[birds singing]
>> In Door County,
just south of Jacksonport,
and just off Highway 57,
there's an old garage
with two stories.
And inside, two artists
with stories all their own.
On the second floor,
there's Sandra,
who works on paper.
More on her later.
And on the first floor,
there's Wence,
a man who's lived his life
at the loom.
>> It's in my blood.
It's just,
I can't get away from it.
>> Wence grew up
in Oaxaca, Mexico,
in a family and in a village
where most everyone wove.
>> I used to watch my dad weave
at night.
I would sit under the loom
and watch his hands weaving.
And I always thought,
man, I can't wait to help him.
When I got to be 9,
I reached the loom,
I could reach the loom,
so I started weaving.
>> As a teenager, Wence
took art classes in Mexico city.
He wanted to do more
than maintain tradition.
He wanted to make something new.
>> When I was weaving
for somebody else in Mexico,
working for somebody else,
they would say, okay, I need
50 pieces of this design,
or whatever, how many pieces.
So I would repeat those a lot.
So one of the things
I really wanted to do
was create my own designs.
>> Sandra started young, too.
Not in Mexico, but Milwaukee.
>> I was an obsessive potter
from the age of 14
in Milwaukee.
And even before then,
there was a sandbox out back,
and I would dig through the sand
to get to the clay
underneath the sand,
and then make stuff out of it,
and then be a complete mess.
>> She stuck with it,
studying ceramics in college.
But as a young woman,
Sandra traded clay
for pencil, paint and paper.
>> I developed these
personal drawings that are
like primitive drawings.
They're very stick-figure-ish.
They're very simple.
>> She kept working,
kept drawing,
until one conversation
changed everything.
>> I had no idea that it was
one of those monster
turning points in your life,
where everything
was different after that.
You look back now,
and it all seems so clear.
But at the time, it wasn't.
I was in Chicago,
and my girlfriend from college
said, "I've been to this
incredible village where
they are incredible weavers,
and they can weave anything.
I think your drawings would
look really cool as a weaving.
So give me one
and I'll take it there."
So I did.
I gave her this little,
you know, little ink painting
on some terrible newsprint.
>> Days later, that newsprint
turned up at Wence's
family business.
I said, man, that looks
very interesting.
So, I said, okay,
I'm going to do that.
So, I wove that piece
and, you know,
after we finished it,
we shipped it back to the U.S.
>> Six months later,
this thing arrives that's 4'x6'
from this little painting.
And it is so true
to the hand-drawn line
that I was completely enamored
with it.
I wanted to meet the weaver
who made that piece, and
I wanted collaborate and do more
work with that exact person,
because the spirit of him
was so evident.
>> So Sandra saved her money
and traveled to Oaxaca.
She met Wence,
and they agreed to collaborate.
He would weave 15 of Sandra's
pieces.
Sandra returned home,
but the two kept in touch
through long-distance calls
and through their work.
And while they built
a collection of weavings,
they also built a relationship.
That work and that relationship
came together in 1988,
when the two
displayed their work
at Chicago's Field Museum.
>> When we met, we were just
so attracted to each other.
And then, I came here,
when she was living in Chicago,
that's when we started,
like, getting more serious
about our relationship.
>> There were definitely people
in both of our worlds
who were like, are you sure?
You're so different.
But when you get right down
to it, what we have in common
are the things
that are most important.
>> And so Wence and Sandra,
well, tied the knot.
They moved to Door County,
and eventually opened
their first studio
in an old chicken house.
Within a few years, they
upgraded to that two-story
garage, and along the way,
they developed the kind of
collaboration few can match.
>> Really, from the minute
we met, we just felt like
we were connected at the hip.
>> Their weavings have gained
national attention.
In 2013, they were accepted
into the Smithsonian Craft Show
in Washington, D.C.
But for all they've learned
about design,
Wence and Sandra Martinez
have learned something else,
the art of weaving two stories
into one.
>> We love it.
I don't know,
I don't think we'd be happy
any other way.
You know, we struggled so hard
to be together,
that once we were together,
we're grateful for that.
That's a gift.