Jamie Pesquiza Cardenas (center) teaching a workshop at the Valley Hi-North Laguna Park Public Library. Photo courtesy of the artist
Jamie Pesquiza Cardenas
Philippine Weaving
Jamie Pesquiza Cardenas is an Ilokana cultural worker, medicine maker, and weaver of inabel. She believes that how we adorn ourselves is a celebration of who we are and where we come from, and that cloth serves as a spiritual second skin and a form of protection. Jamie’s work has focused on the Itneg and Ilokano weaving motif kusikus, which represents a spiral or whirlpool. Its design is believed to dizzy and drive away malevolent spirits. She is a descendant of inabel weavers from Santa, Ilocos Sur, and is related to National Living Treasure and inabel weaver Magdalena Galinato Gamayo. Jamie is dedicated to keeping the tradition of inabel alive in the Filipinx/a/o diaspora as part of our cultural inheritance and somatic healing practice. She has also been awarded the 2025–2026 Creative Growth Fellowship for Craft and the National Academy of Design’s Abbey Mural Prize for the Threads of Belonging Project, a community-woven fiber arts mural.
Jamie Pesquiza Cardenas Instagram
Apprenticeship Program
2026
Philippine Weaving with apprentice Jana Mae Rubio
Jana Mae Rubio will learn from Jamie Pesquiza Cardenas the floor-loom weaving techniques traditionally used in Philippine piña weaving, an endangered textile art historically rooted on the island of Panay. The apprenticeship will focus on strengthening Jana Mae’s familiarity and skill with the floor loom, building the technical foundation needed to work deftly with piña fiber when it becomes accessible to her. Through this training, Jana Mae will deepen her connection to this nationally recognized Filipino tradition and help support the continuation of this endangered Filipino textile tradition.
