Swine flu cases in the state of Oaxaca are rare, and in fact reported cases are no more prevalent per capital in Mexico than in the US, and much less prevalent than in Canada. However, in an effort to provide prospective visitors to our establishments with all reasonable assurances as to their safety, each member of the Oaxaca Bed and Breakfast Association commits to do the following for every guest at our member B & Bs in Oaxaca and its central valleys, until every prospective traveler to Oaxaca has had an opportunity to be vaccinated against the H1N1 virus:
1) gratuitously deliver any guest with signs and / or symptons of flu or cold to their choice of a private medical clinic in the city of Oaxaca, a public hospital in the city of Oaxaca, or an English speaking doctor in the city of Oaxaca;
2) gratuitously deliver any guest to a pharmacy in the city of Oaxaca for the purpose of buying cold / flu medications;
3) gratuitously assist any guest in translating an reasonable medical forms regarding diagnosis and treatment of cold or flu symptoms, from Spanish to English, for the purpose of facilitating reimbursement of medical / medication costs from an American or Canadian insurer.
Showing posts with label oaxaca. Show all posts
Showing posts with label oaxaca. Show all posts
7/28/2009
5/10/2009
Mexican Folk Art From Oaxacan Artist Families: Book Review
Book Review: Mexican Folk Art From Oaxacan Artist Families
by Arden Aibel Rothstein & Anya Leah Rothstein
Alvin Starkman M.A., LL.B.
Aficionados of folk art of the state of Oaxaca in southern Mexico are already familiar with Arden Aibel Rothstein and Anya Leah Rothstein’s Mexican Folk Art From Oaxacan Artist Families (Atglen, PA: Schiffer Publishing Ltd, 2007). It was surprising to learn, however, that some people with an interest in the crafts of Oaxaca’s central valleys, are not even aware of this seminal work – particularly since it was first published back in 2002.
The 2007 edition of Mexican Folk Art is a comprehensive compilation and detailed examination of each major type of contemporary Oaxacan folk art, set out in a refreshingly user friendly format. The book is divided into ten chapters, each devoted to a different medium: Ceramics, Textiles, Woodcarving, Metal (including tin work, cutlery and knives), Miniatures and Toys, Jewelry, Candles, Basketry and Dried Flower Crafts, with the final chapter devoted to Day of the Dead.
Generally, each chapter begins with a broad description of an art form, including significant variations within. In the Ceramics chapter, for example, the divisions are Terra Cotta, Green Glazed, Multi-Color Glazed, Black (barro negro) and Painted Red. Often a village in Oaxaca’s central valleys is known for the production of a specific type of folk art. Accordingly, in some cases a chapter then proceeds to describe a particular pueblo, giving the reader additional context. We find descriptions of, amongst others, the ceramics towns of Atzompa, San Bartolo Coyotepec and Ocotlán.
Where a family is noted for a special innovation or its adeptness at creating a certain craft, a family history follows. The individual craftspeople are then highlighted. For the black pottery of San Bartolo Coyotepec, we find descriptions of the De Nieto Castillo family, of which the famed Doña Rosa was a member, along with biographies of her son Don Valente Nieto Real and members of his clan; and of the Pedro Martínez family with biographies of acclaimed Carlomagno Pedro Martínez and his relatives.
All told, Mexican Folk Art showcases the works of 100 artists from 50 families living in Oaxaca or one of 13 nearby towns and villages. In most cases we’re enlightened regarding the personality, worldview and motivation of each individual carver, weaver or potter, as well as provided with a biographical sketch, enhanced with the inclusion of a direct quote. In this way the reader gains insight into the inspiration of each craftsperson. In many instances the authors also include a section on the techniques used by the artist, which variously includes the sourcing of raw materials such as wool from the Mixteca region of the state for making rugs and wall hangings, or clays from other regions of the state for changing tone and texture of sculptures; and processing methods including the extracting of natural dyes from fruits, plants, soils and the cochineal insect.
With its glossy front cover and approximately 700 photographs, Mexican Folk Art can rightfully be termed a coffee table book. But it’s much more. The photos in and of themselves bring the book, and the artists, to life: Apolinar Aguilar of Ocotlán, forging a red hot piece of recycled metal into an artistic hunting knife; a display of provocatively painted clay ladies of the night made by his cousin Julian, son of celebrated Guillermina Aguilar; Jacobo Ángeles of San Martín Tilcajete carving a figure from the wood of the copal tree, or standing alongside wife María and their family, each proudly displaying an exquisitely painted alebrije; Teotitlán del Valle weaver Isaac Vásquez, working at his loom creating a tapete, the pattern inspired by a pre-Hispanic pictograph; and fine examples of multi-colored highly detailed hand embroidery from San Antonino, such as the yoke and sleeve of a wedding dress.
This gem should easily entice any reader with an interest or background in anthropology, history or geography. The importance and influence of indigenous Zapotec ancestry and its present-day cultural manifestations shines through many of the ethnographic accounts. The genealogies (referred to as Family Trees) comprising one of the appendices are in-depth, and date as far back as the 19th century. They assist the reader in better understanding the historical and generational context of Oaxacan craft development.
To help those with an interest in exploring the craft villages and visiting the artists on their own, without the assistance of a Oaxaca tour guide, throughout the body of the book the address and all available additional contact information for each artist is provided, such as phone number and email. A second appendix consists of a series of easy-to-read pueblo maps, detailing the precise location of each featured artist, further facilitating contact.
Authors Arden and Anya Rothstein correctly caution that their presentation of artists constitutes “a sampler” of what’s available to those interested in exploring Oaxaca’s hinterland. They in fact encourage getting out and exploring on your own, finding that next folk artist who might rise to international stature. They are careful to qualify that their inclusions are based on which craftspeople are the most innovative, or produce work which is of especially high caliber according to certain criteria. The Rothsteins recognize that the work of any innovator of an entire class of folk art, and of those producing quality a cut above that of the rest, is often out of the financial reach of many. Therefore, they feature additional artists whose works are more affordable, yet also of exceptional quality.
Collectors of folk art often need a reminder that buying the work of a recognized name does not necessarily mean that the product is the best, in terms of coloration or patina, form, design, or the imagery it provokes, and that what strikes the fancy of most, or of the so-called experts, might not be your particular cup of tea. Along this vein, “honorable mention” is provided for makers of certain crafts whose works are not featured (under the heading of, for example, “Additional woodcarvers in Arrazola”). The clear suggestion is that readers should get out there and explore, and make their own determinations and choices based upon personal preferences.
Is it worth purchasing the 2nd edition if you already have the 1st? Certainly give it some consideration if you have not already enmeshed yourself in the appreciation and collecting of Oaxacan folk art by having explored the central valleys. Where the 2002 volume boasts 500 photos and features 87 artists within 44 families, the most recent publication, as noted earlier, has been expanded to 700, 100 and 50, respectively. Some of the craftspeople merely mentioned in the earlier volume under the “Additional” heading, have been elevated to “featured artist,” with their works and stories duly chronicled. And in some cases where families have grown and pueblo demographics have been altered, the authors have appropriately noted changes. Wisely, at least in this critic’s opinion, the U.S. dollar “Price Guide” has been omitted from this new volume, since more than anything else it likely lead to confusion for the buying public, with the potential of putting up barriers between artists and prospective customers. As between Mexican and American economies, there are so many variables and market conditions at play, best to allow vendor/creator and purchaser do their own assessment respecting value for workmanship.
Mexican Folk Art is a well-researched exhaustive study of all major types of contemporary Oaxacan folk art and their makers, past and present. Don’t let its appearance as “just another fancy coffee table book” deceive you. It accomplishes what it sets out to do, and then some. It should be viewed as a guide, rather than a bible. If we’re ever blessed with a 3rd edition, perhaps the publisher will deem it advisable to place duplicates of the pueblo maps in a separate pocket … it would be a pity for such a wonderful work to become unduly worn by toting it from village to village.
Alvin Starkman received his Masters in Social Anthropology in 1978. After teaching for a few years he attended Osgoode Hall Law School, thereafter embarking upon a career as a litigator until 2004. Alvin resides in Oaxaca, where he writes, leads personalized tours to the villages, markets, ruins and other sights, is a film consultant, and operates Casa Machaya Oaxaca Bed & Breakfast ( http://www.oaxacadream.com ), combining the comfort and service of a downtown Oaxaca hotel with the lodging style of a quaint country inn .
by Arden Aibel Rothstein & Anya Leah Rothstein
Alvin Starkman M.A., LL.B.
Aficionados of folk art of the state of Oaxaca in southern Mexico are already familiar with Arden Aibel Rothstein and Anya Leah Rothstein’s Mexican Folk Art From Oaxacan Artist Families (Atglen, PA: Schiffer Publishing Ltd, 2007). It was surprising to learn, however, that some people with an interest in the crafts of Oaxaca’s central valleys, are not even aware of this seminal work – particularly since it was first published back in 2002.
The 2007 edition of Mexican Folk Art is a comprehensive compilation and detailed examination of each major type of contemporary Oaxacan folk art, set out in a refreshingly user friendly format. The book is divided into ten chapters, each devoted to a different medium: Ceramics, Textiles, Woodcarving, Metal (including tin work, cutlery and knives), Miniatures and Toys, Jewelry, Candles, Basketry and Dried Flower Crafts, with the final chapter devoted to Day of the Dead.
Generally, each chapter begins with a broad description of an art form, including significant variations within. In the Ceramics chapter, for example, the divisions are Terra Cotta, Green Glazed, Multi-Color Glazed, Black (barro negro) and Painted Red. Often a village in Oaxaca’s central valleys is known for the production of a specific type of folk art. Accordingly, in some cases a chapter then proceeds to describe a particular pueblo, giving the reader additional context. We find descriptions of, amongst others, the ceramics towns of Atzompa, San Bartolo Coyotepec and Ocotlán.
Where a family is noted for a special innovation or its adeptness at creating a certain craft, a family history follows. The individual craftspeople are then highlighted. For the black pottery of San Bartolo Coyotepec, we find descriptions of the De Nieto Castillo family, of which the famed Doña Rosa was a member, along with biographies of her son Don Valente Nieto Real and members of his clan; and of the Pedro Martínez family with biographies of acclaimed Carlomagno Pedro Martínez and his relatives.
All told, Mexican Folk Art showcases the works of 100 artists from 50 families living in Oaxaca or one of 13 nearby towns and villages. In most cases we’re enlightened regarding the personality, worldview and motivation of each individual carver, weaver or potter, as well as provided with a biographical sketch, enhanced with the inclusion of a direct quote. In this way the reader gains insight into the inspiration of each craftsperson. In many instances the authors also include a section on the techniques used by the artist, which variously includes the sourcing of raw materials such as wool from the Mixteca region of the state for making rugs and wall hangings, or clays from other regions of the state for changing tone and texture of sculptures; and processing methods including the extracting of natural dyes from fruits, plants, soils and the cochineal insect.
