OÁXACA & VALLEY - Part 5: ART as LIVING TRADITION

Oáxaca State is often described as the artistic heartbeat of Mexico.  Several cities, towns and villages have been awarded the status of Pueblo Mágico largely based on their arts and crafts.

Only Mexico City has a denser collection of galleries and museums, artist-run studios, craft workshops open to visitors, cultural houses, collectives, pop-up and rotating exhibitions, and art markets.

What struck us most was not simply the number of galleries and workshops but how seamlessly art is woven into daily life. In the city, in neighbourhoods such as Jalatlaco and Xochimilco, we found studios opening directly onto the street where artists and craftspeople were working.  We were invited in and found ourselves having conversations as the work continued.  There was no sense of separation between production, display, and exchange. It became difficult to distinguish what counted as gallery, workshop, or home, because so much of the creative practice exists in that overlapping space.

Similarly, we found ourselves wondering what the distinctions are between an artist, an artisan and a craftsperson, and finally realized that it didn't seem to matter.  People were fluid in their roles and often wearing many hats at a time.

Oáxaca has long-standing traditions in weaving, ceramics, alebriges, print-making, engraving, mural and sign painting as well as the culinary arts, including mezcal-making

We learn that often a family finds they can make a living from something that they and their ancestors have been doing for generations, be it cooking, wood carving, carpet-making, mezcal-making, embroidery, fine art, whatever and several members are involved, each choosing a specialty within that art so that it all comes together.  The earliest learning for children is simple osmosis from being around the family as they work, gradually taking on little tasks and taking on more responsibility as they grow and develop.  For the most part, this is how skills and knowledge are passed.  Today, some workshops hire non-family members who learn from masters in those shops.  There is no accreditation or certification per se.  It becomes clear when someone has achieved what it takes to be called a Maestro (master).

Of course, we went into galleries and museums but quickly came to understand that art is not hidden away in galleries; it is everywhere here.  These places preserve, interpret and display work, but what is special is that it is the ancient knowledge carried by the people, their ways of knowing that are part of everyday life.  

Again and again we were reminded of the ancient Zapotec philosophy that knowledge and skills are shared as part of one's place in the community.  This goes beyond a livelihood to a form of giving through exchange, teaching and ongoing community participation.

Villages in the Central Valley have developed specialties, and one that has left a lasting impression on us is the alebrijes of San Martín Tilcajete and San Antonio Arruzola.

ALEBRIJES

The story of how alebrijes came to be is as fantastical as the figures themselves. A papier-mâché artist in Mexico City named Pedro Linares López, while very ill, developed a high fever and, during this time, had wild dreams in which magical/mythical creatures made of a mishmash of body parts were crying out a nonsensical word over and over: "alebrijes".  When he recovered, he used his craft to make the animals of his dreams.

In the 1980s, a British filmmaker hosting folk art workshops in America brought together Sr. López with Master woodcarver Manuel Jiménez from the village of San Antonio Arruzola, and the rest is history.  Today, the alebrijes of Oáxaca have been declared an intangible cultural heritage of Oaxaca.  

The significance of the origin of the alebrijes is that these are dream, fantasy figures coming from the imaginations of the carvers and painters, and because there is no universal dictionary of alebrije symbols, it can be said that no two alebrijes are exactly alike; each is an original.  This is absolutely true for the high-end pieces created by the masters, and even in the themed versions made for the tourist trade, there are differences.

We visited the world-famous workshop of María and Jacobo Ángeles.  With no appointment, we were welcomed and given a tour that lasted about an hour, after which we were free to wander back into the workshop, spend more time in the gallery and stay for as long as we wanted.  No fee. 

The process of making the art is fascinating, but what struck us more is the beliefs and practices of the couple behind it. Married in 1994 when she was just 17 and he was 21.  First, they worked hard at furthering their own skills, transforming souvenir-making into a high art form and all the while they adhered to an old Zapotec motto: "Enseñar, compartir, contribuir" (To teach, to share, to contribute), which is achieved through a philosophy of social responsibility, cultural preservation and environmental restoration.

