I just wanted to give a shout-out the the winners of the 2010 Blogs By Latinas Awards. Congrats to all the wonderful Latin Ladies who work hard to spread Latin culture to their readers around the world.

Blogs by Latinas is a directory of Latina Bloggers that was created by Latina blogger Monique. Struggling to find other Latina bloggers, Monique created a one stop directory for her fellow Latina bloggers. What a wonderful contribution to the Latina blogging community! Click here to check out the winners. Congratulations Ladies!

Alqo Wasi, which means “dog home” in Quechua, is an incredible dog-wear company I discovered last night while perusing the internet for cool dog products. Alqo Wasi creates beautiful dog garments created in native Peruvian communities. Founder Patricia Queirolo came up with idea while traveling through the Peruvian Andes. While attempting to come up with a business idea for her university thesis, she became inspired by the incredible Andean landscape outside of her bus window. Keeping in mind all that she loved and was inspired by (her two pampered dogs and her love for Peruvian culture), she created Alqo Wasi.

Alqo Wasi’s products are produced on traditional weaving looms from alpaca and fine cotton native to Peru. I love the traditional Peruvian patterns and colors and how they work on a modern product like dog clothing. I would LOVE to add some of these pieces to the LAMA collection! Hmm… Miles does need a poncho… I’ll have to see what we can do about this. Regardless, I am a huge fan of Alqo Wasi! Miles the LAMA shop dog tambien! Click here to check out the Alqo Wasi website.

Recently, Imagine Magazine based in Sao Paulo, Brazil, interviewed the amazing Calu Fontes (one of my favorite artists and someone I’m proud to work with at LAMA). Aside from a great write-up about her work, Calu was able to curate a spread of her favorite products from Brazil and beyond. I was so excited to see that among her favorite product picks was one of LAMA’s Vintage Wallpaper Notebook’s from Argentinean designer Mercedes Hernaez! Thank you Calu and Imagine Magazine for the mention! (If only I could read Portuguese!)

To view the Calu Fontes collection available at LAMA, click here. To check out more of Calu’s incredible work on flickr, click here.

I’m so excited to finally introduce you to one of our fantastic designers, Julieta Racket of Nido (which means “Nest” in English). We’ve been carrying Julieta’s gorgeous handmade laptop cases for the past few months, so we’re thrilled to finally share a bit of information about the woman behind the work. Julieta has recently had a line of products featured and made available through Tienda Malba, (the premiere modern art museum in Buenos Aires), as well as a mention in the NY Times Magazine Blog, so we feel especially fortunate here at LAMA to work with such an accomplished designer who is well on her way to great things. We hope you enjoy leaning a bit more about Julieta! (ps. I’ll be posting the interview in Spanish below the English post for all of our Spanish speaking readers to enjoy as well!)

LAMA: Where do you live?

Julieta: I live in Buenos Aires, capital of Argentina. In a very nice and quiet neighborhood with lots of trees.

LAMA: What are your favorite things to do in your neighborhood?

Julieta: I really enjoy taking a walk (as long as I can and I have time, I walk to do my activities). I like going to the greengrocer, the small stores. I try to avoid the large supermarkets.

LAMA: How did you get started in your career as an artist/designer?

Julieta: I’m a graphic designer, graduated in 2000 at UBA (Universidad de Buenos Aires) and have since worked at various agencies. I always wanted to combine my work with more activities linked to the hand made. I have studied illustration for the past 5 years with a great teacher, and this will be my second year dabbling in embroidery in a workshop that I love. Years ago, I started to want to use my knowledge in design for achieving tangible objects and leave the computer for a little while. I have always loved fabrics and combining textures, patterns, and colors. I wanted to make a useful article and I thought that laptop bags were a good choice and allowed me to have fun with fabrics. From there I started and now I am adding other things to continue on!

LAMA: What excites you the most about your work?

Julieta: What I like about my job is the selection of fabrics and choice of different combinations. I love go to “Once” (Buenos Aires neighborhood where there is a concentrated amount of dry goods stores and shops selling fabrics, one beside the other on the street Lavalle). I frequently visit the stores that I like and I search and search until I find just what I need, or until I am surprised with something new and unexpected. And then I spend days studying what I have purchased and imagining how to combine them, what buttons they need, what color of zipper or ribbon… it’s an artesanal proces and I love! I enjoy it very much. Another thing I really like and is fairly new to me, is the possibility of joint creations with colleagues I admire. It’s great fun and I learn new and interesting things.

