HebraViva, creating with the land

Before working with a tufting gun, Claudia León explored painting, hand-painted caps, and embroidery. She studied advertising, but for more than five years she has devoted herself to the arts. HebraViva grew out of that journey: not as a brand planned overnight, but as a search that moved from one technique to another until she found in yarn a new way to build images.

Creating before repeating

Claudia remembers that Otavalo was where she found the space to express herself and channel her energy into creating. She began with painting. Then came Capullo, a project of hand-painted caps. Later, she joined an embroidery workshop and held yarn in her hands for the first time. From embroidery she moved into weaving, then punch needle, and two years ago into tufting, the technique she chose to stay with because of the possibilities it offered.

The name Hebra Viva sums up that relationship with making. For Claudia, a work comes to life as she creates it, and it does so again when it reaches a different wall, home, or person. That idea also explains why she does not seek to produce identical pieces. Even when someone asks for a design similar to another one, reproducing it exactly is almost impossible.

“I’m alive while I’m making it, and it’s also about being able to bring a piece to life from scratch.”

That unique character was not fully resolved from the beginning. Between her first piece and the ones she makes today, she sees a distance shaped by trial and error: finding a backing capable of withstanding the force of the tool, choosing the right wool, defining the appropriate yarn weight, and improving the finishes. Part of the learning process has been understanding the material while working with it.

From screen to frame

When a piece begins with an original idea, the process starts on a tablet. In Procreate, she tests elements, combines them, and chooses colors. She then transfers the design to jute, the backing stretched on the frame, and begins inserting the yarn with the tufting gun.

The comparison she uses to explain the process comes from her earlier work: the gun functions like a paintbrush and the wool like paint. Once the composition is complete, she applies adhesive to the back and moves on to shearing, which helps define volume, texture, and sharper detail. Finally, she adds a label before considering the piece finished.

Jute and wool are also part of Hebra Viva’s relationship with Otavalo. Claudia tries to source the materials there and pays particular attention to the strength of the backing. She prefers natural sheep’s wool for its more rustic appearance and the intensity of its colors, and chooses a heavier yarn weight that gives the piece greater presence.

Ecuador as a starting point

Her inspiration began with familiar elements: hummingbirds, maize, llamas. Over time, those motifs stopped being simply figures and began to become stories. Two llamas could speak of love; an adult hummingbird and a smaller one, joined by strands of yarn, could represent the bond between mother and child.

Then came maps. First, a map of Ecuador composed of elements Claudia connects with her roots and memories; later, one of Latin America, incorporating references to the Andes, the Amazon, the rainforest, the condor, flowers, and wildlife. Her interest is not simply in reproducing geography, but in turning it into tangible memory.

“I find it very difficult not to find inspiration in Ecuador.”

That connection also appears in the reactions of customers who live outside the country. Claudia says one of the things that surprises her most is seeing how a work created by her hands can end up on the other side of the world. In those cases, she has come to recognize that the value lies not only in the object itself, but in keeping a reference to one’s place of origin close by.

A brand that is still growing

HebraViva has also expanded into new formats. In addition to tapestries and rugs, Claudia developed a collection of handbags using the same technique. For her, that possibility shows the versatility of tufting: a piece can retain an artistic dimension while also becoming an object for everyday use.

Growth has required patience. Becoming known was one of the initial challenges. Her previous experience with Capullo taught her to use social media, especially Instagram, not only to show the finished result but also the process and the person behind each work. For Claudia, communicating who creates, where the ideas come from, and what values sustain the work is part of building a connection with the audience.

She does not have a fixed roadmap for the coming years. She wants Hebra Viva to continue expanding and blending with other techniques. She is already experimenting with yarn, weaving, and painting, and prefers to leave open the possibility that one practice may lead to the next.

For a brand built through exploration, that seems to be the clearest form of continuity: continuing to experiment without losing the connection to the land, color, and stories that gave rise to its first pieces.