With its glossy front cover and approximately 700 photographs, Mexican Folk Art can rightfully be termed a coffee table book. But it’s much more. The photos in and of themselves bring the book, and the artists, to life: Apolinar Aguilar of Ocotlán, forging a red hot piece of recycled metal into an artistic hunting knife; a display of provocatively painted clay ladies of the night made by his cousin Julian, son of celebrated Guillermina Aguilar; Jacobo Ángeles of San Martín Tilcajete carving a figure from the wood of the copal tree, or standing alongside wife María and their family, each proudly displaying an exquisitely painted alebrije; Teotitlán del Valle weaver Isaac Vásquez, working at his loom creating a tapete, the pattern inspired by a pre-Hispanic pictograph; and fine examples of multi-colored highly detailed hand embroidery from San Antonino, such as the yoke and sleeve of a wedding dress.
This gem should easily entice any reader with an interest or background in anthropology, history or geography. The importance and influence of indigenous Zapotec ancestry and its present-day cultural manifestations shines through many of the ethnographic accounts. The genealogies (referred to as Family Trees) comprising one of the appendices are in-depth, and date as far back as the 19th century. They assist the reader in better understanding the historical and generational context of Oaxacan craft development.
To help those with an interest in exploring the craft villages and visiting the artists on their own, without the assistance of a Oaxaca tour guide, throughout the body of the book the address and all available additional contact information for each artist is provided, such as phone number and email. A second appendix consists of a series of easy-to-read pueblo maps, detailing the precise location of each featured artist, further facilitating contact.
Authors Arden and Anya Rothstein correctly caution that their presentation of artists constitutes “a sampler” of what’s available to those interested in exploring Oaxaca’s hinterland. They in fact encourage getting out and exploring on your own, finding that next folk artist who might rise to international stature. They are careful to qualify that their inclusions are based on which craftspeople are the most innovative, or produce work which is of especially high caliber according to certain criteria. The Rothsteins recognize that the work of any innovator of an entire class of folk art, and of those producing quality a cut above that of the rest, is often out of the financial reach of many. Therefore, they feature additional artists whose works are more affordable, yet also of exceptional quality.
Collectors of folk art often need a reminder that buying the work of a recognized name does not necessarily mean that the product is the best, in terms of coloration or patina, form, design, or the imagery it provokes, and that what strikes the fancy of most, or of the so-called experts, might not be your particular cup of tea. Along this vein, “honorable mention” is provided for makers of certain crafts whose works are not featured (under the heading of, for example, “Additional woodcarvers in Arrazola”). The clear suggestion is that readers should get out there and explore, and make their own determinations and choices based upon personal preferences.
Is it worth purchasing the 2nd edition if you already have the 1st? Certainly give it some consideration if you have not already enmeshed yourself in the appreciation and collecting of Oaxacan folk art by having explored the central valleys. Where the 2002 volume boasts 500 photos and features 87 artists within 44 families, the most recent publication, as noted earlier, has been expanded to 700, 100 and 50, respectively. Some of the craftspeople merely mentioned in the earlier volume under the “Additional” heading, have been elevated to “featured artist,” with their works and stories duly chronicled. And in some cases where families have grown and pueblo demographics have been altered, the authors have appropriately noted changes. Wisely, at least in this critic’s opinion, the U.S. dollar “Price Guide” has been omitted from this new volume, since more than anything else it likely lead to confusion for the buying public, with the potential of putting up barriers between artists and prospective customers. As between Mexican and American economies, there are so many variables and market conditions at play, best to allow vendor/creator and purchaser do their own assessment respecting value for workmanship.
Mexican Folk Art is a well-researched exhaustive study of all major types of contemporary Oaxacan folk art and their makers, past and present. Don’t let its appearance as “just another fancy coffee table book” deceive you. It accomplishes what it sets out to do, and then some. It should be viewed as a guide, rather than a bible. If we’re ever blessed with a 3rd edition, perhaps the publisher will deem it advisable to place duplicates of the pueblo maps in a separate pocket … it would be a pity for such a wonderful work to become unduly worn by toting it from village to village.
Alvin Starkman received his Masters in Social Anthropology in 1978. After teaching for a few years he attended Osgoode Hall Law School, thereafter embarking upon a career as a litigator until 2004. Alvin resides in Oaxaca, where he writes, leads personalized tours to the villages, markets, ruins and other sights, is a film consultant, and operates Casa Machaya Oaxaca Bed & Breakfast ( http://www.oaxacadream.com ), combining the comfort and service of a downtown Oaxaca hotel with the lodging style of a quaint country inn .
3/02/2009
Women potters of San Marcos Tlapazola, Oaxaca
Alvin Starkman M.A., LL.B.
Every Sunday Gloria awakens at 3 am, and begins preparing tejate, a frothy, tasty corn and cacao based drink, which she will offer for sale in the Tlacolula market. A couple of hours later her sister-in-law María and Maria’s daughter Luci follow suit, but in preparation for their own day of vending pre-Hispanic-style figures and masks, comals, and an assortment of other fired clay bowls, cups, plates and containers. Sundays, the women laugh, is their day of rest, when they don’t have to worry about scrounging for firewood, tending fields, lugging raw material for kneading into clay --- the lifeblood of their economic existence --- and in the case of María, looking after preparing breakfast for Luci and her older brother and getting them off to school.
The family of four lives in a modest yet fair sized dirt-floor compound in San Marcos Tlapazola, a Zapotec village about an hour outside of Oaxaca. Nearby Tlacolula is known by tourists and native Oaxacans alike for the pageantry of its Sunday marketplace, its bakeries’ wonderful chocolate-filled buns, the church, proximity to fields of agave and mezcal factories, and products offered for sale by the women of San Marcos.
Gloria, María and Luci are 40, 38 and 12 years old respectively. While in the market, their traditional dress, consisting of brightly colored and embroidered taffeta dresses and head-dresses, easily sets them and others from nearby villages apart from the rest. Luci confesses that she also likes wearing regular clothing.
In her lifetime, only once has Gloria been to Oaxaca. The mere thought of venturing into the big city intimidates her.
Clumps of hard earth are soaked. On a concrete floor in an almost barren dark room, María kneads the then softened mud with water and a bit of sand, while kneeling and working her magic, until a buttery smooth clay is ready to be fashioned into a vase. With her hands raised to just about head level, she molds a cone, pounds out the inside to create a funnel, then places it on a small hard piece of plastic atop a flat stone, with a bit of sand as a buffer. The sand enables her to spin the form into a sphere. She uses rolls of clay to build up it up. A piece of corn cob is used to make the outside surface even, and another piece of plastic to cast the inside. A small round segment of hardened gourd assists in producing the desired, final exterior shape. A strip of soft leather facilitates the creation of a smooth finish. Then onto the next one.
Gloria is sitting a few feet away, beginning to burnish a small bowl she has removed from under a cloth covering several others. She’s using one of two almost golf ball sized highly polished river stones given to her by her grandmother. She has already coated the series of bowls with a mixture of a different, much redder clay, and water, so as to create a terra cotta colored paint tone. Once hard and dry, all that Gloria and María have produced over the course of days, is ready for baking.
Some alfareros in the town of Atzompa use above-ground brick and cement ovens. Others in San Bartolo Coyotepec and Ocotlán use below-ground brick-lined pits. Manuel Reyes in Yanhuitlán constructed his own twin kilns out of clay brick, lengths of re-enforced steel, and mud. But the women of San Marcos, each and every time they want to bake their clay pieces, build a makeshift enclosure at ground level, made variously of discarded bed spring, pieces of rusted through wheel barrow, bent bicycle tire rim, old sections of otherwise unusable laminated metal, and broken pieces of pottery which have not survived a prior firing.
A cousin sometimes comes by in a truck to sell Gloria and María a load of twigs, branches and rotted out logs, for anywhere between 400 and 1200 pesos, depending on the load size. Sometimes he brings by dried agave leaves, stock, and pieces from the heart or piña which have for some reason not been harvested for mezcal production. The women themselves often gather up similar pieces of potential fuel while in the course of walking the hills outside of their village, and tie them up to both sides of their mule before heading back home.
A day of baking can usually proceed smoothly if there is no rain, and any earlier precipitation has not left the wood wet; if it’s not too windy; and of course if there is a sufficient supply of burnable product on hand, and not too much of the scrap metal has been rendered unusable through the beginning stages of decomposition / disintegration.
Typically, María is in charge of process, while Luci assists, and Gloria divides her time between doing other household chores such as cooking tortillas and being called upon when María tires or has been affected by the intense heat, or a stage in production is time-sensitive.
All the pottery to be baked is assembled outside, in close proximity to the area where the “oven” will be built: a series of rustic clay pots --- an order for a client who makes and sells piñatas; three comals which were not sufficiently fired on a previous occasion; numeral clay figures of different sizes and forms, for the Tlacolula tourist trade; and an assortment of functional pots, bowls and plates, as well as a few small spoons and tiny colanders.
A circular base approximately two meters in diameter is created, using preferably bed spring placed atop a couple of staggered layers of brick, since such a foundation provides for aeration. Broken pots, old metal receptacles, roofing tile, and whatever else is close at hand creates a confining perimeter. Small twigs and pieces of agave heart are placed underneath. María cuts agave leaves with a machete. With the aid of an extremely heavy, meter-and-a-half long crow bar known as a barreta, Gloria pitches in by splitting log pieces and lengths of dried agave stock. María and Luci build a flammable base atop the spring. With gingerly proficiency, María both directs and assists in placement of the pieces. From her years of experience she knows how to best achieve even firing and avoid breakage.
More of each class of burnable, as well as dried tumbleweed, is carefully placed on top of the clay pieces. Hot ash from making tortillas is shoveled into crevices to facilitate incineration, while a couple of matches set to a few special added twigs, a natural kindling, assures a quick light. A fairly strong wind fuels an initially fledgling fire, and within seconds the blaze is raging and smoke is billowing. More branches and died agave parts are tossed on, with the upmost care since multi-directional wind tunnels have been created. Gloria must fully cover her head to ensure that spark does not ignite her hair. Each takes a turn extricating herself from the swirling, seemingly out-of-control flames. Finally, sheets of rusted metal are strategically placed alongside, and atop, to control the entry of air being drawn to the inner portions of the enclosure.
The morning’s work completed, flames are left to dissipate, while Gloria, María and Luci sit, have a drink of fresh fruit juice, and rest. After about 45 minutes baking will have been completed. The area will be left to cool, while Gloria and María return to their simple work room, add a bit of water to their drying clay, and begin kneading before once again beginning production of another diverse lot. Later in the day the oven will be disassembled, pottery removed with hopefully a minimal amount of breakage, ash dusted off. The women of San Marcos Tlapazola will then wrap and box their merchandise in preparation for their next trip to market.
Most Sundays María can be found sitting on the ground with Luci, with an array of rustic clay figures and masks, as well as a selection of traditional Zapotec cooking and serving utensils displayed in front of them, on one side of an outside aisle in the Tlacolula marketplace. Gloria will be directly across from them, pouring cups of tejate to thirsty passersby.