As the workers learn (it can take ten years to become a master carver and longer to become a master painter). The workers don't pay for any classes or guidance provided by masters as they work, and their salaries are higher than in many other workshops.  If at any time a worker is ready to leave, whether to open their own shop or to work for another, they are encouraged to do so.

For almost twenty years, through a project they call Palo que Habla (the wood that speaks), they have funded and organized the planting of thousands of copal trees on communal land and use rainwater harvesting to save the forests during periods of drought brought on by climate change.  Another part of this is the planting of native corn to contribute to food security.

They own and operate a sustainable farm.  The farm produce provides the ingredients for traditional Zapotec cooks to feed lunch (every day) to their 250 employees at no charge.  

On-site, there is a gift shop that sells not only products from their workshop, but tables where other workshops can place their items for sale.  It's commission-free, just another way to promote the art.

Today there really is no educational or certification process; people gain knowledge and skills by living and working in a family enterprise.  The Ángeles' goal is to formalize an Arts and Crafts University that will offer certification across multiple disciplines.

The first thing we notice before going into the workshop is the peaceful setting a couple of kilometres out of town.  

These extraordinary pieces hanging outside are something for workers to aspire to:

When inside, we note how clean, bright and airy the various work areas are. There are more private areas for work that needs extra concentration or special materials, and communal tables where workers learn not just from the master, but from each other.

THE WORKSHOP TOUR

We are told that this young man has just come to the workshop.  The master carver keeps an eye out and offers guidance as needed.  

Copal trees grow in rugged, demanding conditions that rarely produce a straight trunk and branches; rather, they grow with twists, bends, forks, knots, and irregular branch patterns, so carvers start with an almost meditative process, holding the wood, feeling the shape, finding the location of knots and listening to what the wood wants to become.  

One way to tell that a piece is done by a new carver is that body parts, such as ears and tails, are made separately and glued on or in later, whereas someone experienced carves everything from just one piece of wood.

The wood from copal trees is used because when green, it is soft and easy to work with.  While relatively fast-growing, it still takes 15 to 30 years for a trunk to grow large enough to produce a carving of significant size.  

When a piece of wood is carved, it is set on an open shelf in a covered area of the workshop to dry.  The drying process can take weeks or months depending on the size of the piece, humidity and other conditions.

When wood dries, it checks, or develops splits and cracks.  This is where the practice of no wood wasted comes into play.  Saved shavings are used as shims to repair cracks, while saved sawdust is mixed with glue or resin to fill in imperfections as the wood dries.  Once repairs are made, the wood needs to settle again and may need further repair.  When the final repairs are done, the wood is sanded until it is as smooth as glass.  The work of repair and sanding needs a highly skilled worker.

The first painters we meet are working on a commissioned installation in which the figures all require some application of gold leaf.  Two workers are in a more private space concentrating on the laying and burnishing of the gold.

Then we move on to a larger space where painters are working in groups at various tables.  Here we get to look at the brightly coloured acrylic paints in what seems like limitless colours and learn that this workshop also specializes in researching and reviving traditional natural pigments, so colour itself becomes part of the artistic and cultural story.

The woman standing in the photo below is the master overseeing the painters at this table.

Brushes are made from both synthetic and natural fibres, and we see them in all shapes and sizes; the smallest used for eyelash-thin lines, dots, patterns and motifs.  Skilled artists trim and reshape their brushes to create special effects.  An artist's set of brushes is more than a tool-kit; it's a trusted friend, an extension of the artist's hand and mind.

This webpage from Marakame Art delves into the meanings of the symbols of Oáxacan alebrije art.

Next, we come to a small, open-air kitchen under the stewardship of two traditional Zapotec cooks.  It's hard to believe that these women can feed 250 people lunch from this space.

We spend considerable time in the gallery and wandering back to observe the painters.  We work at not being distracting to them, but some engage us in conversation about what they are doing.  It amazes me that they work without benefit of magnifiers.

