Hi, there! I’m Mari Gray, founder of artisan-made brand Kakaw Designs, based in Guatemala. After studying International Relations and Spanish at UC Davis and then working for several non-profits in Latin America, I became disillusioned and decided to focus on sustainable development through a social enterprise, partnering with talented artisan communities in Guatemala.
I feel incredibly fortunate to work with different artisan groups in Guatemala through Kakaw Designs (pronounced <kekao> like the cacao tree), an artisan-made brand I started about four years ago. We currently work with several different artisan groups: two weaving, one embroidery, two teams of leathersmiths, and one silversmith; all to make our designs come to life. But it was for a good reason that we started with the weaving cooperative Corazón del Lago in San Juan la Laguna, at Lake Atitlán.
We would never have been able to launch Kakaw Designs without this group of forward-thinking, professional weavers from this small Maya village. The community itself is exceptional, with sustainability clearly a focus through:
- Use of natural dyes in textile production, also using local traditional techniques such as backstrap weaving and ikat designs <<Learn more by watching our video>>
- Organization of weavers in cooperatives or associations, where women work together and can therefore take larger orders and offer quality control
- Up-and-coming development of community ecotourism, especially birding
The work of the wildlife photographer Michael (Nick) Nichols is widely admired for the intimacy he achieves with his animal subjects—an intimacy that allows the subjects to become wild individuals rather than generic wildlife. As Melissa Harris, the author of 
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