Alvin Starkman has a Masters in anthropology and a law degree. Now a resident of Oaxaca, Alvin writes, tours travelers to the sights --- including excursions to visit San Marcos Tlapazola --- and owns Casa Machaya Oaxaca Bed & Breakfast ( http://www.oaxacadream.com ), a unique Oaxaca bed and breakfast experience providing Oaxaca accommodations which combine the comfort and service of Oaxaca hotels with the personal touch of quaint country inn style lodging.
Every Sunday Gloria awakens at 3 am, and begins preparing tejate, a frothy, tasty corn and cacao based drink, which she will offer for sale in the Tlacolula market. A couple of hours later her sister-in-law María and Maria’s daughter Luci follow suit, but in preparation for their own day of vending pre-Hispanic-style figures and masks, comals, and an assortment of other fired clay bowls, cups, plates and containers. Sundays, the women laugh, is their day of rest, when they don’t have to worry about scrounging for firewood, tending fields, lugging raw material for kneading into clay --- the lifeblood of their economic existence --- and in the case of María, looking after preparing breakfast for Luci and her older brother and getting them off to school.
The family of four lives in a modest yet fair sized dirt-floor compound in San Marcos Tlapazola, a Zapotec village about an hour outside of Oaxaca. Nearby Tlacolula is known by tourists and native Oaxacans alike for the pageantry of its Sunday marketplace, its bakeries’ wonderful chocolate-filled buns, the church, proximity to fields of agave and mezcal factories, and products offered for sale by the women of San Marcos.
Gloria, María and Luci are 40, 38 and 12 years old respectively. While in the market, their traditional dress, consisting of brightly colored and embroidered taffeta dresses and head-dresses, easily sets them and others from nearby villages apart from the rest. Luci confesses that she also likes wearing regular clothing.
In her lifetime, only once has Gloria been to Oaxaca. The mere thought of venturing into the big city intimidates her.
Clumps of hard earth are soaked. On a concrete floor in an almost barren dark room, María kneads the then softened mud with water and a bit of sand, while kneeling and working her magic, until a buttery smooth clay is ready to be fashioned into a vase. With her hands raised to just about head level, she molds a cone, pounds out the inside to create a funnel, then places it on a small hard piece of plastic atop a flat stone, with a bit of sand as a buffer. The sand enables her to spin the form into a sphere. She uses rolls of clay to build up it up. A piece of corn cob is used to make the outside surface even, and another piece of plastic to cast the inside. A small round segment of hardened gourd assists in producing the desired, final exterior shape. A strip of soft leather facilitates the creation of a smooth finish. Then onto the next one.
Gloria is sitting a few feet away, beginning to burnish a small bowl she has removed from under a cloth covering several others. She’s using one of two almost golf ball sized highly polished river stones given to her by her grandmother. She has already coated the series of bowls with a mixture of a different, much redder clay, and water, so as to create a terra cotta colored paint tone. Once hard and dry, all that Gloria and María have produced over the course of days, is ready for baking.
Some alfareros in the town of Atzompa use above-ground brick and cement ovens. Others in San Bartolo Coyotepec and Ocotlán use below-ground brick-lined pits. Manuel Reyes in Yanhuitlán constructed his own twin kilns out of clay brick, lengths of re-enforced steel, and mud. But the women of San Marcos, each and every time they want to bake their clay pieces, build a makeshift enclosure at ground level, made variously of discarded bed spring, pieces of rusted through wheel barrow, bent bicycle tire rim, old sections of otherwise unusable laminated metal, and broken pieces of pottery which have not survived a prior firing.
A cousin sometimes comes by in a truck to sell Gloria and María a load of twigs, branches and rotted out logs, for anywhere between 400 and 1200 pesos, depending on the load size. Sometimes he brings by dried agave leaves, stock, and pieces from the heart or piña which have for some reason not been harvested for mezcal production. The women themselves often gather up similar pieces of potential fuel while in the course of walking the hills outside of their village, and tie them up to both sides of their mule before heading back home.
A day of baking can usually proceed smoothly if there is no rain, and any earlier precipitation has not left the wood wet; if it’s not too windy; and of course if there is a sufficient supply of burnable product on hand, and not too much of the scrap metal has been rendered unusable through the beginning stages of decomposition / disintegration.
Typically, María is in charge of process, while Luci assists, and Gloria divides her time between doing other household chores such as cooking tortillas and being called upon when María tires or has been affected by the intense heat, or a stage in production is time-sensitive.
All the pottery to be baked is assembled outside, in close proximity to the area where the “oven” will be built: a series of rustic clay pots --- an order for a client who makes and sells piñatas; three comals which were not sufficiently fired on a previous occasion; numeral clay figures of different sizes and forms, for the Tlacolula tourist trade; and an assortment of functional pots, bowls and plates, as well as a few small spoons and tiny colanders.
A circular base approximately two meters in diameter is created, using preferably bed spring placed atop a couple of staggered layers of brick, since such a foundation provides for aeration. Broken pots, old metal receptacles, roofing tile, and whatever else is close at hand creates a confining perimeter. Small twigs and pieces of agave heart are placed underneath. María cuts agave leaves with a machete. With the aid of an extremely heavy, meter-and-a-half long crow bar known as a barreta, Gloria pitches in by splitting log pieces and lengths of dried agave stock. María and Luci build a flammable base atop the spring. With gingerly proficiency, María both directs and assists in placement of the pieces. From her years of experience she knows how to best achieve even firing and avoid breakage.
More of each class of burnable, as well as dried tumbleweed, is carefully placed on top of the clay pieces. Hot ash from making tortillas is shoveled into crevices to facilitate incineration, while a couple of matches set to a few special added twigs, a natural kindling, assures a quick light. A fairly strong wind fuels an initially fledgling fire, and within seconds the blaze is raging and smoke is billowing. More branches and died agave parts are tossed on, with the upmost care since multi-directional wind tunnels have been created. Gloria must fully cover her head to ensure that spark does not ignite her hair. Each takes a turn extricating herself from the swirling, seemingly out-of-control flames. Finally, sheets of rusted metal are strategically placed alongside, and atop, to control the entry of air being drawn to the inner portions of the enclosure.
The morning’s work completed, flames are left to dissipate, while Gloria, María and Luci sit, have a drink of fresh fruit juice, and rest. After about 45 minutes baking will have been completed. The area will be left to cool, while Gloria and María return to their simple work room, add a bit of water to their drying clay, and begin kneading before once again beginning production of another diverse lot. Later in the day the oven will be disassembled, pottery removed with hopefully a minimal amount of breakage, ash dusted off. The women of San Marcos Tlapazola will then wrap and box their merchandise in preparation for their next trip to market.
Most Sundays María can be found sitting on the ground with Luci, with an array of rustic clay figures and masks, as well as a selection of traditional Zapotec cooking and serving utensils displayed in front of them, on one side of an outside aisle in the Tlacolula marketplace. Gloria will be directly across from them, pouring cups of tejate to thirsty passersby.
Alvin Starkman has a Masters in anthropology and a law degree. Now a resident of Oaxaca, Alvin writes, tours travelers to the sights --- including excursions to visit San Marcos Tlapazola --- and owns Casa Machaya Oaxaca Bed & Breakfast ( http://www.oaxacadream.com ), a unique Oaxaca bed and breakfast experience providing Oaxaca accommodations which combine the comfort and service of Oaxaca hotels with the personal touch of quaint country inn style lodging.
12/28/2008
Consumer protection in Oaxaca, Mexico: a case study
Alvin Starkman M.A., LL.B.
Procuraduría Federal del Consumidor (PROFECO), Mexico’s Federal Office of Fair Trading, is the closest you can get to an American or Canadian style government administered consumer protection bureau and mediation facility. Its Oaxaca regional office is run in a relatively swift and efficient manner, meaning that it is extremely user friendly from the perspective of an expat seeking recourse against trades and businesses located both in the state and further abroad. Naturally, though, it’s subject to limitations, and to idiosyncrasies to which we are not accustomed.
I purchased a hot water heater made by Hidro Electrica, SA de CV (HESA), which to my amazement came with an eight-year limited warranty. Usually in Oaxaca one buys domestically produced or assembled goods with a 30 day guarantee. In the odd case it’s for three months (extended warranties are rarely available, since manufacturers and insurers are aware of the lack of adequate quality control in Mexican production). Typically your widget stops widgeting within a week after expiry date … be it a washing machine, microwave, TV, or long-life bulb.
After about a year one side of the dual-tank HESA boiler sprang a leak, and then a couple of months later the other side followed suit. After six months and several phone calls to my retailer, Tubos y Conexiones, the HESA authorized repairman arrived with two pairs of replacement tanks, neither of which matched the tanks which came with the unit I had purchased. “Don’t worry,” Roberto assured. “I’ll bring you the right tanks when they’re in stock, so just choose one of these two sets for the time being so your heater will at least function.”
Whenever you sign anything, if you’re not entirely satisfied with the service provided or product received, qualify your acknowledgment. Doing so assists when availing yourself of the resources of PROFECO. “Temporary solution pending the arrival of the elite stainless steel tanks,” I noted on the work order. Anything in writing appears to be taken as gospel in Oaxaca, therefore regarded as almost irrefutable evidence. Just ask anyone who’s been held in jail for two years pending trial, based on little more than newspaper clippings alleging criminal activity.
Over the course of the next year I periodically attended at Tubos y Conexiones, each time pleading with my contact person, Boneque the branch manager, to help me get the proper tanks before the replacements went awry. Boneque was in fact cooperative, so much so that he admitted to me that the HESA service department had become a real pain, with complaints and lack of their resolution mounting. Hilda, HESA’s Oaxaca representative, had left the company, and serviceman Roberto was no longer accepting work from the manufacturer.
Three or four emails to the HESA service department went unanswered, as did the message left at HESA for its chief technician. Hearing “Mr. Levin will return your call in 15 minutes,” by this time did not instill the confidence in the company I had been seeking.
With my bill of sale and warranty booklet, copies of emails, the qualified work order acknowledgement, and notes of every communication or attempt at reaching a resolution all in hand, I attended at the offices of a friend, litigator Lic. Edna Franco: “Don’t worry about my fee Alvin. My concern is that on a claim worth less than 15,000 pesos, the out-of-pockets will kill you. Go to PROFECO … that’s what I tell all my clients to do before they retain me.”
Oaxaca doesn’t have a small claims court system, which means that regardless of the peso value of your claim your costs will be the same, subject to working out a deal with your lawyer for a reduced fee. Edna advised me that proceeding through the court system on your own, even for a former Canadian litigation lawyer, is an almost insurmountable task. Hence, PROFECO is the way to go, subject to your fact situation meeting its mandate and guidelines, and your willingness to use a government-run mediation facility.