 Click on photos, then enlarge them with your fingers to see the details.

The cat and dog heads below are game pieces.

The workshop and artists continually strive for innovative ways to present both the carving and the painting, such as in jewellery, combining them with silver, making them hang on a wall, and painting on ceramic and glassware.

Carvers and painters in this workshop are learning much more than skills.  They are learning the stories of their culture by developing an understanding of the meanings of Zapotec calendrical symbols, animal guardians/spirits (tonas/nahuales), and ancient motifs, and how to incorporate this knowledge into the piece they are working on.

The prices on some pieces are far out of our reach, but when one considers the time, energy, creativity, knowledge and skill from the growing of the wood to the final piece, the price tag becomes self-explanatory.

Our visit here is an unforgettable part of this trip.

CERÁMICA OAXACAÑA

We have no way to travel with pottery, so we did not visit any workshops.  However, we did see it in high-end galleries and shops and learned a bit about barro negro and lozo verde pottery, two traditional ceramic forms.

Too late, I realize I have no photos of either type of pottery, but this lovely website has photos and descriptions of all forms of Oáxacan ceramics.  Friends of Oáxacan Folk Art Ceramics

One day we came across these contemporary ceramic pieces in a shop. At first glance, they seemed surprisingly modern. Click on the photo to enlarge it and appreciate the intricate details. Unglazed and elegant, they demonstrate how Oaxacan artisans continue to innovate.

Barro Negro Pottery

The black barro negro pottery is made primarily in San Bartolo Coyotepec, a colectivo ride away from Oáxaca City.  We have become used to seeing the beautiful product, so shiny it's like a mirror and often with beautiful cutouts.  

First, a red clay piece is formed, and then, before firing, when it is almost dry but still has a bit of moisture, it is polished by hand for hours and hours with either a piece of smooth quartz, obsidian or even a river rock with a drop of water or oil.  These burnishing stones are often family heirlooms, passed through generations of pottery artisans.  Learning to apply enough pressure without applying too much is a skill that takes time to learn.

When the burnished pot is fired, it's done in an oxygen-deprived process whereby the kiln is sealed, trapping smoke and carbon, which turns the clay black.

Fragments of matte grey pottery (barro gris) have been found in Monte Albán.  Grey pottery is still made today.  It is fired, but not burnished and is a workhorse in the kitchen as well as being waterproof, so it makes good vessels for liquid, including water and mezcal.  While the shiny black pottery is more fragile and thus is primarily an art form.

Loza Verde Pottery

This green pottery comes primarily from Santa Maria Atzompa.  Between the 7th and 9th Centuries, this village was at a crossroads and became an important supplier of pottery to Monte Alban.

In the 16th century, a Spaniard introduced the Zapotec potters to a lead-based glazing chemistry.  Lead was transitioned out of pottery 

TEXTILES OAXAQUEÑAS

For each region of the state, there is traditional clothing for women and for men.  Clothing that is often part of everyday dress, worn with pride, as an expression of identity, as well as for festive and religious occasions.

Here I only want to touch on the Tehuana dress and the Huipil.

The Tehuana was worn by women throughout Mesoamerica and Guatemala before the Spanish invasion.  The colours, patterns and embroidery can reveal much about a woman's identity, social status and cultural heritage.

Frida Kahlo famously adopted the Tehuana dress as part of her public image and frequently depicted herself wearing it in her self-portraits. For Kahlo, the clothing was both a celebration of Indigenous Mexican culture and a statement of national identity after the Mexican Revolution.

The parts of a Tehuana are: a Huipil (blouse-length), an Enagua (long skirt) and a Huipil Grande (AKA: a Resplandor), handmade lace that can be worn up to frame the face, or down to act like a shawl.

On the left in the photo below is a statue at the main square in Oáxaca city of a woman in her Tehuana, and beside it is a display in the window of a clothing store. 

A Huipil is a square or rectangular piece of clothing with cutouts for the neck and arms.  It can be a short blouse, a longer tunic, or a dress of varying lengths and features traditional hand embroidery.  Everything about it can reveal much about the wearer.

