A rather brief list of opposing characteristics given the abundant similarities. The mola, due to the concentric nature of its design (a result of cutting down through layers of fabric to reveal the desired shape all the while tucking under and sewing border upon border) is strongly linear. This is true for stained glass due to the nature of the art. The piecing together of carefully cut, brilliantly colored glass pieces married together by a graceful orchestration of soldiered metals.

Further, the mola is a meticulous art requiring imagination, precision and time, time, time. I believe this is also a requirement of the stained glass panel and artist. In each art cutting and connecting are key. The mola adorns the body and tells a story in its design. Stained glass has story telling ancestry (when was the last time you entered a protestant church without allegorical glass panels) and although, as far as I know, not created to adorn the body, stained glass most commonly embellishes sacred human spaces such as the home.

I recently read a posting by Jenny Bowker an Australian quilt maker living in Cairo, Egypt. Her blog Postcards From Cairo highlighted a trip she and a fellow master quilter named Mohamed made to France. They had little fortune in selling their work:

“…I have been encouraging the workers to make the best and most beautiful work they can and they have responded with stunning pieces. Unfortunately what sold was the smaller and cheaper work - so that is what they will now make, and the best will be folded away and not repeated.”

I reflect on this phenomenon given the abundance and popularity of small pieces of so called “mola art” that represent little time and skill invested as compared to the mola panels that inspire them. I have a few Kuna friends in the mountainous, crater-valley town in which I live. They are here from the San Blas to sell their goods during the week and grow in number on the weekends as we have a well known open air market frequented by travelers. Sure enough, many of them offer a dozen or so mid to low quality mola panels and all manner of mola-esque souvenirs.

Do these lesser productions affect the quality and popularity of the mola? I wonder. Unlike the quilters of Egypt, the majority of Kuna women continue to craft dazzling molas to adorn their blouses for their own enjoyment and community respect. Like the ember of a wavering fire these women maintain the art form for the time being.

The Kuna people began to cover themselves free of missionary influence in the early 1700’s. The women created blouses with rough reverse applique designs to cover their chest, abdomen and thighs while also wearing a large rectangular piece of fabric wrapped around their lower body. Nearly two hundred years later with time and trade the long, tunic style mola shortened to stop at the abdomen. By the turn of the 2oth century mola design was essentially what it is today although current generations of Kuna craftswomen create with more color, control and creativity than ever before.

Hmm. I, like many, have realized the circular nature of consumer trends. Whatever the masses have wanted in the past the masses of the future will want again when the “must haves” of the past are reborn twenty or so years in the future.

No matter that the mola is not a must have. I am not burning to see the amazing textile art of the Kuna women commercialized once again. I would rather see a trend toward my conviction which is that the original, hand cut and stitched reverse applique art of the mola is an art form more appropriate for framing with archival materials and hanging with appropriate lighting than carrying around as a stuffed animal.

Originally, mola designs were largely geometric and abstract in nature. Eventually, they began to represent spiritual belief, the role of women within Kuna society, ceremonies, daily life as well as flora and fauna. As the Kuna people began to have contact with tourists visiting their islands and with media in the form of stories and print materials brought to the islands from inland the molas of the Kuna women began to reflect modern times.

The uppermost panel is sketched upon in pencil to layout the largest elements of the chosen design. The fabric panels are then basted together and the real work begins. With all panels basted together the Kuna woman begins to cut through the top layer of cloth to reveal the chosen panels/colors below. As she works to reveal the primary accent color, she will turn under and hand-sew the cut edges to begin to reveal neat line work. She will continue her design work by next attending to the large islands of cloth remaining, carefully cutting down through the layer to expose the desired color and sewing the edges under with armies of small, parallel hand stitches. This process unique to the Kuna women of the San Blas Archipelago, Panama has become known as reverse applique although, many modern molas are finished with minimal traditional applique of the uppermost layer.