About / Store
Store Hours: Thursday - Sunday 11- 4
W3560 State Hwy 35, The Great River Road, Maiden Rock, WI 54750
715-448-2053
info@culturalcloth.com
Explore an ever-changing inventory of one-of-a-kind, distinctive handmade home textiles, décor items and accessories that we’ve collected on our far-flung travels.
We represent the work of artisans from around the world who weave, quilt, embroider, stitch, knot, hook, bead, print and dye handmade home goods and accessories. We love the pieces that you can actually use every day that remind you of the talent, patience and skill of women everywhere. Feel the culture of the artisans. We know many of the artisans, mostly women, who make our pieces and currently offer items from more than 30 countries.
Our store in Maiden Rock WI is open! Depending on the season, our hours and days vary so check our schedule. Maiden Rock is a happening town with a year-round population of 104 that is nestled on the shores of beautiful Lake Pepin on the Great River Road and only a 90-minute drive from the Twin Cities.
We love to travel. We are passionate about off-the-beaten path places where people often still live quite traditionally. On these trips we meet artisans who make
amazing traditional handwork that has always been passed down through the family. Our focus is on women artisans.
These women often aren’t working outside the home, but they need income. We learned that they found it almost impossible to sell their pieces in the US. We decided that we wanted to help them sell in the US. We started out selling to our friends out of our trunk, the original trunk shows!
Today, Cultural Cloth is a social enterprise that works primarily with women. We represent the work of artisans from around the world who weave, quilt, embroider, stitch, knot, hook, bead, print and dye handmade home goods and accessories. We love the pieces that you can actually use every day that remind you of the talent, patience and skill of women everywhere.
We have over 60 years of textile production experience between us, including representation of our handwoven rugs in national design showrooms, and we use this experience to develop and mentor the women as artisans and entrepreneurs who can successfully participate in the global marketplace and earn money to support themselves and their families.
Our work is informed by Jody’s 25-year-long work and friendships with Maya members of Farmer to Farmer, a nonprofit that works with coffee farmers in Guatemala and Honduras.
Mary Anne & Jody are two of the four of Multicolores, an artisan nonprofit in Guatemala, established with Reyna Pretzantzin and Cheryl Conway Daly. Using locally sourced cast-off clothing as a material, they introduced rug hooking as an income earning opportunity to a group of Maya women in 2009. The project transformed lives and in 2019 Multicolores was recognized by the International Folk Art Market with their Community Impact Award. In 2018 Mary Anne co-wrote with Cheryl Conway Daly the award-winning book that tells the story of this work: Rug Money: How A Group Of Maya Women Changed Their Lives Through Art and Innovation, published by Thrums Books.
Here are some shots around the shop.
Cultural Cloth Co-Founders:
Jody Slocum & Mary Anne Wise
Jody Slocum, Operations & Co-Founder (on the left)
Jody Slocum worked as a rug weaver for over 15 years. She studied weaving and dying in Japan. She has traveled extensively throughout the developing world. The combination of her passion for social justice and textiles brought her to join the NGO Farmer to Farmer in 1992. For over 20 years Jody has been on the board of directors of Farmer to Farmer. Today that work focuses on selling coffee grown by Mayan women farmers and raising money for school scholarships for Maya families in Guatemala.
Mary Anne Wise, President & Co-Founder (on the right)
Mary Anne Wise is an esteemed American textile artist, curator and visionary advocate for indigenous textile traditions. She is nationally recognized as an accomplished weaver, inspired creator of one-of-a-kind hooked rugs, and, as a rug hooking design teacher.
Her work is in numerous corporate and private collections throughout the US. In 2009 she co-founded Cultural Cloth to promote sales that support women textile practitioners from around the world including her Guatemalan rug-hooking students.
W3560 State Hwy 35, The Great River Road, Maiden Rock, WI 54750
715-448-2053
info@culturalcloth.com
Our Maiden Rock Store hours: Thursday - Sunday 11-4