Handmade in Oaxaca: Art + Culture Workshop September 2025

Handmade in Oaxaca Art + Culture Workshop: watercolor, natural pigments, mixed media/collage

DATES: September 19–28, 2025

art workshop with watercolor, natural pigments, mixed media/collage + culture immersion
with Oaxacan artist Pedro Cruz Pacheco & Corrie McCluskey, plus master pigment maker Indiana Christov
Oaxaca, Mexico

ART + CULTURE ADVENTURE IN THE HEART OF OAXACA

Do you need to feed your creative soul? Fill it to the brim with creative transformation, fresh inspiration, and memories to last a lifetime. Join an intimate group of travelers for a magical art + culture immersion workshop in Oaxaca, Mexico where you’ll meet a rich culture that celebrates creativity and traditions. Jump on this quickly, space is very limited.

Our workshops are different. We combine art instruction with carefully curated private field trips where we meet master artists and artisans in their studios out in the far flung pueblos, sit with them to hear their stories, get to know their process and cultural traditions, share an intimate afternoon with them. Then we bring these experiences into our art classes.

The focus of this workshop: revel in the HANDMADE – your art experiments done in class, the watercolor paint you’ll make with natural pigments, the handmade paper that we’ll use in making a little book, and the beautiful art and handicrafts you’ll see in artisan studios and galleries. The art classes feature watercolor painting with Pedro – who incorporates personal symbols, talismans, Oaxacan culture and the natural world into his work – and mixed media/collage and experimenting with mark making with Corrie to develop your unique visual voice. Plus: a hands-on full day of pure alchemy, making your own watercolor paint with natural pigments with our guest art instructor.

Be surprised by what shows up on paper, find the imagery that resonates with you…take risks and let go of needing to be perfect. You’ll use Oaxaca-sourced handmade paper in an artist book you create to take home.

This workshop is a combination of watercolor exploration, making paint from natural pigments, visual journaling with mixed media/collage (in a sketchbook or on loose paper), and experimenting with mark making, to develop your unique visual voice by playing with different materials. Be surprised by what shows up on paper, find the imagery that resonates with you. The ultimate goal: saying yes to stepping into the unknown and experimenting in your artmaking, playing with ephemera, and painting your symbols, talismans, and personal marks.

The REAL Oaxaca is found in the villages and private workspaces, and our field trips include the Sunday market in Tlacolula, largest of the traditional zapotec style ‘tianguis’ markets, a studio visit with a master papermaker, a women’s red clay collective, a famous art center housed in a renovated textile factory – all mixed in with art instruction and creative play time. Also, we have a private natural pigment class in a master pigment makers’ studio where we’ll make our own watercolor paint.

The master weaver family of Fe y Lola will show us how they make and use gorgeous indigo and cochineal to dye their rugs, and we’ll head to the studio of pigment maker Indiana Christov to make our own luscious earth-toned watercolors with natural pigments from Oaxaca and Puebla’s Sierra Mixteca. We’ll visit renowned papermaker Alberto Valenzuela, learn the history of papermaking, choose handmade paper crafted with local-sourced natural fibers, and use it to cover a little book we’ll make to collage in.

While you’re with us…Mexico’s culinary heartland is Oaxaca – get your mole on with the seven rich, complex varieties from spicy to sweet, (rojo, coloradito, amarillo, verde, negro, chichilo, and manchamantel), stroll through a vast traditional Zapotec Sunday market for the array of artisanal crafts, food stalls, buckets of tejate (fermented cacao, toasted corn & mamey drink), mountains of fresh produce and aromatic spices, view eyepoppingly colorful street art, and get as much real cultural immersion as you can get in 7 days!

Who should attend this workshop: This workshop is for artists & creative people who love to make things with their hands; we’ll explore watercolor, mixed media collage, making paint with natural pigments, mark making with India ink and other simple materials – all while taking a deep dive into the art, culture, and real ancestral traditions of Oaxaca. Folks who are flexible, have an open, curious mind, and are willing to step out of their comfort zone will feel most at home. We expect everyone to participate fully in the workshop throughout the week. Complete beginners are most welcome!

Nurture your creative soul with us: your life will shift with this retreat – it will stoke the fire within to feed your mind, body, and soul. Many visitors to Oaxaca never make it past the tourist center – we will go direct to the heart and soul of this ancient place – the studios, kitchens, streets and markets – and get to know the people and traditions with their rich culture, food, and art.

Workshop details:

• 7-day art + culture workshop in the heart of Oaxaca, Mexico
• Group field trips with private van
• Maximum 10 participants
• 9 nights at a charming hotel built in the 16th century, in the heart of the city center
• hotel rooms have private bathrooms, wifi, fans, restaurant next door, courtyard to enjoy breakfast or sip morning coffee
• hotel is 1 block from zocalo square, everything within walking distance
• art material list provided (you bring your own art supplies)
• list provided of restaurants, museums & galleries, optional tours that you can book for your day off, cool places to visit on your own

Preliminary itinerary (subject to change as needed):

• Day One: arrive in Oaxaca – afternoon welcome in the hotel courtyard & orientation
• Day Two: all day art class, lunch at studio, group welcome dinner
• Day Three: AM field trip to Sunday market; PM studio visit of weavers + special lunch
• Day Four: all day pigment making class, lunch in neighborhood
• Day Five: all day art class, lunch at studio, PM art gallery walk
• Day Six: day off to explore on your own
• Day Seven: AM field trip to papermaking studio & gorgeous art center, PM art class
• Day Eight: AM art class, trip to Tule (ancient tree), studio visit with women’s red clay collective
• Day Nine: all day art class + art show, lunch at studio, group farewell dinner
• Day Ten: depart Oaxaca

The art classes generally run from 10 am – 5 pm, with lunch at midday.

