How One Woman Saved Her Family's 300-Year-Old Candle Making Tradition | Still Standing

candle making has been in this family for over 300 years viviana alaves is one of the last people in her mexican village who still knows how to make these candles by hand they were commonly used in church services and proposal ceremonies and it was viviana's break from tradition that saved the family business and the art form we visited oaxaca to see how viviana's workshop is still standing [Music] making candles starts with the wax viviana's daughter-in-law guillermina breaks it up by hand then viviana melts it over a fire fueled by wood and corn cobs she learned the craft at around 8 years old her parents left her when she was a child and her grandma couldn't afford to send her to school she taught her to make candles instead [Music] 64 years later she runs the business with her family but a lot has changed they used to get the wax from local bee farmers but a changing climate has forced them to find another source over 200 miles away viviana uses a bowl as a mold and dips it first into the hot wax then into cold water to harden it she can make up to 40 pounds of these discs in a day viviana then lays them out on the roof of her house she lives in the small village of teotihlan de valle the zapotec indigenous people have been living here since the 15th century the discs sit for up to a month bleaching under the sun this purifies the wax and makes it a blank canvas so it can be melted down again and died then it's time to make the candlesticks these candles started out as bare wicks one layer at a time they pour wax over them and let them dry for 10 minutes before adding the next layer it takes an entire month to get them to this size the biggest candle viviana has ever made was nearly six feet tall and weighed 30 pounds finally they cut the bottoms to make the candlesticks even this week the family is filling an order of 48 candles for a proposal ceremony but business wasn't always like this up until the 1980s viviana and other candle makers didn't get paid for their work instead they offered the candles to the church in exchange for food you had eventually most candle makers couldn't afford to keep working and moved on to other trades but viviana didn't give up she came up with new designs like flowers made out of wax instead of paper regaledos [Music] poco poco le then she broke tradition by selling her candles in order to save the business but her grandmother was not happy when [Music] her creations eventually became so popular throughout town that she's now a local celebrity lomas viviana and her family make hundreds of wax figurines each week by cutting shaping and molding viviana has preserved some of the original candle elements she still has the molds that have been passed down for three generations like this one that she uses to make an angel figurine and all the dyes are natural the red color comes from an insect she still uses paper flowers like her grandma did but it's the flowers made from wax that she's most proud of each ornament holds a certain significance [Music] viviana is the first candle maker to sell outside of her village she now gets business from couples all over oaxaca and from a jewelry store in new york city in mexico each one of her candles sells for 300 pesos or 15 dollars and they're used for religious festivals too like the mayo dormia an annual celebration honoring the village's saint promise but business has been slow over the past year as the pandemic has halted the usual gatherings left [Music] viviana has taught the craft to young women in the village so the tradition can live on after her oh and she's counting on her daughter-in-law to pass it on to her children too [Music] [Music] is [Laughter] [Music] you

Channel: Business Insider

Views: 3,300,470

Keywords: Business Insider, Business News, Candles, Small Business, Candle Making

Id: bh9S5KOOCd0

Length: 8min 3sec (483 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 30 2021

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[u/Baba-Yagagaga]

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