ETHNOTEK Bags: Limited Edition Artist Series featuring Shay McAnally
Ethnotek collaborates with Austin, Texas artist Shay McAnally to launch new, Limited Edition Artist Series Thread Collection for their Raja Roll-Top Backpacks this holiday season.
Ethnotek, purveyor of socially responsible premium laptop bags and cultural celebration, is excited to announce its collaboration with Austin, Texas native artist Shay McAnally to launch new ultra-Limited Edition Artist Series Thread Collection for their Raja Roll-Top Backpacks this holiday season, with a portion of the proceeds going to the Texas Mural Project.
Ethnotek entered the market in 2011 with a unique concept: the fusion between two seemingly disparate elements: Ethnology and Technology. It is the fusion between these two elements that something special is born: a line of high quality laptop compatible backpacks, shoulder bags and accessories that merge handmade, culturally rich textiles with technical features and functionality. The team, composed of Jake Orak, Josh Linde and Megan Suszynski, has an extreme passion for sparking mass cultural awareness and preserving traditional, handmade craft, using bags as functional vessels for telling the story of their partnering artisans in Ghana, Guatemala, India, Indonesia and Vietnam.
ETHNOTEK Bags: Limited Edition Artist Series featuring Shay McAnally
The unique design element of the core line of bags is the interchangeable front panel of the bags called a Thread®. Each Thread is created from handmade ethnic textiles, sourced directly from the villages in which they were created.
Ethnotek’s mission is to keep culture alive through the celebration and promotion of world culture, and what better way to counterpoint their existing collection of traditional textiles than by showcasing the modern art and techniques that stem from American sub-culture. In the melting pot that is the United States, Ethnotek set out to explore how culture ties into the process and artwork of a domestic artist with this Artist Series collaboration. This domestic collaboration marks a rst for Ethnotek, and the team is honored to have worked with such a talented artist who not only considers America as a melting pot, but each individual as a melting pot down to the microscopic level, with the blood of our ancestors running through our veins.
“I am from far west Texas,” said Shay McAnally, “I come from a family of cattlemen and ranchers. I grew up on horseback. Upon finding my fi rst arrowhead in the sand hills as a child, I realized that there were people that lived here before me, and it amazed me to no end.”
How does this cultural exploration tie into Shay’s artwork, and speci cally to this Limited Edition Thread collection? “Being so close to Mexico in the southwest, I was greatly in uenced by the aesthetic of the Mexican culture. I had never formally studied it…it’s almost as though just by living in the southwest, I was subconsciously in uenced by something more. There is de nitely an undertone of sci- and fantasy in my work.” McAnally has decided to invest a portion of the pro ts generated from this collaboration to the Texas Mural Project.
Just how “limited” is the collection? It will feature 30 Threads, each slightly unique and slightly di erent, compatible with the Raja Pack. In addition to the Artist Series this holiday, Ethnotek is releasing various new Thread styles for their core bag line, brand new Dep Tote bag styles, tablet and eReader sleeves, a gift card option and more.
The Shay McAnally Artist Series collection will be available on Ethnotek’s website this holiday season at www.ethnotekbags.com/collections/artist series where you’ll be able to learn more about the artist and his process.
Ethnotek will also be making an appearance in Shay’s hometown of Austin for a holiday pop-up shop at 615 Congress Avenue in collaboration with Teysha from Mon-Sat 11am-6pm through December 22, showcasing local art, global goods and gifts that empower at “The Teysha Lounge.”
Follow Ethnotek on Instagram (@ethnotekbags) for more details about the collection and to follow the adventures
of the #etktribe.