The Oaxaca PROFECO offices are well staffed, yet used by a relatively modest percentage of the populace, meaning that compared to government offices of transportation, immigration and taxation for example, they are a welcomed and expedient breath of fresh air. Intake reviews your documentation and advises what if anything is lacking, and how many copies are required. Your primary advisor then reviews your paperwork, asks for clarification, and prepares a claim package. Feel free to supplement the information she selects to append to your claim, by suggesting the inclusion of any additional documentation you might have. Remember that as competent and seemingly helpful as she might appear, she is nevertheless a Oaxacan civil servant: “Is it okay if we also attach copies of these notes I made over the past year?,” I queried. More hard evidence.
My initial September 11, 2008, attendance terminated with a hearing date I negotiated to meet my schedule, October 10, 2008. “You know,” advised Aurea Guzman Palacios, “you should also name your retailer, Tubos y Conexiones, as a respondent, even though it seems like it didn’t do anything wrong.” I wouldn’t have advised a client with a legal dispute any differently!
“We’ll look after serving them, but remember to make sure you’re here at 10 am sharp on the October 10th.” Even in Toronto we’re accustomed to giving 15 minutes grace, so how could it possibly be that Oaxaca, government to boot, could possibly adhere to a more stringent and exacting timetable?
Service of the proceeding and notice of the date is effected by the regional PROFECO office where the company carries on business. In the case of HESA, this meant in the State of Mexico.
A Tubos y Conexiones representative attended, arriving shortly before the appointed hour. HESA was a no show. The PROFECO mediator, Javier, called the Estado de México PROFECO process server, and was advised that HESA was not served because company employees were on strike and the factory was shut down. The mediator was skeptical, indicating to me that sometimes federal government employees forget to do their jobs, or simply can’t be bothered and make up stories. But in this case we should give them the benefit of the doubt and simply ask them to once again try to serve the documentation with a fresh return date, a month down the road. November 10th was set for the new appointment, with more documentation drafted, the preamble including the circumstances of the adjournment.
Before conceding that PROFECO was unable to serve HESA, in the presence of Javier the conciliator and Engineer Octavio the Tubos representative, I called the HESA offices. Lorena Torres, receptionist, advised me that the employees were not on strike, nor had they been in the recent past, and that the company was functioning as normal. So much for the veracity of the State of Mexico PROFECO process server.
PROFECO levies a fine against a company for each missed appointment, the amount increasing with each failed attendance. Should HESA fail to attend the next date, after having received notice, the fine would be 172.79 pesos, making it hardly a compelling reason for the company to send someone from head office.
By the time November 10th had arrived, my hot water heater, wrong new tanks still in place, had once again sprung a leak, albeit a small one. The main implication is that the dripping water puts out the pilot from time to time, so unless you’re constantly checking, you never know when your shower will be hot or cold.
Neither HESA nor Tubos attended on the new date for the proceeding. The PROFECO mediator checked on his computer, and with the State of Mexico regional office, once again being led to believe that HESA was on strike. And once again I called HESA and confirmed that business was operating as normal, without strike. “Don Alvin,” Javier assured, “we’ll try to serve HESA once more, and hopefully this time the process server’s supervisor will have a word with him and tell him that there is no strike.” More importantly, the conciliator decided to levy a 3,000 peso fine against Tubos for not sending its representative to this second meeting.
I didn’t ask why the fine for Tubos was so steep, simply stunned that my ally was being dinged with a sizeable stipend while the scoundrel was getting off unscathed because it ostensibly had no notice of the proceeding. “I think we should be trying to convince Tubos that it should share responsibility, and maybe this fine will be what it needs to convince it to come to the table and acknowledge that you were relying on the judgment of its salesperson when you decided to buy a HESA product.” Javier was treating me with the utmost respect (i.e. “Don Alvin”), giving me advice, and being pro-active in his approach to the matter. “Let’s give them a bit more than a month to be served, just to be safe. How about December 15th?”
On December 15th, Engineer Octavio once again attended, but no one from HESA. This time PROFECO had a statement from its process server stating that indeed HESA was on strike, all very strange since there has not been any such indication on the internet. “It could be that some company employees are striking, and HESA is able to use this as a way to avoid service of legal documents for the entire company,” Javier surmised. Only PROFECO is permitted to effect service of PROFECO documents, so my offer to have a friend in Mexico City attend at HESA with the papers was rejected.
I decided enough was enough, and if I could exact upwards of the 3,000 peso fine from Tubos, and buy a new, alternate brand product, that would be the best, at least in terms of finishing my business with PROFECO. I could continue to pursue HESA, but only in court since the PROFECO proceeding would be closed out. We adjourned until the 17th, the plan being that in the interim I would attend at Tubos, select a comparable product of another manufacturer, and be given a 2,500 peso credit.
As long as PROFECO does not register a fine with a companion governmental branch, presumably finance or collections, the amount or any portion thereof can be applied to a comprehensive resolution as part of a negotiated settlement. PROFECO doesn’t otherwise receive the fine amount, nor does the consumer. The paperwork which reflects the levying of a fine can be redrafted with no mention of a fine. Literally, one branch of government does not know what the other branch has done.
I selected an alternate brand, Delta, with equivalent specifications and a six-year warranty, for a net cost to me of 9,800.25 pesos. Three years earlier I had paid 11,736 pesos for the HESA hot water heater. Given Mexico’s rate of inflation, I didn’t do too badly. Although I have released Tubos y Conexiones from any further obligation to me, I have preserved the right to proceed in court against HESA, for all losses including the cost of my new Delta boiler. Economically feasible or not, that’s the way I intend to go.
PROFECO has its limitations, especially since its power to force and enforce resolutions in this type of consumer dispute are restricted. However, it does provide an important and valuable alternate means of dispute resolution, attractive for a number of reasons:
1) The system works fast, much more so than that to which we are accustomed in Canada and the US;
2) There is no cost to the consumer;
3) The staff are helpful, obviously well trained, and willing to render legal or quasi-legal advice … although not necessarily correct advice, it’s nevertheless helpful for foreigners, often with limited networks otherwise able to provide counsel;
4) Its mediators appear to have good mediation skills and be sincerely motivated to bring parties together with a view to achieving resolutions in a cost-effective and sensible fashion.
Alvin Starkman has a Masters in anthropology and law degree from Osgoode Hall Law School. Now a resident of Oaxaca, Alvin writes, takes tours to the sights, and owns Casa Machaya Oaxaca Bed & Breakfast ( http://www.oaxacadream.com ), a unique Oaxaca bed and breakfast experience, providing Oaxaca accommodations which combine the comfort and service of Oaxaca hotels with the personal touch of quaint country inn style lodging.
Procuraduría Federal del Consumidor (PROFECO), Mexico’s Federal Office of Fair Trading, is the closest you can get to an American or Canadian style government administered consumer protection bureau and mediation facility. Its Oaxaca regional office is run in a relatively swift and efficient manner, meaning that it is extremely user friendly from the perspective of an expat seeking recourse against trades and businesses located both in the state and further abroad. Naturally, though, it’s subject to limitations, and to idiosyncrasies to which we are not accustomed.
I purchased a hot water heater made by Hidro Electrica, SA de CV (HESA), which to my amazement came with an eight-year limited warranty. Usually in Oaxaca one buys domestically produced or assembled goods with a 30 day guarantee. In the odd case it’s for three months (extended warranties are rarely available, since manufacturers and insurers are aware of the lack of adequate quality control in Mexican production). Typically your widget stops widgeting within a week after expiry date … be it a washing machine, microwave, TV, or long-life bulb.
After about a year one side of the dual-tank HESA boiler sprang a leak, and then a couple of months later the other side followed suit. After six months and several phone calls to my retailer, Tubos y Conexiones, the HESA authorized repairman arrived with two pairs of replacement tanks, neither of which matched the tanks which came with the unit I had purchased. “Don’t worry,” Roberto assured. “I’ll bring you the right tanks when they’re in stock, so just choose one of these two sets for the time being so your heater will at least function.”
Whenever you sign anything, if you’re not entirely satisfied with the service provided or product received, qualify your acknowledgment. Doing so assists when availing yourself of the resources of PROFECO. “Temporary solution pending the arrival of the elite stainless steel tanks,” I noted on the work order. Anything in writing appears to be taken as gospel in Oaxaca, therefore regarded as almost irrefutable evidence. Just ask anyone who’s been held in jail for two years pending trial, based on little more than newspaper clippings alleging criminal activity.
Over the course of the next year I periodically attended at Tubos y Conexiones, each time pleading with my contact person, Boneque the branch manager, to help me get the proper tanks before the replacements went awry. Boneque was in fact cooperative, so much so that he admitted to me that the HESA service department had become a real pain, with complaints and lack of their resolution mounting. Hilda, HESA’s Oaxaca representative, had left the company, and serviceman Roberto was no longer accepting work from the manufacturer.
Three or four emails to the HESA service department went unanswered, as did the message left at HESA for its chief technician. Hearing “Mr. Levin will return your call in 15 minutes,” by this time did not instill the confidence in the company I had been seeking.
With my bill of sale and warranty booklet, copies of emails, the qualified work order acknowledgement, and notes of every communication or attempt at reaching a resolution all in hand, I attended at the offices of a friend, litigator Lic. Edna Franco: “Don’t worry about my fee Alvin. My concern is that on a claim worth less than 15,000 pesos, the out-of-pockets will kill you. Go to PROFECO … that’s what I tell all my clients to do before they retain me.”
Oaxaca doesn’t have a small claims court system, which means that regardless of the peso value of your claim your costs will be the same, subject to working out a deal with your lawyer for a reduced fee. Edna advised me that proceeding through the court system on your own, even for a former Canadian litigation lawyer, is an almost insurmountable task. Hence, PROFECO is the way to go, subject to your fact situation meeting its mandate and guidelines, and your willingness to use a government-run mediation facility.
The Oaxaca PROFECO offices are well staffed, yet used by a relatively modest percentage of the populace, meaning that compared to government offices of transportation, immigration and taxation for example, they are a welcomed and expedient breath of fresh air. Intake reviews your documentation and advises what if anything is lacking, and how many copies are required. Your primary advisor then reviews your paperwork, asks for clarification, and prepares a claim package. Feel free to supplement the information she selects to append to your claim, by suggesting the inclusion of any additional documentation you might have. Remember that as competent and seemingly helpful as she might appear, she is nevertheless a Oaxacan civil servant: “Is it okay if we also attach copies of these notes I made over the past year?,” I queried. More hard evidence.
My initial September 11, 2008, attendance terminated with a hearing date I negotiated to meet my schedule, October 10, 2008. “You know,” advised Aurea Guzman Palacios, “you should also name your retailer, Tubos y Conexiones, as a respondent, even though it seems like it didn’t do anything wrong.” I wouldn’t have advised a client with a legal dispute any differently!
“We’ll look after serving them, but remember to make sure you’re here at 10 am sharp on the October 10th.” Even in Toronto we’re accustomed to giving 15 minutes grace, so how could it possibly be that Oaxaca, government to boot, could possibly adhere to a more stringent and exacting timetable?
Service of the proceeding and notice of the date is effected by the regional PROFECO office where the company carries on business. In the case of HESA, this meant in the State of Mexico.
