This took distinct form in the double-headed snake below, the turquoise art looted from the temples of the Mexica and peddled to the British Museum, the double-headed form perfect yet impossible.

Later, in Guatemala, I saw the double-headed snake appearing in the cheap tourist weaving of the villages. Five hundred years of slavery had degraded the art to trash for sale to foreigners.


When I decided to design weaving for export, I remembered the ancient forms even as I penciled patterns incorporating the existing forms. When I gave the patterns to the weavers, I told them I would be testing their skill with more complex figures.

Even as I exported the first simple designs, I returned to the work of the pre-Destruction Mexica and Mayas for ideas. I experimented with many designs. What could the weavers make on their looms? For a few cents more in pay, they made the design below.

As I designed and exported from Guatemala, I confronted the trash exported from Guatemala. United States import laws required nation-of-orgin tags identification on every product. To many quality shops, Guatemala meant trash -- shoddy work of inferior materials that unraveled at the first use. Too often at trade shows, buyers wanted the woven belts until they learned the belts came from Guatemala. They walked away.

How could I make my designs different from all other Guatemalan weaving exported to the United States and Europe?

I experimented with changing the shape of the belts. I had seen leather belts in tradeshows. Designers had manufactured belts in hundreds of exotic shapes and configurations. Could I change the shape of the belts woven in Guatemala?

I worked with the weavers until I produced a design tapering from five inches in width to two inches -- exactly like a leather belt I had seen in a Los Angeles tradeshow.

This belt shape worked with the buckles made by jewelers I employed -- and the tail of the belt could be tied through the slot for the buckle. I could sell the 'Triangle' belts with or without buckles and no other importer had the skill and quality control to produce the 'Triangles.'

I drew the 'Triangle' snake belt.

Even as I continued selling a few of the straight Snake belts, the 'Triangle' belts sold to a catalog. That sale established my designs as superior to the trash of the other importers. And in turn, that recognition accelerated the sales of all the other belts and designs. (See the syntheticvideos of the belts and designs.)

Below, I display other snake designs developed after the success of the 'Triangle.' This belt proved simple and quick to produce. See the syntheticvideos.