Wence Martinez grew up in a Mexican town famous for its weaving. When he ran across a drawing by Milwaukee artist Sandra Hackbarth, the two began an artistic collaboration that grew into love. Today, Wence and Sandra Martinez share their art and their lives with studios in Door County, Wisconsin, and Santa Fe, New Mexico.
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Wence: It’s a tradition of my village where I was born that weaving has been passed on for many, many generations. So you learn from your grandfather, to your dad. My older brother helped me learn. I used to watch my dad weave at night. I would sit under their loom and watch his hands weaving. And I always thought, man, I can’t wait to help them. When I got to be nine, I could reach the loom. Then I started weaving.
Sandra: I was an obsessive potter from the age of 14 in Milwaukee. And even before then, there was a sandbox out back and I would dig through the sand to get to the clay underneath, and then make stuff out of it, and then be a complete mess. I developed these personal drawings that are like primitive drawings. They’re very stick-figure-ish. They’re very simple. I was in Chicago and my girlfriend from college said, “I’ve been to this incredible village where they are incredible weavers and they could weave anything. And I think your drawings would look really cool as a weaving. So give me one and I’ll take it there.” And so I did. I gave her this little ink painting and some terrible newsprint.
Wence: I said, man, that looks very interesting. So I said, okay, I’m going to do that. And so I wove that piece. And after we finished it, we shipped it back to the US.
Sandra: Six months later, this thing arrives that’s four by six feet from this little painting. And it is so true to the hand-drawn line that I was completely enamored with it. And I wanted to meet the weaver who made that piece. And I wanted to collaborate and do more work with that exact person because the spirit of him was so evident.
Wence: When we met, we just got so attracted to each other. And then I came here. And then that’s when we started getting more serious about our relationship. I didn’t speak English back then. She didn’t speak Spanish. So we bought two dictionaries. Exactly the same. So she would say something, and we spent hours and hours to be able to communicate.
Sandra: I think it was completely natural. Really from the minute we met, we just felt like we were connected at the hip. And so it was just natural to say, “What do you think about this? What do you think about that?” Now there’s a rhythm of almost one and one. Where Wence will weave one of his pattern driven pieces.
Wence: One of mine, and one of hers. It depends. Sometimes I see her painting that looks so beautiful I can’t wait to weave it. So I do two of hers.
Sandra: We love it. I don’t think we’d be happy any other way. You know, we struggled so hard to be together that once we were together, we’re grateful for that. That’s a gift.
