Multicolores

Mission: Supporting Maya women artists to improve their quality of life by encouraging the self-discovery of their talents and skills.

Vision: To be a symbol of innovation, artistic excellence, and sustainable economic development- and to celebrate the artists’ transformational journey.

Multicolores supports Maya women from the Guatemalan highlands in their process of self-discovery and artistic development. Multicolores uses art as a tool for exploration and expression, catalyzing the artists’ many talents and abilities and empowering them to become powerful agents of change. Multicolores’ three programs (Creative and Economic Development, Leadership, and Health & Wellness) are designed to work together, creating transformative opportunities with long-term, sustainable impacts that strengthen entire communities.

Multicolores is made up of 60+ Maya women artists in 9 rural communities in the Guatemalan Highlands. The artists represent three different Mayan language groups: Kaqchikel, K’iché, and Tzutujil. The women are located in five departments of Guatemala.

Artists are organized into community groups based on solidarity and cooperation. Each group meets at least once per month to review designs and quality and offer social support and friendship. In total, the artists support 252 family members with their work.

Multicolores offers artists ongoing creative learning opportunities through workshops, creative challenges, commissions, and more. Multicolores provides artists with immediate, fair payment and coordinates marketing, promotion, and exhibitions of their artwork.

The artists of Multicolores have exhibited their work in 14 museums and galleries in Guatemala, the United States, Canada and the UK, including the Textile Museum of Canada, Toronto; the Avenir Museum at Colorado State University, Fort Collins; Latino Cultural Arts Center, Denver; Centro de Formación de la Cooperación, Antigua. Our 2021 exhibition, Ancestral Colors, at the Amy Kaslow Gallery in Washington DC elicited a wonderful review by the Washington Post’s art critic.

Multicolores is an eight-time participant in the prestigious International Folk Art Market (IFAM) in Santa Fe, NM (medium – rug hooking). In 2019 Multicolores won the IFAM Community Impact Award which recognizes those organizations who have had a positive impact on social change and improving lives in their community.

Rug Money: How a group of Maya women changed their lives through art and innovation, written by Multicolores’ co-founders Mary Anne Wise and Cheryl Conway-Daly, was awarded a silver medal at the Independent Book Publishers Awards in April 2019.  

Multicolores’ artists, the majority of staff, and the President of the Board are based in Guatemala. Other Board members are based in the US. Some staff divide professional time between the US and Guatemala. Multicolores is legally registered as a non profit in Guatemala. We work with a 501(c)(3) fiscal sponsor in the United States – Farmer to Farmer.