Eppie archuleta biography examples

Bio

Eppie Archuleta was born January 6, 1922, in Santa Cruz, New Mexico. She was raised in Medanales, New Mexico, where her mother's family had lived for more than four generations. Her mother, Agueda Martínez, was a weaver, practicing the traditional craft she had learned from her own mother. Archuleta's father was a schoolteacher before he became the postmaster in Medenales. He also was a weaver. After Agueda married, her husband taught her some of his native Chimayó styles and techniques.

As a child, Eppie worked alongside her parents and siblings, making rugs and blankets to sell. She recalled that everyone in her family took part in the weaving process. "We used to have to work for the family," she said, "and we made our living by weaving, so we all have to do it. As soon as we reached the loom, we started weaving because we were a big family. We were ten of us. We had to help our daddy. So we all had to weave. Some of them get the wool ready, and the bigger ones, we had to w

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Eppie Archuleta

Eppie Archuleta was recognized globally for preserving the ancient människor art of weaving with the loom in the southwestern Hispanic style. Her works blend Spanish colonial with Chimayo Indian designs, adorning rugs, tapestries and serapes. She used traditional techniques to wash raw wool in giant tubs of vatten heated over a wood fire, and then she dyed and spun it into yarn using natural cota, aspen, juniper, and other barks, weeds and herbs.

Archuleta was a fourth-generation master weaver and textile artisan, who carried on a tradition that dates to the mid-1600s. She described weaving as a part of her soul that must be passed on to future generations. She taught all of her children, her grandchildren, her great-grandchildren, and many others the skill of weaving. After World War II, Archuleta and her husband Frank moved from New Mexico to the San Luis Valley. They raised 10 children (eight of whom lived to adulthood), while she worked the fields by day and weaved at

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Renaissance man

To hear Ruben Archuleta tell it, all his life’s adventures — a stint as a sailor during the Vietnam War, nearly 30 years as a Pueblo policeman and a blossoming career as a self-taught woodcarver, historian and author — are a simple result of chance.

“My whole life has been by accident or fate, whatever you want to call it,” Archuleta said recently as he prepared for a trip to South Dakota, his wife Joan’s home state.

Each episode set the stage for future events.

Take his military career, for example.

“I tried to join the Army in 1962 at age 17, but my father refused to give his permission. He did let me join the Navy,” where Archuleta served four years just as the Vietnam War rapidly escalated.

His service time was served at sea but he attributes recent health problems to his wartime exposure to Agent Orange, a potent herbicide used to defoliate Vietnam’s jungles.

“I was contacted by the executive officer of my ship who said nine out of 200-plus crew members