Selected work
Continuous Line
Carolyn Glasoe Bailey Foundation
Ojai, California
Continuous Line is an ongoing series of works that creates a dialogue around the perception of borders and social-cultural processes.
Maestro Porfirio views the Americas as one home and one land where traditions and knowledge have been endured for thousands of years.
Transmigration
Smithsonian Arts and Industries Building
Washington, D.C., United States
Textile Museum
Tilburg, Netherlands
There are real reasons for the need to migrate. In many cases this is done by a greater force such as poverty, need for work, and displacement of land through high priced real estate, or to simply ensure one’s survival similar to the life of a monarch butterfly. These stories of diaspora are shared with many others who have experienced migration including Mastro Porfirio Gutierrez.
Over dyed wool canvas and needle felting
Rituals
Textile Museum
Oaxaca, México
In the worldview of the Zapotec people, the petate (hand-woven mat made of palm leaves) is a very important element in daily life and in ceremonies, in which life and death are linked to this element. Life begins at the moment of birth on the petate, which later becomes the place where the eternal rest takes place. The cycle of life informs the path to the transmigration process — in this stage the tradition was to wrap the deceased in a petate before they start their journey into the spirit world.
Dyes: indigo, biliek, balag yag nuez, cochineal insects, pericon
On wool and plant fiber
Fragments - Wrapped in Color
Arizona State Museum
Tucson, Arizona
Fragment series are a reflection on the syncretism that occurred during the colonization period. These pieces share the story on how two cultures were merged and endured ways of expression through a particular style of weaving known as the Satillo Sarape.
This style of weaving became part of Porfirio’s cultural identity and is part of his personal expression of today. This body of work pays homage to the slave weavers who added their artistic sensibility to the tradition of Mexican worn blankets, comprising one of the most remarkable weaving traditions in the history of the New World.
Dyes: cochineal insects, biliek, añil, tree moss, pericon
On wool