveled many miles through the mountains to present her with piles of her work. The work was beautiful, but the finished item was neither coaster nor cocktail napkin, but something in between.
It’s one of the hardest things ibu encounters when working with artisans in other cultures: what to do when your designs get lost in translation? Susan went back up the mountain with Cesi and met the other weavers in her cooperative. She saw their looms at work, talked through their challenges and successes, and told them the crunchy squares would not work where she lives.
"We are a team. A business. A movement in the world, and we must work together in excellence. This is not a charity. It is a collaboration of equals. We have to get it right." By that afternoon she was back on the loom, determined to make it right.
When 3 enormous boxes arrived last week from Chiapas Mexico, full of proper cocktail napkins and pillow covers fresh off the loom and exquisitely executed, Susan was thrilled, as was Cesi. Cesi learned what a cocktail napkin is, what excellence demands, the windfall of determination. Susan learned the hard work of honesty, the management of quality, the price of giving and demanding the best we have of each other.
Now, ibu has a riot of color and beauty in stores thanks to the hands of Cesi and her friends. Visit ibu at 183 King Street, have a drink (with a napkin), and toast the determination of one woman to try and fail and and begin again, to work alongside all women, and to reach for a true revolution of reciprocity and respect.