A Tubos y Conexiones representative attended, arriving shortly before the appointed hour. HESA was a no show. The PROFECO mediator, Javier, called the Estado de México PROFECO process server, and was advised that HESA was not served because company employees were on strike and the factory was shut down. The mediator was skeptical, indicating to me that sometimes federal government employees forget to do their jobs, or simply can’t be bothered and make up stories. But in this case we should give them the benefit of the doubt and simply ask them to once again try to serve the documentation with a fresh return date, a month down the road. November 10th was set for the new appointment, with more documentation drafted, the preamble including the circumstances of the adjournment.
Before conceding that PROFECO was unable to serve HESA, in the presence of Javier the conciliator and Engineer Octavio the Tubos representative, I called the HESA offices. Lorena Torres, receptionist, advised me that the employees were not on strike, nor had they been in the recent past, and that the company was functioning as normal. So much for the veracity of the State of Mexico PROFECO process server.
PROFECO levies a fine against a company for each missed appointment, the amount increasing with each failed attendance. Should HESA fail to attend the next date, after having received notice, the fine would be 172.79 pesos, making it hardly a compelling reason for the company to send someone from head office.
By the time November 10th had arrived, my hot water heater, wrong new tanks still in place, had once again sprung a leak, albeit a small one. The main implication is that the dripping water puts out the pilot from time to time, so unless you’re constantly checking, you never know when your shower will be hot or cold.
Neither HESA nor Tubos attended on the new date for the proceeding. The PROFECO mediator checked on his computer, and with the State of Mexico regional office, once again being led to believe that HESA was on strike. And once again I called HESA and confirmed that business was operating as normal, without strike. “Don Alvin,” Javier assured, “we’ll try to serve HESA once more, and hopefully this time the process server’s supervisor will have a word with him and tell him that there is no strike.” More importantly, the conciliator decided to levy a 3,000 peso fine against Tubos for not sending its representative to this second meeting.
I didn’t ask why the fine for Tubos was so steep, simply stunned that my ally was being dinged with a sizeable stipend while the scoundrel was getting off unscathed because it ostensibly had no notice of the proceeding. “I think we should be trying to convince Tubos that it should share responsibility, and maybe this fine will be what it needs to convince it to come to the table and acknowledge that you were relying on the judgment of its salesperson when you decided to buy a HESA product.” Javier was treating me with the utmost respect (i.e. “Don Alvin”), giving me advice, and being pro-active in his approach to the matter. “Let’s give them a bit more than a month to be served, just to be safe. How about December 15th?”
On December 15th, Engineer Octavio once again attended, but no one from HESA. This time PROFECO had a statement from its process server stating that indeed HESA was on strike, all very strange since there has not been any such indication on the internet. “It could be that some company employees are striking, and HESA is able to use this as a way to avoid service of legal documents for the entire company,” Javier surmised. Only PROFECO is permitted to effect service of PROFECO documents, so my offer to have a friend in Mexico City attend at HESA with the papers was rejected.
I decided enough was enough, and if I could exact upwards of the 3,000 peso fine from Tubos, and buy a new, alternate brand product, that would be the best, at least in terms of finishing my business with PROFECO. I could continue to pursue HESA, but only in court since the PROFECO proceeding would be closed out. We adjourned until the 17th, the plan being that in the interim I would attend at Tubos, select a comparable product of another manufacturer, and be given a 2,500 peso credit.
As long as PROFECO does not register a fine with a companion governmental branch, presumably finance or collections, the amount or any portion thereof can be applied to a comprehensive resolution as part of a negotiated settlement. PROFECO doesn’t otherwise receive the fine amount, nor does the consumer. The paperwork which reflects the levying of a fine can be redrafted with no mention of a fine. Literally, one branch of government does not know what the other branch has done.
I selected an alternate brand, Delta, with equivalent specifications and a six-year warranty, for a net cost to me of 9,800.25 pesos. Three years earlier I had paid 11,736 pesos for the HESA hot water heater. Given Mexico’s rate of inflation, I didn’t do too badly. Although I have released Tubos y Conexiones from any further obligation to me, I have preserved the right to proceed in court against HESA, for all losses including the cost of my new Delta boiler. Economically feasible or not, that’s the way I intend to go.
PROFECO has its limitations, especially since its power to force and enforce resolutions in this type of consumer dispute are restricted. However, it does provide an important and valuable alternate means of dispute resolution, attractive for a number of reasons:
1) The system works fast, much more so than that to which we are accustomed in Canada and the US;
2) There is no cost to the consumer;
3) The staff are helpful, obviously well trained, and willing to render legal or quasi-legal advice … although not necessarily correct advice, it’s nevertheless helpful for foreigners, often with limited networks otherwise able to provide counsel;
4) Its mediators appear to have good mediation skills and be sincerely motivated to bring parties together with a view to achieving resolutions in a cost-effective and sensible fashion.
Alvin Starkman has a Masters in anthropology and law degree from Osgoode Hall Law School. Now a resident of Oaxaca, Alvin writes, takes tours to the sights, and owns Casa Machaya Oaxaca Bed & Breakfast ( http://www.oaxacadream.com ), a unique Oaxaca bed and breakfast experience, providing Oaxaca accommodations which combine the comfort and service of Oaxaca hotels with the personal touch of quaint country inn style lodging.
5/18/2008
A rich woodcarving tradition dating to pre-Hispanic times: Spotlight on Jacobo Ángeles
Alvin Starkman M.A., LL.B.
One would be hard-pressed to search the Americas and find creators of folk art with more form, symbolism and importance to the development and sustenance of their culture, than those of Zapotec ancestry in the southern Mexico state of Oaxaca.
Many writers, including so-called experts in folk art, have mistakenly written that the origins of the tradition date back fifty or sixty years, to a small number of wood carvers residing in one of the central valleys of Oaxaca, a few miles from the state capital of the same name. The error has consistently been equating the recent commercialization of the art-form with its origins, and ignoring its pre-Hispanic roots and subsequent development.
Carver Jacobo Ángeles lives with his wife María and two children in San Martín Tilcajete, one of three main Zapotec villages, most of the residents of which earn a living from carving and / or painting colorful figures, often generically referred to as alebrijes, from the branches of the copal tree. The others are Arrazola and La Unión Tejalapan.
At age 12 Jacobo began learning to carve from his father. Later on he was mentored by elders in his own and other villages. “Over the past few decades our craft has without a doubt changed dramatically,” Jacobo explains, “with the use of more synthetic paints, a tremendous increase in the range of figures being carved, and with domestic and international demand for our carvings growing exponentially and affecting how and what we produce. But remember, my ancestors were carving animals right here in this region before the Spanish arrived in Mexico in the 1500’s. And we were using only natural paint colors which we derived from fruits and vegetables, plants and tree bark, clay, and even insects. In my family we still use what we find around us to make paints for our figures.”
San Martín Tilcajete is located about a 40 minute drive from the city of Oaxaca, along a highway leading to the state’s Pacific resort towns, including one of the oldest ports, Puerto Escondido. Puerto Escondido was a hub for the export of coffee and other cash crops during colonial times, but is now a popular beach destination for Mexican and international vacationers alike. Many travelers combine their sun and sand vacation with a visit to Oaxaca, searching out unique pieces of folk art including dance masks, pottery and painted clay figures, rugs and tapestries, and antiques from the colonial period forward. And of course there are the pre-Hispanic ruins, galleries, museums and renowned Oaxacan cuisine.
“My ancestors used a 20-day calendar,” Jacobo continues, “and each day was represented by a different creature. So every Zapotec person had an animal with whom he had a connection, and each animal had certain characteristics which carried over to the individual, as personality traits. For example, the jaguar represents power and ultimate strength, the frog is characterized by honesty and openness, the coyote watchful observation, the turtle always a troublemaker prone to breaking the rules, the eagle technical and strategic power, and so on. My people used to carve figures of just these 20 animals. They started out as small whittlings for good luck that people would keep in a revered place in the home, or wear around the neck as amulets. They also carved larger figures for their children to use as toys.”
After much probing, an almost forgotten story emerges of the use of decoys of wood and other materials. Jacobo reveals: “My people used a variety of methods to attract different kinds of game, but for hunting eagles and other birds of prey, rabbits, and deer, yes they used decoys. A painted wooden snake would be placed on the ground in an area where ants had trampled the grasses so the snake decoy would easily be seen by eagles. To hunt rabbit, my ancestors would attach a rabbit tail to one end of a straw hat, and at the other end another tail with a face painted on it. For deer, a crude wooden deer torso with real antlers would be placed in the tall brush. So carving was historically important to our people for not only totemic and related reasons, but it was directly related to our subsistence. All the written records from the period of the conquest, and not just local legend, confirm the importance of woodcarving.”
“But look at what we now carve,” Jacobo continues. “While in my family we still use natural paints, and still carve our 20 totems, we’ve transformed a simple yet important and symbolic tradition into something very different. In our villages we now carve many more than those 20 animals because of collector demand. More importantly, we’re able to make our heritage better understood and appreciated by the world. In our own workshop, our painting depicts designs and representations of our culture … friezes from the ancient ruin at Mitla, symbols representing waves, mountains and fertility, the totems, and other metaphors for our culture today, and from the past.”
Indeed the world has taken notice … not only hobbyists, carvers from other countries, and folk art aficionados. Jacobo’s work is prominently displayed in The Smithsonian Institute, Chicago’s National Museum of Mexican Art, and elsewhere throughout the continent and further abroad, in museums, art colleges and galleries. Throughout the year Jacobo traverses the U.S. promoting Oaxacan folk art and his Zapotec heritage, teaching in a diversity of educational venues ranging from junior schools to university departments of fine art, and as honored speaker at art exhibition openings.
********************
A visit to the Ángeles workshop adjoining their home, accessed by a heavily pot-holed narrow dirt road towards one end of the village, affords an opportunity to learn about this extraordinary skill-set, from Jacobo, Maria --- an excellent painter in her own right --- and some two dozen other members of their family who produce some of the finest quality wood carvings found anywhere on the continent. The men do most of the carving, while women do most of the painting, but the tasks are definitely not exclusively based on gender lines. Carving is done with non – mechanical hand-tools such as machetes, chisels and knives. The only time a more sophisticated tool is used is when a chain saw is employed to cut off a branch and level a base for the proposed figure
Except when a special order is received, the woodworkers in the family are given artistic license to carve whatever figure they wish. A trozo of tree trunk will “speak” to one of these specialists, and that’s the inspiration for beginning to create a particular animal: the shape, thickness, and bends and twists in the piece come alive. A detailed outline is drawn on the bark, defining the image with greater clarity and detail. The sculpting in earnest then begins.
“From the female copal tree we are able to make figures out of one piece of wood, often very large and intricate. This wood is soft and easy to work with. The male tree is harder, and branches tend to be smaller and somewhat delicate, so we use it to make animals which we assemble in the process.”