When we lived in Tulum, I became aware of the huipil as a form of resistance.  Women from a small village not far away decided they needed some exercise and a break from household responsibilities, so they decided to play baseball, which was strictly for male players.  They started out with sticks and tennis balls, played barefoot in their huipils and called themselves Las Diablillas (The Little Devils).  Today they still play barefoot, in their huipils, but are celebrated worldwide.  Major League Baseball has even made a documentary about them.

What I find amazing about it is not only the old symbols and the quality of the embroidery, but the fact that the women don't work with a pattern.  What they want to do is in their heads, and they pick up the needle and get to work.

The embroidery is done on an extremely lightweight woven cotton, so it is very comfortable to wear even in the heat of a Mexican summer.

TATUAJES OÁQUEÑOS

Paul has a long-standing love of tattoos as part of his family history and wears some from both BC artists and our travels.  His studies this time led him to find a young artist named Miguel Ruiz, working in the shop Tinte Sangre Tatuajes (Ink Blood Tattoos), owned by Pablo Hernandez, a respected Maestro of tattooing.  This workshop and gallery specializes in traditional Mexican, pre-Hispanic, and Indigenous-rooted tattooing.

They decided together that he would wear bats, which to the ancient Zapotec people of this region were a revered deity associated with the underworld, night, fertility and corn.  Caves where the bats lived were viewed as portals to the underworld ... the womb of the earth, and because they fly out at night, eat fruit and disperse seeds, they were seen as guardians of life, death and agriculture.

The first photo below is of the new tattoos.  In the second, I went through our photos of artifacts from Monte Albán to create a collage of bat-like faces.  In the two photos, not the stylized leaf nose, which is from the leaf-nosed bat native to Oáxaca, which is exagerated in both ink and clay to represent the supernatural powers of the bat.  See too, the large fangs and extended tonge that in pre-Hispanic times represented speech, breath and/or the shedding of blood to feed the earth.  The earrings were worn exclusively by Zapotec royalty, high priests and gods (of which the bat was one).  

Tattoing is not a continuation of an ancient Zapotec tattoo tradition, but rather a global contemporary tattoo movement, which this shop combines with the revival of ancient iconography.  In this context, the bat takes on another meaning, that of crossing between two worlds ... the ancient and the modern.

In the photo below is a poster Miguel created and that we see all over Centro, advertising his services and Paul getting a little touch-up after the healing.

While Miguel is a skilled artist in his own right, the shop again works with that Zapotec philosophy of sharing knowledge.  Pablo looks on discreetly, and at some points he and Miguel confer.  The practice is being passed along and refined through discussion, adjustment, trust and relationship.

In the photo below: Paul with Miguel on the left and with Pablo on the right.

More work from this shop can be seen on their Facebook page here.

A WONDERFUL DISCOVERY AT AN OPEN AIR ART MARKET

In a plaza near the main Zocalo, artists set up regularly to sell their work.  One man had many children's books that he had both written and so beautifully illustrated that we just had to buy one.  Each page is in Spanish on one side of the illustration and in English on the other.  We ended up spending quite a bit of time with him.  He left Mexico when young, and got his art education in Europe, worked and taught there for decades, speaks five languages, and finally returned home.  He's 75 now and says that he continues to work because he likes coming to the plaza to meet people who stop by to examine his work.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Throughout Oáxaca, art seems to extend beyond galleries and museums.  It appears in kitchens, workshops, sewing rooms, markets, fields, and family businesses.  It is found in the hands of people who continue traditions inherited from previous generations, while adapting them to the present day.  It is also tied to the ancient Zapotec practice of giving back, of sharing knowledge and skills freely so that tradition can continue and evolve.

Perhaps that is what impressed us most.  Tradition here is not preserved as something static.  It is lived, practiced, honoured, refined and shared.  Deeply rooted in the past but alive and constantly evolving.

RANDOM PHOTOS

An entire store full of embroidered and painted shoes