Artisans depend on more than 90% of the income generated by tourism, national and international, which, since March 16, is almost nil in the Arequipa region and Peru in general and according to the specialists, will be the last sector in recover, so It’s future is uncertain.
But before the crisis creativity comes out. In Huancavelica, protection masks began to be made with handcrafted designs, and in Arequipa it was developed with Colca designs.
The artisan Condori, started to offer the masks to protect against COVID-19. At 7 years old, Condori was taken to Caylloma until he finished his secondary studies. The art called him so he decided to study at Carlos Baca Flor and became a complete artist. He did dance, music, sculpture, painting, embroidery.
At first he entered as a teacher in an educational institution to teach dance, but he says that there the business is not teaching, but the rental of costumes. “At first dances were performed from different regions, but then Colca became fashionable, so I learned to do embroidery and I started making costumes myself,” he said.
He indicated that these days he decided to make decorative masks for the dance of the Turks. He observed that the quarantine was extended and resources began to run out, so he decided to do something that would urgently generate income for him.
This is how the idea of making masks with the striking designs of the Colca arose and is promoting them through social networks. “It is not a mass production, because only I make them and make them by order,” said the artist.
He says the designs are personalized, some people ask them to embroider their name, others some special badge. For this he uses his sewing machine to which he has added some special needles.
Inside the striking mask has placed a cotton cloth and it is completely washable, the threads do not discolor and it will surely serve so that later, it is kept as a memory of the virus that put the entire world in check.
It works only because it is not an industrial production. “If I hire someone, the work will no longer be mine, the artistic quality would be lost and that is what I intend, that each person who acquires my work can have a product of great artistic quality,” he says.