LAMA: Who are your favorite artist and designers?

Julieta: The truth is that I don’t have favorite artists or designers, or maybe I have too many! Some are changing, some are known, others are anonymous. Generally I admire subtle sensitivity, and that some have a lot to say with so little. I love when emotion arises from a judicious combination of material, what the material is, and how it is used.

LAMA: What are your favorite blogs and websites?

Julieta: Estudio Album, Mono-Blocks, Cobralibros, Molde, Foco, Una Flor de Papel, Good Morning Light, Now Idea, Collex, Grijs, Wikstenmade, Bookhou at Home, Mina Perhonen, Toto Kaelo, T Magazine NY Times, The Style Press, Dossier Journal, jjjjound, Redingote, Positively Melancholy, Byte

LAMA: Where do you hope to see your business 5 years from now?

Julieta: I hope NIDO continues to expand, adding new creations, new partnerships and collaborations in my country and around the world! I love doing what I do and I hope to continue doing so and continue to grow.

Thank you so much Julieta for sharing a part of yourself with us! To check out Julieta’s products at LAMA, click here. To find out more about Julieta, be sure to check out her website and flickr page. Also, check out our interview below in Espanol!

1. Vivo en Buenos Aires, Capital de Argentina. En un barrio muy lindo y tranquilo con muchos árboles.

2. Me gusta mucho salir a caminar (siempre que puedo y tengo tiempo, voy caminando a hacer mis actividades). Me gusta ir a la verdulería, al almacén. Trato de evitar los grandes supermercados.

3. Soy diseñadora gráfica, me gradué en el año 2000 en la UBA (Universidad de Buenos Aires) y desde entonces trabajé en diferentes agencias. Siempre tuve la necesidad de combinar mi labor con actividades más ligadas a lo manual; hace 5 años estudio dibujo con una gran maestra y este va a ser mi segundo año incursionando en el bordado, en un taller que me encanta!.
Hace algunos años, empecé a tener ganas de usar mis conocimientos en diseño para la realización de un objeto más tangible y salir un poco de la computadora. Siempre me encantaron las telas, combinar sus texturas, tramas y colores. Quería hacer un objeto útil y se me ocurrió que fundas para laptop era una buena opción y me permitía divertirme con las telas. Por ahí empecé y luego fui incorporando otras cosas y pienso seguir!

4. Lo que más me gusta de mi trabajo es el proceso de selección de telas y elección de las diferentes combinaciones. Me encanta ir “al Once” (barrio de Buenos Aires donde se concentran cantidad de mercerías y tiendas que venden telas, una al lado de la otra sobre la calle Lavalle). Ya tengo seleccionadas las tiendas que más me gustan, siempre voy a las mismas a revolver y revolver hasta encontrar justo lo que busco, o sorprenderme con algo nuevo, inesperado. Y luego me la paso días mirando lo que compré e imaginándome cómo combinarlas, qué botones necesitan, qué color de cierre o cinta.. es un proceso bastante artesanal y me encanta! lo disfruto mucho.
Otra cosa que me gusta mucho y es bastante nueva, es la posibilidad de hacer creaciones conjuntas con colegas que admiro. Es muy divertido, aprendo cosas nuevas y la paso muy bien.

5. La verdad es que no tengo artistas o diseñadores favoritos, o tengo demasiados!. Van cambiando, algunos conocidos otros anónimos. Admiro en general la sensibilidad sutil, la posibilidad que tienen algunos de decir con poco, con lo justo. Cuando la emoción surge de una combinación acertada o simplemente del material que se usa o cómo se lo usa.

6. (links above)

7. Espero que Nido se siga expandiendo, incorporando nuevas creaciones, nuevas alianzas y colaboraciones en mi país y en el mundo! Me gusta mucho hacer lo que hago y espero poder seguir haciéndolo y seguir creciendo.

