The Threads that Hold a Community Together

Ilma Paixao: Handeira Linens and Lace, Brazil

Ms. Paixao, a Brazilian-American, returned to her family’s homeland in 2001 to organize a free-trade co-op of traditional lace makers in the remote and impoverished Brazilian state of Pernambuco. Opening an office in the back of the village church, Ms. Paixao began working with local Xukuru artisans who for generations had created delicate, lovely lace clothing, tablecloths, and other linens.

But few if any of these pieces had made it to markets. “These people were creating tablecloths in a place where most could hardly afford a table,” Ms. Paixao says. Today, thanks to lace making, the Xukuru tribespeople’s economy is being transformed.

The free-trade co-op ensures that the lace-makers’ work is not exploited. Before Ms. Paixao arrived, women were making as little as $3 a month doing their craft. Proceeds from sales of the lace have helped to fund food distribution, a seed bank, college education, eyeglasses and other healthcare for the lace makers.

Perhaps most important, the co-op has helped to further land ownership. Before the co-operative was founded, villagers owned less than 5 percent of the local land. Now they’ve purchased most of the land on which they live. Poverty has been reduced, as have political tensions.

The lace, says a local tribal chieftain, has been “a weapon for peace.” In recognition of the far-reaching impacts of the co-op, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology awarded Paixao a fellowship in 2006, and this year will increase its investment substantially, funding a study of the co-op’s methods and sending interns to Peru. When she is not in Brazil helping the Xukuru, Paixao lives in Farmington, Massachusetts.

The Art:

Traditional Xukuru lace is hand-made, in intricate patterns taught by one generation to the next. The lace can be used to create entire garments and heirloom tablecloths and is also used as a decorative accent on dresses and linens.

This lace-making tradition was inherited from European ancestors, and later incorporated influences from the net-making skills and sea imagery favored by fishermen’s wives from the coast.