Bartsi, or Giving Beauty in the Ari language, is a mysterious art form passed down from mother to daughter in the Ari tribe of Omo Valley, Ethiopia. Skilled Ari tribeswomen are the proud custodians of their ancestors’ tradition of wall-paintings and continue to embellish their round huts for ceremonies and holidays. The dot painting style is reminiscent of Australian Aboriginal art, though Ari artists use only 4 colors made of soil and they paint with their fingers. According to their tradition, Bartsi must be performed on round mud walls so women won’t paint on modern, rectangular homes. In the mid-1990s the South Omo Research Center Museum (SORC) in Jinka launched the Bartsi Project, commissioning tribeswomen to paint on canvas. The museum giftshop showcased the artworks, momentarily raising awareness on the underrated Bartsi. But as modern society is slowly catching up with Omo Valley, Ari wall-painting could become a fading art very soon.

L.A based filmmaker and visual artist Lori Precious spent two of her childhood years in Mogadishu, Somalia and has since been drawn to East Africa unique artistry. When she first saw Ari painters at work, she felt Bartsi was the purest artistic expression of the Ari people who are best known for their pottery. “Ari women say there’s no meaning to the designs, it just flows from them and they create what they like. They have difficult lives but still find meaning in creating beauty. That’s remarkable and terribly moving”. She saw these patterns would be perfect for block printing and boldly embarked on a business and creative adventure with the tribeswomen. Ethio Sky was launched in 2016 primarily to help skilled women earn an income from their art, but also as a way for the artist’s adopted daughter from Ethiopia, to stay connected to her country. In 2018, when mother and daughter were spending 5 months together in Ethiopia, Lori began training a small group of women to linoleum block printing onto fabric.

The Ari tribe is the largest ethnic group in Omo Valley, numbering over 300,000 people living in villages around the city of Jinka. “The Ari are mainly farmers and live on a barter system. With the money women get from Ethio Sky, they can buy kitchen utensils, get health care or like Gaymo, a single mother with two children, buy a cow, which is a big deal. She named it Lori! The women I work with are illiterate but very smart, a few of them own a phone, but they don’t have electricity or internet access. Some of the greatest challenges I faced were to set up reliable communications, affordable shipping and transparency in payment. Ethio Sky is mainly working with a core group of 4 women, named Gaymo, Nuritu, Keynesh and Aregash, and part of my job is to protect their integrity and make sure they receive the money. I pay everything upfront and provides all the materials”.

The natural paints of Bartsi are created with black ground charcoal, white soil, red soil, and green is obtained with cow dung. Ari women walk long distances to reach gypsum deposits and the process of making the paints takes a few days. “For block printing we use color fast and non-toxic permanent inks. The goal is to stay as close to the Ari tradition as possible, so we keep the 4 earthy tones, occasionally adding shades of blues or yellows”.

“The Ari artists are extremely talented. Block printing felt natural to them, so they learned really fast. We went through their designs and selected those that I knew would translate well to block printing. My linoleum blocks are not mounted on wood so they’re really flexible, easy to use. Sometimes they do go back in with their fingers when the prints are not perfect. They are printing basic textiles like bed throws, blankets, ponchos and wraps. I like the idea of making things that don’t have to fit and are easy to handprint”.

Ethio Sky recently refocused on creating textiles entirely handcrafted in Ethiopia, “with no electricity involved in the process”. The small ethnic brand is coming full circle by putting the emphasis on Ethiopian craftsmanship and Ari designs. “I see myself as a conduit for the Ari women, simply helping them to do what they do best so they can make a living. Our new collection is still a work in progress, but the common thread is to keep the authenticity. Our former products were digitally printed on silk in China and it didn’t feel right anymore. I’ve had the realization that I enjoyed the art of the handmade, so I decided to exclusively focus on the hand printed textiles”.

The new collection is made with fine Ethiopian organic cotton, handspun by women on their spinning wheels and handloomed by male weavers in Addis Ababa. The printed textiles sustain the visual strength of Bartsi while their hand-blocked feel reflects the creative spirit of the Ari women and Lori’s inner vision of beauty. While in Addis, Lori asked a group of crocheters to crochet some cotton widths together, feeling crochet stitches would be exquisite details on her bedspreads. “These handprinted textiles have so much work and love put into them. They have a story. It’s sometimes challenging to try to get people understand what they are actually buying. They wouldn’t find anything like it in a department store. What we do is typically Ethiopian, yet there is nothing like it, even in Ethiopia! “

Further south in Omo Valley, Ethio Sky partners with Hamer tribeswomen, renowned for their beadwork and their knotted hair plastered in red ochre. A small group of beaders makes necklaces, waistbands and bracelets in their own traditional styles, using local acacia wood beads and recently, metal beads made from copper, brass or pewter, Lori brings from the Addis Mercato. She never tries to influence their designs but is guiding them through colors or suggesting minor alterations such as swapping plastic spacers with leather ones or using organic cotton cords instead of plastic cord.

In 2018, Ethio Sky teamed up with Amour Leather in Addis Ababa to give out Aqua Packs to Omo Valley tribeswomen who must walk long distances on a daily basis to fetch clean drinking water. They’re carrying heavy jerry cans strapped to their backs with ropes, and many are suffering from bone and skeletal diseases. “Amour is a dynamo! She designed a backpack with padded shoulders and adjustable straps that fits the containers.  When we took one hundred Aqua Packs to Omo Valley, women would put them on and stand up straight. It was great to see.”