The art of being Kuna: Molas

June 30, 2004 12:36 PM

The art of being Kuna - the Kuna, an aboriginal people living off the coast of Panama, are perhaps most famous for their colorful fabric panels called molas. The Kuna women wear these embroidered appliques on blouses. The most prized specimens are those that show some sign of wear, such as fading, distress, or stitch marks, indicating authentic and traditional molas rather than ones produced for tourists. If you'd like to try your hand at making a mola, the 5th grade class at Highland Park can show you how.
posted by madamjujujive (4 comments total)

This is great. I found some pages with collections that represent, I guess, examples of molas that have been created for the tourist or retail market, but they are still wonderfully vibrant and gorgeous. (Also, a few more photos showing molas being worn.) And the middle photo on this page shows just an incredible example of deliciously psychedelic, surreal, sort of high-comic-art-style, completely mola-mazing work!

Thanks for this discovery.
posted by taz at 2:43 PM on June 30, 2004

¡Adoro molas! Here's the one that my bestest pal gave me for my birthday last year.
posted by MrBaliHai at 4:39 PM on June 30, 2004

Great find, mjjj! This is some truly beautiful stuff.

I gotta say, though (continuing my quest to find something wrong with every link), that "make" a Mola thing on the first site was lame, lame, lame.
posted by soyjoy at 7:26 AM on July 1, 2004

nice finds, taz... thanks - you always add great stuff to the threads you comment in ;-)

...and good to see you, MrBaliHai! Nice mola! Sure beats the cheese board I got on my birthday, ha.

soyjoy, that is a bit lame. We'll have to take our cues from the 5th graders.
posted by madamjujujive at 8:47 PM on July 1, 2004