![]() She was holding her chihuahua Trompito and asked me (in Spanish) if I was looking for mundillo. I met Ada by chance when visiting a pharmacy adjacent to the plaza. I’ll post more about them in the future.Īda brought her mundillo to make lace at the Plaza during the evening I was able to interview Vina Arocho, Gelita Feliciano and Nene Nieves. Instead of just posting a foto of that board, here are some photographs of several tejedoras- some of whom made lace for their families, others who sold lace they made to a shop or who had a shop themselves. Included among the names are family members and persons who made lace. In the Museo del Mundillo Puertorriqueno on Calle Barbosa in Moca, there is a memorial board, on which the names and dates of mundillistas who have passed are put on small plates that are affixed to a dark wood panel. Others are younger artisans who have an entire career of making and teaching before them. There is something very tactile, very intense about making mundillo- the skill that makes the sounds of wood bobbins rhythmically ring, the amazement in seeing someone work on a large pattern with hundreds of pins and bobbins. There are a generation of lacemakers, tejedoras or mundillistas, that I was fortunate to meet before they passed. ![]() She was married to Julio Enrique ‘Ulla’ Rivera Gonzalez and had two children, Julio and Nicky, who survive her.Īngela 'Gelita' Feliciano Ramirez (1920-2008) I was fortunate to know her, and will miss her deeply. From then they visited each other until Malen returned to Puerto Rico. Although my aunt didn’t recognize her at first, Malen told her that they were cousins and that she knew her from the town. Perez’ class with her in Moca as a child. Her paths crossed with my aunt Maria, who was in Mrs. Like many Puerto Ricans of the 1950s, Malen moved to New York and lived in Brooklyn. ![]() Julio brought her to town when the Festival de Mundillo was held, a massive gathering where people reconnected and celebrated their efforts to put lace on the map. At the Museo del Mundillo, back in 2005, Malen would come down from Rocha and help out with groups, giving impromptu demonstrations when the need arose. She also donated some of her work, a dress decorated with mundillo to the Museo Labadie in Aceitunas, known as the Palacete de los Moreau, named after the hacienda featured in Enrique Laguerre’s 1939 novel, La llamarada. She showed me her mundillo, made sometime in the 1940s, filled with dried banana leaves wrapped around a wooden core beneath the fabric that held the pins for making lace. What Malen shared with me was her passion for lace, and her stories of learning from her mother Julia Vale Mendez (1906-1991). Malen Hernandez Vale demonstrating mundillo at the Museo del Mundillo, October 2008.
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