Mola panels, made of layers of cloth, are a well-known souvenir and

collectible internationally. A pair of rectangular mola panels form the

back and front of a mola blouse and are part of the dress of an
indigenous American Indian people, the Kuna (Guna), who live in
Panama and Colombia. While the mola may be considered a form of
wearable art, it has become a source of inspiration for contemporary
Western textile artworks. The techniques used by Kuna women to sew
mola panels – surface appliqué, reverse appliqué and embroidery –
have been imitated, adapted, and transformed by textile artists, often
as an evolving practice. The global influence of the mola is
demonstrated in case studies of the work of six textile artists: Tsuyako
Miyazaki (Japan), Fumiko Nakayama (Japan), John Corbett (Australia),
Charlotte Patera (US), Christel Walter (Germany) and Herta Puls (UK).
The works reviewed, stitched from the 1970s until recent times, are
considered in terms of visual organization, color palette, materials,
design motif, scale, sewing techniques, intent (meaning to the maker)
and display qualities. The individual strategies of artists in responding
to sources of inspiration originating from non-western cultures are
considered along a continuum from imitation, through adaptation, to
transformation.

History
These garments have a long history with the Kuna people of Panama
and Colombia. According to Kuna legend, molas were created at the
beginning of time by the ancient ancestors, and were hidden away in
a kalu—or underworld fortress—called Tuipis, the origin place of all
things related to women: “No man could enter this kalu, not even a
shaman, a nele. If a man approached it, a woman came out. She
seduced him, made him her husband, then sent him away before he
had entered.”[1] However, despite their mythical origins, the
materials to make molas—cloth, thread, scissors and needles—were
only brought to the region by European missionaries and/or traders
beginning in the eighteenth century.
The organic designs in mola textiles may derive from the Kuna
tradition of body painting and tattooing. Traditionally, Kuna women
wore only skirts, and adorned their upper bodies with painted
geometric or organic designs. When the Christian missionaries arrived
to the region in the sixteenth century, they required women to wear
blouses; the mola patterns may have been an adaptation of traditional
body painting to colonial circumstances.

© 2012 Michael Friedel, courtesy Rex USA

The making of molas is an exclusively female task, and it is a tradition

that is passed on through the family and by generation. Women begin
to learn to make molas when they are just girls, and continue to
produce them throughout their lives. or the most part, each woman
makes her own mola, and though she may be eager to see what a
friend or neighbor is making, she will keep and wear her own
garments. Specific molas may be worn for housework, as nightgowns,
for going out in public, or for particular celebrations; while other
designs are reserved for special occasions. Old molas are sometimes
recycled as rags, or when they are very worn out, molas might be
sold. Molas made for the tourist industry (very popular souvenirs
from Panama and Colombia!) are a different quality, although the level
of skill to make a tourist’s mola is still quite high. Remarkably, the
market sale of molas now rivals that of coconuts and crayfish, the two
primary exports of the region.