2016 — The first workshop visit to Chinchero, where a single backstrap loom changed how we thought about interior textiles.
2018 — We began documenting every piece with provenance, technique, and the name of the weaver who made it.
2020 — Fair trade certification for the first cooperative in Ayacucho, covering 23 artisan families.
2022 — The catalog moved from a personal archive to a public guide used by interior designers across three countries.
2024 — Natural dye workshops reopened in Puno, bringing cochineal and indigo back to the center of production.
Chaska Studio began in 2016 with a visit to a Chinchero workshop and a simple question: why do so few contemporary interiors carry the work of Andean weavers? The answer was not about taste but about access. Pieces were undocumented, origins unclear, and the market offered little context. We started by recording what we saw — the weaver's name, the plant used for dye, the hours behind each pattern. That record became the catalog. Today the studio works with cooperatives in Cusco, Ayacucho, and Puno, and every textile in the collection carries the same documentation we began gathering eight years ago.
Chaska Studio began as a small partnership between three textile conservators and a cooperative of weavers in the highlands of Ayacucho. Today we work with twelve workshops across Peru and Bolivia, documenting every step from fleece to finished piece. This is the team that keeps the archive honest.
Jane spent nine years cataloguing pre-Columbian textile fragments for museum collections before founding Chaska Studio. She trained with master weaver Doña Rufina Quispe in Chinchero, learning backstrap loom techniques that she now documents for every piece in our catalogue. Her eye for authentic construction details is the reason each listing includes warp and weft specifications.
Philip manages our direct relationships with artisan cooperatives in Puno and Cusco. He spent a decade working in ethical sourcing for a Johannesburg-based homeware retailer, where he built the audit framework we now use to verify fair wages and safe working conditions. He visits every partner workshop at least twice a year, checking dye batches and documenting production timelines.
Bulelwa translates the natural dye palette - cochineal reds, indigo blues, chilca yellows - into collections that work in contemporary interiors. Before joining Chaska Studio, he ran a small textile studio in Cape Town and consulted for boutique hotels on artisanal decor. He selects each piece for the catalogue based on colour fastness, pattern clarity, and how it will age in a real living space.
María Elena traces the origin of every fibre and dye used in our collection. She works with weavers to record the specific plants harvested for each colour batch and interviews elders about the meaning behind traditional motifs. Her field notes appear in the provenance section of every product page, giving buyers a clear picture of where a piece came from and who made it.
Thabo inspects each textile before it leaves the workshop, checking for even tension, secure edges, and consistent dye penetration. He worked for seven years in a commercial weaving mill, so he knows exactly where machine-made pieces cut corners. His approval is the final step before a piece is photographed and added to the catalogue.
From a single backstrap loom in Cusco to a curated catalog of fair-trade textiles, the studio grew piece by piece, workshop by workshop.
Founder Ana María traveled to Chinchero to document a family of weavers using cochineal dye. That trip produced the first twelve photographs and the idea of a catalog that could connect Andean workshops with interior designers abroad.
Three cooperatives in Ayacucho and Puno completed fair trade certification. The studio began publishing provenance notes for every textile, listing the weaver, the dye plants, and the weeks of work behind each piece.
A shared archive of natural dye recipes was compiled with the help of elder weavers. The collection now includes over forty documented shades from chilca, indigo, and cochineal, each matched to a specific region and season.
Two boutique hotels in Lima and Bogotá commissioned custom mural tapestries for their lobbies. The projects pushed the studio to develop a dedicated service for interior designers, with size, palette, and motif consultations.
Every piece in the collection was photographed in macro detail and published online with its full provenance. The catalog now serves as a reference for architects, collectors, and anyone researching contemporary Andean textile art.