It’s been just over a week since I arrived in Chile for my month-long residency with Patagonia Media, who invited me to be here and create a larry. collection as part of their inititiave to develop collaborative partnerships on an international scale.  Emphasis is on the exchange of cultural ideas, learning from local artisans, and drawing inspiration from the environment and landscape.

the highest point on the Patagonia Virgin property

Patagonia Media is the marketing branch of Patagonia Virgin, which is a large-scale real estate company that is developing hundreds of hectares of land in Frutillar with townhomes, hotels, a golf course, and a small village/esplanade  containing shops and restaurants.  Their process is strikingly admirable for such a development; progression of the project is carefully considered, with due care taken to preserving the beauty of the land while addressing local culture and needs.  They have planted over 40,000 trees in an adjacent nursery, and hundreds of hectares of land will remain protected within the native forest reserve.  My role here is to learn about the region and local culture, and reflect these ideas in my designs for Patagonia Style, which will serve to celebrate the creative nature of this place.

farm inspiration

The goal for the first week was to get acquainted with the area, and begin sourcing materials to work with.  I had very broad expectations in this regard – I did not arrive with specific ideas in mind, as I wanted to remain open to work with whatever materials presented themselves or made sense for this climate and region.  One of the first stops was an antique shack in Puerto Varas, which reminded me very much of my favourite shop in Clinton, BC, with lots of old farmhouse equipment and things of that nature:

farm antiques in puerto varas, chile

I ended up buying a small lot of watch parts, wheels and frames, trinkets of time.  I was tempted by the typewriters with grass growing out of them, but knowing that I have three in storage at home helped stave off the urge to buy.

underwood typewriter

Scoured around Puerto Montt for yarn sources, walked the artisan’s row along the waterfront, lots of Chilean crafts, yarn, ponchos, souvenirs.  The colours of yarn were vibrant and beautiful, though I prefer to use natural colours in my own work:

yarn in puerto montt, chile

I did get some cream roving (see forefront of image), which I will hand-spin slightly as I knit with it, I think it will turn out pretty nice – very warm and bullky.  We also stopped by the marina, looking around for discarded parts and rope that I might incorporate into an installation piece, or woven work, or…

I’ve also met with Maria, the daughter of the cowboy Jose, who manages the horses for Patagonia Virgin and leads the horseback expeditions.  She showed me some of her weaving, demonstrating on her wooden loom, and a rare spinning wheel built in Villa Alegre that is over 40 years old.  Maria also dyes her own wool, using fruits, tree barks, and other materials to naturally colour the wool fibres.

loom built in villa alegre

Marcela Rios, an artisan in Llhanquihue who sells her work at the shop in the Puerto Montt airport, took me out to the town of Chamiza to the Chucao Lanas studio.  I got a demonstration of their process for dyeing the yarn, which is sourced from Punta Renas in southern Chile.

yarn ready to be coloured and cooked

It was very soft and of great quality, so I bought a couple kilos of cream yarn, some of which I plan to dye using natural materials from our backyard here in Frutillar.  Speaking, of our backyard, the Patagonia Virgin is home to sheep, geese, and horses.  I crept through the goose pen to collect some feathers one sunny afternoon:

And throughout all of the day trips, yarn sourcing, brainstorming, backyard barbeques, meeting amazing creative people who shared not only their time but their inspiration, we managed to find the time to have some great fun.  On Sunday we went on a 6 hour trek through the property on horseback, stopping at the top of a hill for a beautiful lunch before continuing on our countryside adventure:

break from horseback expedition through patagonia virgin land

The first week has been utterly amazing, very inspirational – everything from the people, the landscape, architecture, indigenous crafts.  Looking forward to seeing what the next week will bring!

Thank you, Chile!