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Mission
Our Mission: Creating Opportunities for supporting indigenous textile artisans worldwide.
Before the launch of ClothRoads, we provided partial funding for projects under Thrums LLC: The Molo Wool Project in Kenya; published the book Weaving in the Peruvian Highlands by Nilda Callanaupa Alvarez with the Cusco Center for Traditional Textiles in Peru; supported a Guatemalan weaving project with Friendship Bridge, including the creation and development of the book Guatemalan Woven Wealth by Deborah Chandler and Raymond E. Senuk; sponsored the cultural exchange of Peruvian spinners and weavers at the 2008 Spin-Off Autumn Retreat; and sponsored the exhibit, Weaving Lives: Transforming Textiles in the Peruvian Highlands at the Avenir Museum of Design and Merchandising, Colorado State University.
We began journeying to places where we met talented artisans and discovered entire villages of weavers, spinners, dyers, knitters and embroiderers. Wanting to support the beauty, skill, and textile legacies that we saw and the people we met, we aimed to create new market opportunities for these artisans and cultures with a fair and sustainable commerce model while using our publishing skills to educate, inform, and foster textile appreciation.
In 2011, we launched ClothRoads, a Global Textile Marketplace dedicated to creating a marketplace for high quality indigenous textiles, and a lively blog that brings you along on these journeys with us.
We continue to support artisans and their projects. We have provided funding for two Tinkuys, international weaving gatherings sponsored by The Center for Traditional Textiles of Cusco; sponsorship of twenty-five Bolivian handspinners in the annual Spinzilla contest; sponsoring of artisans for the Santa Fe Folk Art Market; and some financial support for Somaiya Kala Vidya, an institution of education for artisans in Kutch, India.