Community

The city refuses to make public the exact salaries of its

Morgan Hill’s budget challenge is real, but it is not unusual—and it is not unsolvable. The familiar responses are to cut services or raise taxes.  While both remain options, there is a third path that deserves careful, open-minded consideration: selective service consolidation, particularly with the...

Rally Brings Little Criminal Activity

Top football players from Gilroy, Christopher, Live Oak and Sobrato joined a Sobrato-oriented coaching staff for the South squad in the 51st annual Charlie Wedemeyer All-Star Game at Los Gatos High on Feb. 1.  In the Bay Area’s most well-known and prestigious high school football...

Downtown merchants are gearing up for a fight to keep the Friday

One of the world’s leading experts on Mayan textiles recently visited The Granary in downtown Morgan Hill to view local architect Lesley Miles’ exhibit of handwoven Guatemalan pieces she collected during her visit to the country more than 35 years ago.Margot Schevill, author of “Maya Textiles of Guatemala” and other books, was impressed with the exhibit in the ground floor gallery space of The Granary, located at 17500 Depot Street.“This is wonderful,” Schevill said of the exhibit. “I did fieldwork in Guatemala with textiles at the same time as Lesley. The textiles have changed (since then) but these are still wonderful.”The exhibit titled “Woven Voices of Guatemala” displays “the remarkable weaving skills of the people from the Todos Santos region of Guatemala and throughout the highlands,” Miles said.The exhibit is a collection of huipiles (backstrap-loomed tops) and other handwoven pieces. Miles’ exhibit also includes vintage pieces from the 1950s, and it represents the traditional garments worn by the Mam, Ixil and Quiche indigenous people.The fibers in many of the garments were specially prepared before weaving, Miles said. Soaking the threads in cornstarch gave the weaver ease in her work and insured the durability of the garment. The different patterns and colors indicate the various regions. Like stories passed down from one generation to the next, the unique weaving skills and patterns of the different villages unified the people and created a textile lineage.The village in Primer Centro, inhabited by the people of Todos Santos, no longer exists due to the civil war, Miles said. However, as long as the integrity of the fibers and the energetic imprint from the weavers of these garments lives on, so will the stories of the people.“This display is in honor and memory of the people and the very fine weavers that once lived there,” Miles said.Schevill visited Morgan Hill from Berkeley. She did not know Miles when the two were in Guatemala at the same time.The exhibit will remain on display until Dec. 31.

An explosion of cell phones, faxes and other telecommunications