Over the past month I’ve had some health issues (nothing serious!) that have cost me a lot of money. *sigh* Coincidentally, I ran across this amazing poster this morning. Designed by Amy Martin, it recently won first place in the Public Option Please art contest. It made me hopeful and excited for a better future. *fingers crossed*

“Liberty is to the collective body, what health is to every individual body. Without health no pleasure can be tasted by man; without liberty, no happiness can be enjoyed by society.” -Thomas Jefferson.

Lately I’ve been receiving a few inquiries regarding the perceived “slow down” at LAMA. Some of you have been wondering why new products haven’t been added in a while and why newsletters with fun promotions and shop update information haven’t been going out. So I thought I would take some time today to address the faq’s that have been coming in.

The good news is… well, fortunately it’s pretty much all good news! Contrary to the outward appearance of a shop “slow down,” behind the scenes here at LAMA, we’re in the process of embarking on a really cool new journey to create a better LAMA for so many more to enjoy! I’m not quite ready (just yet) to release all the info of the new project, but I will say that it’s everything I hoped LAMA would eventually evolve into, and will give me the opportunity to fulfill LAMA’s mission on a level that I dreamed of years ago when I was running all over South America bursting with excitement. In short, it’s going to be AWESOME! I really feel that deep down and it puts a smile on my face every time I think about it.

However, there is always some downtime to current project while other endeavors are being pursued, and this is what customers and visitors to the site are seeing. My blog posts have gotten quite infrequent and yes, newsletters have not gone out, updates have not been made to the shop, etc. So what’s been going on? It’s simply a matter of resources at this point. With most small businesses, the owner is the largest and most valuable resource. Being that I’m only one person, I have to make some tough decisions sometimes on where to focus my time and attention. With LAMA, I’m looking toward the future and spending a lot of my time developing the things that will come. It just makes the most sense to me. Sadly, this means that the current site won’t be able to change and evolve too much in the present, BUT, the future is looking pretty great and I hope everyone who loves LAMA now will happily sit tight until we throw out what’s next. I promise… it’ll be worth the wait!

Until then, LAMA will be pulling in a few new things here and there (so keep your eyes open) and I’ll be doing my best to keep everyone informed about lots of cool new Latin design. In fact, I recently did an interview with one of the amazing designers we work with that I’ll be posting that interview on Wednesday. I had a great time learning a lot about Julieta Racket of Nido and I’m sure you will too!

Thank you to everyone for your patience and continues patronage during this transitional time! Lots of LAMA love to you all!

I just discovered friends of type and I’m a little obsessed. I would love to have a print of this “Hola” type for my office.

I’m about to retire to my sofa for the rest of the day (I have officially decided to take a sick day). I just couldn’t leave my computer, however, without expressing my excitement over this year’s Best Foreign Film Oscar award going to Argentina for “El Secreto de Sus Ojos.” (The secret in Their Eyes). Congratulations to director Juan José Campanella for this incredible film! It’s always so thrilling for me when Latin American countries are recognized in such a big way for their artistry.

I don’t know if everyone managed to catch his message at the end (it was in Spanish with the “wrap it up” music playing over it) but director Juan José Campanella made sure to send his love and well wishes to his fellow Latinos in Chile. I was so overcome with emotion. What a great Oscar night for Argentina! Congratulations!

*photos from Peru.com

I’ve been completely glued to the daily updates about Chile after the shocking and devastating 8.8 magnitude earthquake that hit on Saturday. The aftershocks and tsunamis that have hit the area since have made the situation in Chile even more dire.

With Chile’s needs becoming increasingly larger, it’s important that we all give this devastated nation a helping hand. To donate, please contact the American Red Cross here. You can also donate and find information about loved ones in Chile through the Google Crisis Response here. Chile needs our help! Please give what you can.

*photo by Chilean graphic designer Juan Pablo Vasquez Villanueva

UPDATE FOR OUR SPANISH SPEAKERS: I just spoke with Pamela Villamar of Grafikk Studio (based in Santiago) and she has passed along some information on more ways to donate and find out information about specific areas in Chile. Please visit the Chilean Red Cross by clicking here to donate and find out other ways you can help. You can also listen to an online radio stream for up to the minute information.