The carving alone takes up to a month. The figure is then left to dry for up to 10 months, depending on its overall size and thickness. Because of the properties of the copal, and Oaxaca’s semi-tropical climate, the wood is susceptible to termite infestation. Accordingly, during the drying process the piece is treated. It’s soaked in a gasoline / insecticide mixture for several hours. As an added assurance, it’s then placed in an oven, just in case eggs have evaded extermination. “All of our pieces are guaranteed to never have a termite problem,” Jacobo assures.
Since the figures are fashioned while the wood is green and more easily workable, the wood separates during the drying process. “There are a couple of members of my family whose main job is to fill the cracks before the painting begins.” They use shims, small pieces of wood which are otherwise waste from the carving process, to do part of the remedial work, as well as a sawdust-glue mixture. But even these slivers of wood and the sawdust have been cured. “We’re proud of our work, and never want to have any problems with any of our buyers, whether someone is spending $20 or $2,000.”
In the Ángeles workshop, in almost all cases one person carves and another paints. Once a figure has left the hands of the carver, all proprietary rights are released, and another member of the family is entrusted with the painting. Nephew Magdaleno explains: “Occasionally one of my cousins will come up to me and say ‘what do you think about these colors or this kind of design concept for this coyote,’ and I’ll give my feedback, but it doesn’t happen very often, and in the end I’m almost always pleased with the result. For me it’s the form that’s most important, and for whoever’s painting, it’s the imagery it captures.”
One cannot help but gasp at the creative sculpting genius which goes into each piece: A starving dog scratching fleas, a bear with its paw in a honey pot, a snake constricting a wincing jaguar, a winged horse on its hinds, a woman with long braided locks and the body of an armadillo, or a deer, life-size by Mexican standards. There’s something particularly arresting about each creation: the ever-so-flowing and realistic movement, a fanciful stance, or a familiar pose striking a chord with our popular characterization. However the painting is anything but familiar. No color of the rainbow goes untested and the intricacy of and variation in design is remarkable.
Theories abound regarding the beginning of the modern-day manifestation of the art-form. Some say that because hallucinogenic mushrooms are native to this part of Mexico, drug induced revelations caused the imaginations of some to wander, ultimately becoming expressed in their carvings. The better explanation appears to be that knowledge of colorful, large, papier maché alebrijes or dragon-like forms which originated in the State of Mexico, eventually filtered down to Oaxaca, and were the inspiration for the fathers of contemporary painted wooden carvings. “You know, it’s not accurate to refer to what we create as alebrijes, because to the older generations of Mexicans, and to true folk art collectors, alebrijes were developed near D.F. (Distrito Federal, or Mexico City, the nation’s capital), and what we do is completely different.”
Jacobo demonstrates how his ancestors created natural paints, historically used for dying clothing, painting buildings, and ceremonially as face and body decoration used for rites of passage, fiestas, prayer and other important occasions. Today their primary use, at least in these few villages, is for painting the wood carvings. He explains with the assistance of his machete and a tree trunk how he cuts away the reddish inside part of the bark of the male copal, allows it to dry, then toasts and grinds it. “This is a primary base that we use, which allows us to create a range of colors, tones and shades. Just watch.”
Using his hands as palettes, Jacobo begins by placing a small amount of the powdered bark in one hand, squeezes juice from a lime, creating a brown, which he then places on an unpainted wooden owl. “Yes the owl is also one of our sacred creatures, the great healer, quiet and humble.” He reveals: Now over time, and in the sun, this color will change or fade and be absorbed into the wood. So what our ancestors learned to do was take the dried sap from the copal tree and heat it up with honey. The resulting liquid is then mixed with the paint, changing the color a little; see, it becomes a deep orange … but most importantly it acts as a mordent making the color permanent, and a little shiny.” He adds powdered limestone, and the color changes to black. With the addition of baking soda it becomes magenta. A new base is then started, with crushed pomegranate seeds. Magically the pulverized pink is transformed into green with the addition of powdered zinc. Blue from the añil tree, indigo, the next color, is changed with the addition of bicarbonate, zinc, lime juice or the powdered lime mineral. More lime miraculously converts a deep purple into shades of grey, and then white. Corn mold or huitlacoche, a black gooey culinary delicacy, when fermented and then powdered, yields ochre. The red of the dried and then crushed minute insect, the cochineal, which feeds off its host nopal cactus, becomes orange with the addition of the juice of any of a number of acidic fruits.
The demonstration terminates with Jacobo asking, “what´s your favorite animal,” following which he finger paints a rabbit from the rainbow of colors on his palms, as only Alice could have imagined.
******************
With approximately 150 families now producing painted wooden figures in these and a couple of other smaller villages, the questions left unanswered remain: What facilitated and drove more carvers to adopt the papier maché style of using brilliant color combinations, and how can everyone in these villages make a living from this solitary art-form?
As with other crafts in the central valleys of Oaxaca, their production wasn’t always the primary means of sustenance for the populace. Traditionally, making crafts was a hobby or part-time trade, beginning with a paucity of items being sold to the odd passerby, adventurer or traveler. In the case of rugs or tapetes from nearby Teotitlán del Valle, there were trade routes that producers followed in order to effect more sales in other regions of the state, and in some cases beyond. But the primary means of family survival was working the land and small-scale ranching. In the case of the carving villages, there never was a broader market, although in San Martín Tilcajete embroidered shirts, blouses and dresses were an extremely well-received craft product throughout the 1960’s and into the 80’s.
Dramatic change in production and marketing of wooden carvings had its genesis in the 1940’s. The pan-American highway cut through the Sierra Madre del Sur mountains, reaching Oaxaca, opening up the state to the north, in particular Mexico City and the border states. Until then Oaxaca was relatively isolated notwithstanding a rail connection. By the 1950’s and early 60’s Americans and Canadians were prospering from the post-war boom, credit cards had been mailed to virtually everyone, and word spread of a new kind of vacation, in a third world country called Mexico. Jet air travel facilitated the transformation. The women’s movement meant more two income families, resulting in more disposable income for traveling. Mexicana Airlines and Oaxacan travel agents partnered to begin offering tour packages, which further facilitated tourism to the region.
The hippie movement of the 1960’s and early 70’s brought Oaxaca to the forefront of the alternative lifestyle, with throngs of youth and their pop idols traveling to Huautla de Jiménez, then a tiny Oaxacan village, to eat hallucinogenic mushrooms with the now infamous healer María Sabina. North American youth saw and purchased the first generation of contemporary wood carvings.
By the 1980’s, as a consequence of multiple factors, Oaxacan alebrijes had become well-established as folk art, with the market continuing to grow. The economic implication was that farmers and ranchers were able to spend more time carving and painting, and less time in the countryside and in marketplaces vending their produce and animals. With a new toll-road opening from Mexico City to Oaxaca in 1995, access to the southern state became even quicker and easier, and safe. In good conscience, travel writers were no longer able to warn tourists about driving the switchbacks, back-road banditos or cars overheating on secondary roads without service stations.
The future market for the art-form? While the odd visitor to a Oaxacan coastal resort such as Puerto Escondido, or the more popular Huatulco, does visit the state capital and the workshops of carvers like Jacobo, most do not. Within the next four years a new highway to the coast will open, cutting road travel time by a third or more. Even more sun worshipers will visit Oaxaca, and marvel at the art of Jacobo and María Ángeles.
Since opening their family workshop in 1996, without a doubt Jacobo and María have singularly raised the quality bar for other villagers who aspire to mirror their success. With Oaxacan wood carvings of superior quality now well established on the world stage, and access no longer an impediment, the challenge for others in San Martín Tilcajete will be to achieve the success of the Ángeles family through production of like quality, until now eluding most.
A challenge for all carvers in the region is to ensure a continuous supply of copal to meet demand. A reforestation project commenced about 15 years ago by the late master of contemporary Mexican art, Rodolfo Morales, continues through his Foundation. The Ángeles family and their friends and other villagers spend the last Sunday of each July, in the midst of the rainy season, planting, a part of the sustainable living concept for them: ensuring an ongoing supply of raw product, cutting only branches for making figures so that the tree continues to grow, reducing waste by utilizing the slivers and sawdust in repair work and any remaining twigs and branches as firewood for cooking, and using the sap and bark in paint production. “And you know,” Jacobo reminds, “we’ve also been using the hardened sap from the tree as incense, mainly at religious cememonies, for generations. There are even knifemakers down the road in Ocotlán, who engrave their hand-forged blades using a special ink made with the sap. Have you visited the cuchillería of Ángel Aguilar?”
For high end collectors, we can only encourage the success of all efforts and projects aimed at maintaining the growth and development of the Oaxacan woodcarving tradition, since it satisfies and advances our penchant for and obsession with quality hand-fashioned craftsmanship. For the artisans in the region, aside from the obvious economic importance, it’s part of maintaining their Zapotec heritage and illustrating the richness of the culture to the broader world.
The workshop of Jacobo and María Ángeles is located at Calle Olvido #9, San Martín Tilcajete, Ocotlán, Oaxaca ( t: 951-524-9047 ; w: http://www.tilcajete.org ; e: angeles@tilcajete.org ).
Alvin Starkman together with wife Arlene operates Casa Machaya Oaxaca Bed & Breakfast ( http://www.oaxacadream.com ). Alvin received his masters in social anthropology in 1978, and his law degree in 1984. Thereafter he was a litigator in Toronto until taking early retirement. He and his family were frequent visitors to Oaxaca between 1991 and when they became permanent residents in 2004. Alvin writes about life and cultural traditions in Oaxaca, tours couples, families and small groups to the craft villages, ruins, colonial churches and more off-the-beaten-track destinations in Oaxaca state, and is a special consultant to documentary film production companies.
One would be hard-pressed to search the Americas and find creators of folk art with more form, symbolism and importance to the development and sustenance of their culture, than those of Zapotec ancestry in the southern Mexico state of Oaxaca.
Many writers, including so-called experts in folk art, have mistakenly written that the origins of the tradition date back fifty or sixty years, to a small number of wood carvers residing in one of the central valleys of Oaxaca, a few miles from the state capital of the same name. The error has consistently been equating the recent commercialization of the art-form with its origins, and ignoring its pre-Hispanic roots and subsequent development.
Carver Jacobo Ángeles lives with his wife María and two children in San Martín Tilcajete, one of three main Zapotec villages, most of the residents of which earn a living from carving and / or painting colorful figures, often generically referred to as alebrijes, from the branches of the copal tree. The others are Arrazola and La Unión Tejalapan.
At age 12 Jacobo began learning to carve from his father. Later on he was mentored by elders in his own and other villages. “Over the past few decades our craft has without a doubt changed dramatically,” Jacobo explains, “with the use of more synthetic paints, a tremendous increase in the range of figures being carved, and with domestic and international demand for our carvings growing exponentially and affecting how and what we produce. But remember, my ancestors were carving animals right here in this region before the Spanish arrived in Mexico in the 1500’s. And we were using only natural paint colors which we derived from fruits and vegetables, plants and tree bark, clay, and even insects. In my family we still use what we find around us to make paints for our figures.”
