Lacemaking Tradition in Puerto Rico
The home life of these families was centered around the making of lace. Every social level was involved. The poorer families did so to make ends meet but the affluent classes encouraged industriousness among their daughters and staying busy was encouraged. Children often made lace before attending school and again after school and chores, as they worked by candlelight. Women also enjoyed a sense of community when they gathered in each others homes to make lace. They found it worked well to teach their children the art of lacemaking as well as encouraging the bond between the generations that developed.
The women used tools, including pillows and bobbins, made from local material and the designs for these tools developed uniquely from the European ones. But the thread had to be imported. Between the wars the preference was for the shiny so called "Japanese Thread" which was made in Spain. This lasted until the second World War when the tread was no longer able to be imported. That combined with a new law against cottage industries, forced the women into factories and away form their lacemaking. By 1950 the art had almost died and only a few women still practiced it.
In the 60's and 70's the Institute of Puerto Rican Studies began to re-establish lost traditions and luckily a few "grandmothers" were still alive to pass on the skills. In 1984 more than 5000 people from all over the island participated in the First Lace Festival sponsored by the Puerto Rican Instute for Culture that took place in San Juan . Free seminars were available and new and antique laces were exhibited. Today, the art of bobbin lacemaking again thrives in Puerto Rico.
Bobbin Lace curtain at the Puerto Rico Art Museum
by Alica Baston
In collaboration with the well known artist Antonio Martorell, a group of Puerto rican lacemakers from the Borinquen Lacers, Inc., a chapter of IOLI, accepted the monumental task of creating a curtain for the Puerto Rico Art Museum's theater. This curtain, made entirely in bobbin lace, represents Mr. Martorell's design of the earth and it's continents and includes an enlarged version of the island of Puerto Rico. a sun at the top illuminates the world and a pair of hands at the bottom represents the hands of the lacemakers, artisans of the world.
The curtain measures 15 feet by 30 feet and took a group of very talented
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