Our instructors:
Pedro Cruz Pacheco is a painter from Santa Cruz Amilpas, Oaxaca, Mexico who works in watercolor, oil, and mixed media. He left his job in a brickyard in 1999 and initially began his career as a self-taught artist. He spent 8 years apprenticing in the studio of master Oaxacan painter Felipe Morales, and showed & sold his work for years in Labastida Plaza in downtown Oaxaca (by Santo Domingo church). Pedro has exhibited in Mexico (Oaxaca, Mexico City, Puerto Vallarta, Merida, Monterrey), Texas, and California (San Francisco, Los Angeles, Sonoma County, Eureka), and has taught watercolor workshops in Oaxaca and Baja, BCS, Mexico. Pedro’s style is very Oaxaca-influenced, with magic realism as an artistic point of view – a Mexican version of surrealism. His work is intimate, private, and incorporates personal symbols and talismans that reflect his own life experiences as well as the history and customs of Oaxaqueños. His work features bright, vivid colors and his own deeply personal and heart-felt spiritual view of the world around him.

Corrie McCluskey (workshop coordinator) is a visual artist originally from Northern California (now living in Santa Cruz Amilpas, Oaxaca) who was a b&w photographer for two decades. She transitioned into visual journaling, mail art, collage, bookbinding and making artist books. She now focuses on mixed media on paper: collage, encaustic monotypes, abstract painting with natural pigments & India ink, graphite, cold wax with oil pigment sticks. Visual journaling is a part of her art expression: it’s all about process and discovery – a container for ideas and play with ephemera. She is a “Guidess”-in-training for people who feel unqualified or too intimidated to express their creativity because they think they can’t “do art”. For 20 years, she was a workshop and event coordinator, and she loves to bring small groups of people together and facilitate an amazing workshop experience.

Indiana Christov was born in New York from an Italian-American family and has lived between Latin America, the US and Spain, spending most of her childhood and youth in Oaxaca, where she now resides and has her main studio. The contrast of cultures has been a constant throughout her life that has forged in her work a rich and eclectic mix of aesthetic and historical references. Through independent research, reading scholarly articles on the chemistry and history of natural pigments, and soaking up traditional knowledge from the Zapotec villages in her surroundings, she started learning and reformulating recipes for historical pigments, such as cochineal lake pigment and Mayan blue, amongst others. She developed a series of workshops so anyone, including kids, can learn to make natural pigments, and non-toxic, solvent-free formulas for watercolor and oil paints.

Workshop location & lodging:

Our hotel in Oaxaca: Hotel Parador San Agustín
We have a block of 10 rooms reserved at Hotel Parador San Agustín, a 16th century building with a traditional courtyard and terrace (each room has either 2 double beds or 1 king bed, and private bathroom). Rooms are charming yet basic, clean and secure, and the hotel is centrally located one block from the zocalo square in the city’s historic center and within walking distance of the huge indoor market, banks/ATMs, museums, galleries, shops and cafes. Amenities: all rooms have private bathroom, TV, & free wifi; airport shuttle is available (w/ surcharge), breakfast at nextdoor restaurant (w/ surcharge), computer station, self-serve laundry facilities; upstairs floors accessible by stairs only, all rooms have fans only (no A/C).

Our art class location in Oaxaca: A private van will pick up the group daily from our hotel to bring you to Pedro & Corrie’s newly built “industrial rustic” Talismán Oaxaca art studios, located in a cornfield in Santa Cruz Amilpas (Pedro’s hometown), just 15 minutes from city center. We’ll have space to spread out, make a mess, play with materials, and just let loose with our creativity! And you’ll get to see and experience what small town life is like in the valley of Oaxaca.

Schedule:
arrival: in Oaxaca, Friday, September 19
art classes + field trips: 7 days
day off: (no class or scheduled field trips) Wednesday, September 24
departure: Sunday, September 28
airport: Oaxaca Xoxocotlan International airport (OAX)

Trip fee, deadline & cancellation:
$2650 for workshop participants – deadline to register is 4/15/25

• 50% deposit with registration guarantees your space – register early before the workshop sells out.
• Deadline to register & pay deposit is 4/15/25. (Deposits, reservations, and arrangements are made well in advance of the trip, so we need to receive your registration + deposit on time.)
• Balance is due by 7/1/25, or you can pay in full upon registration (deposit + trip fee).
• If there are not enough registrations to run the workshop, your deposit/full payment will be 100% refunded.
• Deadline to register in class is 4/15/25; no deposit or trip fee refund will be given after 4/15/25. No exceptions.
• If you must cancel, contact Corrie, the workshop coordinator, immediately. You can transfer your deposit & trip fee to another person, at no charge. If there is a wait list, we will give you the first name on the list to whom you can offer your spot. Otherwise, no refunds will be issued under any circumstances. We encourage you to purchase trip insurance with “Cancel for Any Reason” to cover you for unexpected circumstances.

Registration + payment online:
To register and pay online, click below. Your payment will be processed through PayPal.