San Martín Tilcajete is located about a 40 minute drive from the city of Oaxaca, along a highway leading to the state’s Pacific resort towns, including one of the oldest ports, Puerto Escondido. Puerto Escondido was a hub for the export of coffee and other cash crops during colonial times, but is now a popular beach destination for Mexican and international vacationers alike. Many travelers combine their sun and sand vacation with a visit to Oaxaca, searching out unique pieces of folk art including dance masks, pottery and painted clay figures, rugs and tapestries, and antiques from the colonial period forward. And of course there are the pre-Hispanic ruins, galleries, museums and renowned Oaxacan cuisine.
“My ancestors used a 20-day calendar,” Jacobo continues, “and each day was represented by a different creature. So every Zapotec person had an animal with whom he had a connection, and each animal had certain characteristics which carried over to the individual, as personality traits. For example, the jaguar represents power and ultimate strength, the frog is characterized by honesty and openness, the coyote watchful observation, the turtle always a troublemaker prone to breaking the rules, the eagle technical and strategic power, and so on. My people used to carve figures of just these 20 animals. They started out as small whittlings for good luck that people would keep in a revered place in the home, or wear around the neck as amulets. They also carved larger figures for their children to use as toys.”
After much probing, an almost forgotten story emerges of the use of decoys of wood and other materials. Jacobo reveals: “My people used a variety of methods to attract different kinds of game, but for hunting eagles and other birds of prey, rabbits, and deer, yes they used decoys. A painted wooden snake would be placed on the ground in an area where ants had trampled the grasses so the snake decoy would easily be seen by eagles. To hunt rabbit, my ancestors would attach a rabbit tail to one end of a straw hat, and at the other end another tail with a face painted on it. For deer, a crude wooden deer torso with real antlers would be placed in the tall brush. So carving was historically important to our people for not only totemic and related reasons, but it was directly related to our subsistence. All the written records from the period of the conquest, and not just local legend, confirm the importance of woodcarving.”
“But look at what we now carve,” Jacobo continues. “While in my family we still use natural paints, and still carve our 20 totems, we’ve transformed a simple yet important and symbolic tradition into something very different. In our villages we now carve many more than those 20 animals because of collector demand. More importantly, we’re able to make our heritage better understood and appreciated by the world. In our own workshop, our painting depicts designs and representations of our culture … friezes from the ancient ruin at Mitla, symbols representing waves, mountains and fertility, the totems, and other metaphors for our culture today, and from the past.”
Indeed the world has taken notice … not only hobbyists, carvers from other countries, and folk art aficionados. Jacobo’s work is prominently displayed in The Smithsonian Institute, Chicago’s National Museum of Mexican Art, and elsewhere throughout the continent and further abroad, in museums, art colleges and galleries. Throughout the year Jacobo traverses the U.S. promoting Oaxacan folk art and his Zapotec heritage, teaching in a diversity of educational venues ranging from junior schools to university departments of fine art, and as honored speaker at art exhibition openings.
********************
A visit to the Ángeles workshop adjoining their home, accessed by a heavily pot-holed narrow dirt road towards one end of the village, affords an opportunity to learn about this extraordinary skill-set, from Jacobo, Maria --- an excellent painter in her own right --- and some two dozen other members of their family who produce some of the finest quality wood carvings found anywhere on the continent. The men do most of the carving, while women do most of the painting, but the tasks are definitely not exclusively based on gender lines. Carving is done with non – mechanical hand-tools such as machetes, chisels and knives. The only time a more sophisticated tool is used is when a chain saw is employed to cut off a branch and level a base for the proposed figure
Except when a special order is received, the woodworkers in the family are given artistic license to carve whatever figure they wish. A trozo of tree trunk will “speak” to one of these specialists, and that’s the inspiration for beginning to create a particular animal: the shape, thickness, and bends and twists in the piece come alive. A detailed outline is drawn on the bark, defining the image with greater clarity and detail. The sculpting in earnest then begins.
“From the female copal tree we are able to make figures out of one piece of wood, often very large and intricate. This wood is soft and easy to work with. The male tree is harder, and branches tend to be smaller and somewhat delicate, so we use it to make animals which we assemble in the process.”
The carving alone takes up to a month. The figure is then left to dry for up to 10 months, depending on its overall size and thickness. Because of the properties of the copal, and Oaxaca’s semi-tropical climate, the wood is susceptible to termite infestation. Accordingly, during the drying process the piece is treated. It’s soaked in a gasoline / insecticide mixture for several hours. As an added assurance, it’s then placed in an oven, just in case eggs have evaded extermination. “All of our pieces are guaranteed to never have a termite problem,” Jacobo assures.
Since the figures are fashioned while the wood is green and more easily workable, the wood separates during the drying process. “There are a couple of members of my family whose main job is to fill the cracks before the painting begins.” They use shims, small pieces of wood which are otherwise waste from the carving process, to do part of the remedial work, as well as a sawdust-glue mixture. But even these slivers of wood and the sawdust have been cured. “We’re proud of our work, and never want to have any problems with any of our buyers, whether someone is spending $20 or $2,000.”
In the Ángeles workshop, in almost all cases one person carves and another paints. Once a figure has left the hands of the carver, all proprietary rights are released, and another member of the family is entrusted with the painting. Nephew Magdaleno explains: “Occasionally one of my cousins will come up to me and say ‘what do you think about these colors or this kind of design concept for this coyote,’ and I’ll give my feedback, but it doesn’t happen very often, and in the end I’m almost always pleased with the result. For me it’s the form that’s most important, and for whoever’s painting, it’s the imagery it captures.”
One cannot help but gasp at the creative sculpting genius which goes into each piece: A starving dog scratching fleas, a bear with its paw in a honey pot, a snake constricting a wincing jaguar, a winged horse on its hinds, a woman with long braided locks and the body of an armadillo, or a deer, life-size by Mexican standards. There’s something particularly arresting about each creation: the ever-so-flowing and realistic movement, a fanciful stance, or a familiar pose striking a chord with our popular characterization. However the painting is anything but familiar. No color of the rainbow goes untested and the intricacy of and variation in design is remarkable.
Theories abound regarding the beginning of the modern-day manifestation of the art-form. Some say that because hallucinogenic mushrooms are native to this part of Mexico, drug induced revelations caused the imaginations of some to wander, ultimately becoming expressed in their carvings. The better explanation appears to be that knowledge of colorful, large, papier maché alebrijes or dragon-like forms which originated in the State of Mexico, eventually filtered down to Oaxaca, and were the inspiration for the fathers of contemporary painted wooden carvings. “You know, it’s not accurate to refer to what we create as alebrijes, because to the older generations of Mexicans, and to true folk art collectors, alebrijes were developed near D.F. (Distrito Federal, or Mexico City, the nation’s capital), and what we do is completely different.”
Jacobo demonstrates how his ancestors created natural paints, historically used for dying clothing, painting buildings, and ceremonially as face and body decoration used for rites of passage, fiestas, prayer and other important occasions. Today their primary use, at least in these few villages, is for painting the wood carvings. He explains with the assistance of his machete and a tree trunk how he cuts away the reddish inside part of the bark of the male copal, allows it to dry, then toasts and grinds it. “This is a primary base that we use, which allows us to create a range of colors, tones and shades. Just watch.”
Using his hands as palettes, Jacobo begins by placing a small amount of the powdered bark in one hand, squeezes juice from a lime, creating a brown, which he then places on an unpainted wooden owl. “Yes the owl is also one of our sacred creatures, the great healer, quiet and humble.” He reveals: Now over time, and in the sun, this color will change or fade and be absorbed into the wood. So what our ancestors learned to do was take the dried sap from the copal tree and heat it up with honey. The resulting liquid is then mixed with the paint, changing the color a little; see, it becomes a deep orange … but most importantly it acts as a mordent making the color permanent, and a little shiny.” He adds powdered limestone, and the color changes to black. With the addition of baking soda it becomes magenta. A new base is then started, with crushed pomegranate seeds. Magically the pulverized pink is transformed into green with the addition of powdered zinc. Blue from the añil tree, indigo, the next color, is changed with the addition of bicarbonate, zinc, lime juice or the powdered lime mineral. More lime miraculously converts a deep purple into shades of grey, and then white. Corn mold or huitlacoche, a black gooey culinary delicacy, when fermented and then powdered, yields ochre. The red of the dried and then crushed minute insect, the cochineal, which feeds off its host nopal cactus, becomes orange with the addition of the juice of any of a number of acidic fruits.
The demonstration terminates with Jacobo asking, “what´s your favorite animal,” following which he finger paints a rabbit from the rainbow of colors on his palms, as only Alice could have imagined.
******************
With approximately 150 families now producing painted wooden figures in these and a couple of other smaller villages, the questions left unanswered remain: What facilitated and drove more carvers to adopt the papier maché style of using brilliant color combinations, and how can everyone in these villages make a living from this solitary art-form?
As with other crafts in the central valleys of Oaxaca, their production wasn’t always the primary means of sustenance for the populace. Traditionally, making crafts was a hobby or part-time trade, beginning with a paucity of items being sold to the odd passerby, adventurer or traveler. In the case of rugs or tapetes from nearby Teotitlán del Valle, there were trade routes that producers followed in order to effect more sales in other regions of the state, and in some cases beyond. But the primary means of family survival was working the land and small-scale ranching. In the case of the carving villages, there never was a broader market, although in San Martín Tilcajete embroidered shirts, blouses and dresses were an extremely well-received craft product throughout the 1960’s and into the 80’s.
Dramatic change in production and marketing of wooden carvings had its genesis in the 1940’s. The pan-American highway cut through the Sierra Madre del Sur mountains, reaching Oaxaca, opening up the state to the north, in particular Mexico City and the border states. Until then Oaxaca was relatively isolated notwithstanding a rail connection. By the 1950’s and early 60’s Americans and Canadians were prospering from the post-war boom, credit cards had been mailed to virtually everyone, and word spread of a new kind of vacation, in a third world country called Mexico. Jet air travel facilitated the transformation. The women’s movement meant more two income families, resulting in more disposable income for traveling. Mexicana Airlines and Oaxacan travel agents partnered to begin offering tour packages, which further facilitated tourism to the region.
The hippie movement of the 1960’s and early 70’s brought Oaxaca to the forefront of the alternative lifestyle, with throngs of youth and their pop idols traveling to Huautla de Jiménez, then a tiny Oaxacan village, to eat hallucinogenic mushrooms with the now infamous healer María Sabina. North American youth saw and purchased the first generation of contemporary wood carvings.
By the 1980’s, as a consequence of multiple factors, Oaxacan alebrijes had become well-established as folk art, with the market continuing to grow. The economic implication was that farmers and ranchers were able to spend more time carving and painting, and less time in the countryside and in marketplaces vending their produce and animals. With a new toll-road opening from Mexico City to Oaxaca in 1995, access to the southern state became even quicker and easier, and safe. In good conscience, travel writers were no longer able to warn tourists about driving the switchbacks, back-road banditos or cars overheating on secondary roads without service stations.
