Browse Items (25 total)

Guna blouse panels are made from machined cloth and commercial thread first introduced by missionaries and now widely available. However, the elaborately cut and sewn patterns are only possible using the sharp scissors the missionaries also brought…

A more recent blouse panel combines the long-practiced technique of cut, folded, and sewn patterning with actual appliqué, the sewing of additional shapes on top. The lozenge shapes are made in the traditional way, cutting through and folding back…

Commercial products, such as the Trix™ cereal rabbit mascot which debuted in 1959, have crept into contemporary dulemola creativity. The icon of this sugary children’s cereal was a trickster figure always trying to steal the cereal from…

Like other panels that take on “global” themes but give them definite Guna twists (see examples here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here), especially related to Christianity, the very recent example at left juxtaposes tropical flowers…

This Guna blouse panel takes on a Christian subject: the Madonna and Child. She is identified by her cross necklace, which is embroidered like her intricate veil and the patterns on her clothes. The use of embroidery began in the late 20th and…

The dulemola panel features two churches, a subject that is obviously not “traditional” since the Guna religion was and continues to be shamanic and nature-based. Yet, according to dulemola artists, equal-armed cross shapes stand for the top…

The dulemola at left celebrates the famed Panama Canal that joined Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, allowing ships and cargo to move much more efficiently around the planet. The canal actually rejoined the oceans that had long ago been one body of…

The fantastical multi-headed snakes take their place among the many subjects of Guna dulemolaguna that relate to Nature, but not in direct imitation. The undulating and interlocking lines of orange and red create a sense of snake bodies without…

The Guna free dive down as far as eighty feet to catch the Caribbean spiny lobster (Panulirus argus), or rock lobster, shown in the blouse panel. Spiny lobsters resemble "true" lobsters and are edible, except they have very long antennae and only…

Some images of the coral reef may be as illusionistic as this, showing how the same subject has many interpretations by different artists. Gracefully swimming fish, a seahorse, and a hermit crab appear very lifelike. The artist has even foreshortened…