The future market for the art-form? While the odd visitor to a Oaxacan coastal resort such as Puerto Escondido, or the more popular Huatulco, does visit the state capital and the workshops of carvers like Jacobo, most do not. Within the next four years a new highway to the coast will open, cutting road travel time by a third or more. Even more sun worshipers will visit Oaxaca, and marvel at the art of Jacobo and María Ángeles.
Since opening their family workshop in 1996, without a doubt Jacobo and María have singularly raised the quality bar for other villagers who aspire to mirror their success. With Oaxacan wood carvings of superior quality now well established on the world stage, and access no longer an impediment, the challenge for others in San Martín Tilcajete will be to achieve the success of the Ángeles family through production of like quality, until now eluding most.
A challenge for all carvers in the region is to ensure a continuous supply of copal to meet demand. A reforestation project commenced about 15 years ago by the late master of contemporary Mexican art, Rodolfo Morales, continues through his Foundation. The Ángeles family and their friends and other villagers spend the last Sunday of each July, in the midst of the rainy season, planting, a part of the sustainable living concept for them: ensuring an ongoing supply of raw product, cutting only branches for making figures so that the tree continues to grow, reducing waste by utilizing the slivers and sawdust in repair work and any remaining twigs and branches as firewood for cooking, and using the sap and bark in paint production. “And you know,” Jacobo reminds, “we’ve also been using the hardened sap from the tree as incense, mainly at religious cememonies, for generations. There are even knifemakers down the road in Ocotlán, who engrave their hand-forged blades using a special ink made with the sap. Have you visited the cuchillería of Ángel Aguilar?”
For high end collectors, we can only encourage the success of all efforts and projects aimed at maintaining the growth and development of the Oaxacan woodcarving tradition, since it satisfies and advances our penchant for and obsession with quality hand-fashioned craftsmanship. For the artisans in the region, aside from the obvious economic importance, it’s part of maintaining their Zapotec heritage and illustrating the richness of the culture to the broader world.
The workshop of Jacobo and María Ángeles is located at Calle Olvido #9, San Martín Tilcajete, Ocotlán, Oaxaca ( t: 951-524-9047 ; w: http://www.tilcajete.org ; e: angeles@tilcajete.org ).
Alvin Starkman together with wife Arlene operates Casa Machaya Oaxaca Bed & Breakfast ( http://www.oaxacadream.com ). Alvin received his masters in social anthropology in 1978, and his law degree in 1984. Thereafter he was a litigator in Toronto until taking early retirement. He and his family were frequent visitors to Oaxaca between 1991 and when they became permanent residents in 2004. Alvin writes about life and cultural traditions in Oaxaca, tours couples, families and small groups to the craft villages, ruins, colonial churches and more off-the-beaten-track destinations in Oaxaca state, and is a special consultant to documentary film production companies.
2/09/2007
Angélica Vásquez Cruz
Master ceramicist Angélica Vásquez Cruz has set herself apart from other sculptors, not only in her hometown of Atzompa, itself known for a longstanding tradition of villagers handcrafting fine figures, kitchenware and fanciful forms, but throughout the central valley of Oaxaca. Since age 7 Angélica has been innovating and adapting her artform using different clays and natural substances to produce variations in texture and color for her unique and thought-provoking pieces.
Atzompa is one of a plethora of quaint little craft towns which can be visited by travelers to Oaxaca. It’s most often known for the workshops of potters who make green glazed and pastel colored ceramics. However, as is the case in other villages peppering the region, on the rarest of occasions the odd maestro with something truly unique and special to offer emerges, and in Atzompa, Angélica is that angel.
Angélica’s work has been heavily influenced by her own family as well as Mexican history and legend. Her belief in the importance and strength of the matriarch in Oaxacan cultures shines through her work. What immediately strikes the eye upon entering her “showroom,” a small space set aside in her home / workshop, are two important features of her mastery: the complexity of detail; and flowing natural movement so rarely captured by her colleagues. Of peers she has very few.
Atzompa is a 15 minute drive from Oaxaca, easily accessed by taxi. Angélica’s home, on Avenida Independencia, is several blocks up from the main downtown artisans’ market. She or one of her children will warmly welcome tourists into their charming and quaint world, a well-kept homestead featuring an abundance of colorful flowering plants, shrubs and fruit trees. She can be reached at (951) 558-9061.
Resident Oaxacan Alvin Starkman, together with wife Arlene operates Casa Machaya Oaxaca Bed & Breakfast ( http://www.oaxacadream.com ). He includes a stop by Angélica’s on one of the tours he offers.
Atzompa is one of a plethora of quaint little craft towns which can be visited by travelers to Oaxaca. It’s most often known for the workshops of potters who make green glazed and pastel colored ceramics. However, as is the case in other villages peppering the region, on the rarest of occasions the odd maestro with something truly unique and special to offer emerges, and in Atzompa, Angélica is that angel.
Angélica’s work has been heavily influenced by her own family as well as Mexican history and legend. Her belief in the importance and strength of the matriarch in Oaxacan cultures shines through her work. What immediately strikes the eye upon entering her “showroom,” a small space set aside in her home / workshop, are two important features of her mastery: the complexity of detail; and flowing natural movement so rarely captured by her colleagues. Of peers she has very few.
Atzompa is a 15 minute drive from Oaxaca, easily accessed by taxi. Angélica’s home, on Avenida Independencia, is several blocks up from the main downtown artisans’ market. She or one of her children will warmly welcome tourists into their charming and quaint world, a well-kept homestead featuring an abundance of colorful flowering plants, shrubs and fruit trees. She can be reached at (951) 558-9061.
Resident Oaxacan Alvin Starkman, together with wife Arlene operates Casa Machaya Oaxaca Bed & Breakfast ( http://www.oaxacadream.com ). He includes a stop by Angélica’s on one of the tours he offers.
2/02/2007
OAXACA SCULPTOR EXTRAORDINAIRE: ADOLFO CRUZ
Alvin Starkman M.A., LL.B.
The use of locally mined stone in hews of green, pink and yellow is a tradition in Oaxaca dating to pre-Hispanic times. “Cantera,” as it’s locally known, was fashioned into foundations for temples and administrative buildings of, amongst others, the Zapotec and Mixtec civilizations. The material was also used to sculpt deities and other adornments.
Working with cantera for both utilitarian and purely aesthetic purposes has continued to date throughout much of the state of Oaxaca. One of the tradition’s most well-known and respected sculptors is Adolfo Cruz, recently retired from his fine arts teaching post at the Benito Juarez University in Oaxaca. In addition to having developed an international reputation as a master of stone and bronze art forms, Maestro Adolfo is continually being called upon by both government and church to restore and refurbish historic buildings which have suffered from the wear of centuries and periodic earthquakes, as well as by architects wanting to maintain a connection with the past in their contemporary projects.
Those with an interest in art or architecture now have an opportunity to meet with this grand maestro in his facility in Magdalena Etla, a ten minute drive beyond the well-known Wednesday market town of Villa de Etla.
You’ll have an opportunity to learn about the varied applications of the three types of cantera; the state-of-the-art machinery recently acquired by Adolfo enabling him to create with much more precision; and the process by which he fashions sculptures of cantera, as well as of bronze using a rather rudimentary foundry, the only such bronzing facility in the state. For the collector and art aficionado a rare opportunity exists to purchase one-of-a-kind pieces at a fraction of American costs for similar quality.
One of Adolfo’s three daughters, Nely, is an artist in her own right, and follows in her father’s steps, now teaching at the fine art college. She works with a variety of media, but what “pays the rent” are her fine-cut cantera jewelry pieces, predominantly earrings and pendants.
For those with a particular artistic orientation who are visiting Oaxaca, a trip to Magdalena Etla provides a uniquely rewarding experience, in particular if combined as part of a full day tour with stops at the nearby artistic glass factory, the hand-made paper facility, the art institute and gallery at San Agustín, the home of one of the finer ceramicists in Atzompa, and perhaps a stop by one of the smaller Zapotec ruins with a quaint community museum.
To get to Adolfo Cruz’s home and studio, follow the highway beyond the town of Etla, taking the first left onto a dirt road after you pass the well-marked signage of the Oaxaca Industrial Park.
Alvin Starkman together with wife Arlene operates Casa Machaya Oaxaca Bed & Breakfast ( http://www.oaxacadream.com ). Mr. Starkman
accepts tour requests along the foregoing as well as other routes in the valley of Oaxaca.
The use of locally mined stone in hews of green, pink and yellow is a tradition in Oaxaca dating to pre-Hispanic times. “Cantera,” as it’s locally known, was fashioned into foundations for temples and administrative buildings of, amongst others, the Zapotec and Mixtec civilizations. The material was also used to sculpt deities and other adornments.
Working with cantera for both utilitarian and purely aesthetic purposes has continued to date throughout much of the state of Oaxaca. One of the tradition’s most well-known and respected sculptors is Adolfo Cruz, recently retired from his fine arts teaching post at the Benito Juarez University in Oaxaca. In addition to having developed an international reputation as a master of stone and bronze art forms, Maestro Adolfo is continually being called upon by both government and church to restore and refurbish historic buildings which have suffered from the wear of centuries and periodic earthquakes, as well as by architects wanting to maintain a connection with the past in their contemporary projects.
Those with an interest in art or architecture now have an opportunity to meet with this grand maestro in his facility in Magdalena Etla, a ten minute drive beyond the well-known Wednesday market town of Villa de Etla.
You’ll have an opportunity to learn about the varied applications of the three types of cantera; the state-of-the-art machinery recently acquired by Adolfo enabling him to create with much more precision; and the process by which he fashions sculptures of cantera, as well as of bronze using a rather rudimentary foundry, the only such bronzing facility in the state. For the collector and art aficionado a rare opportunity exists to purchase one-of-a-kind pieces at a fraction of American costs for similar quality.
One of Adolfo’s three daughters, Nely, is an artist in her own right, and follows in her father’s steps, now teaching at the fine art college. She works with a variety of media, but what “pays the rent” are her fine-cut cantera jewelry pieces, predominantly earrings and pendants.
For those with a particular artistic orientation who are visiting Oaxaca, a trip to Magdalena Etla provides a uniquely rewarding experience, in particular if combined as part of a full day tour with stops at the nearby artistic glass factory, the hand-made paper facility, the art institute and gallery at San Agustín, the home of one of the finer ceramicists in Atzompa, and perhaps a stop by one of the smaller Zapotec ruins with a quaint community museum.
To get to Adolfo Cruz’s home and studio, follow the highway beyond the town of Etla, taking the first left onto a dirt road after you pass the well-marked signage of the Oaxaca Industrial Park.
Alvin Starkman together with wife Arlene operates Casa Machaya Oaxaca Bed & Breakfast ( http://www.oaxacadream.com ). Mr. Starkman
accepts tour requests along the foregoing as well as other routes in the valley of Oaxaca.
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