While visiting Mexico almost 20 years ago, I became enchanted with the fantastical, colorful animal sculptures I saw in many of the shops. Many were recognizable as deer, porcupines and other animals. Others seemed to be combinations of animals or part animal, part man. All were decorated in every color of the rainbow and accented with tiny little patterns of dots, lines and a variety of symbols. My instincts told me to buy a few and although my souvenir budget was small at that time I still brought home 5 beautiful examples.
Since that initial trip, I have learned a lot more about those figures that captivated me so much. They are commonly known as alebrije. Mexico City native, Pedro Linares, was an artist creating figurines for other well known Mexican artists like Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. Once when he was extremely ill, Linares had a dream where he died and was reborn. In this hallucination, he was surrounded by all these mythical creatures who cried out to him “alebrije” over and over. This dream inspired him to begin creating his now famous sculptures in paper mache as a way to share with others the land he visited in his dream. His creations became so popular that other artists began to make their own versions hoping to be as successful as Don Pedro. Diego Rivera declared that no one else was capable of creating these sculptures he needed. This has lead purists to only refer to Don Pedro’s work as alebrijes.
Fast forward to August, 2012 and my birthday trip to Oaxaca. I hired a local guide for the day, Raul Felix, to help me get out from the city and explore the valley. Raul and I met early on our first morning and talked about what my priorities were for that day. I knew that I wanted to visit a few of the archeological sites like Monte Alban and Mitla.Pictured to the left is the ball court at Monte Alban which was a political center for the Zapotec. Being the WanderShopper that I am though, I also wanted to go right to the source and visit artisan workshops around Oaxaca. Raul knew exactly what I was looking for and he ended up taking me out for an additional day as there was so much to see and do. Raul is an experienced guide who has been leading private tours in Oaxaca and around Mexico for the past twenty years. I will definitely be connecting with him for my future trips to Mexico and recommend that you do too. I will share his contact information at the end of this post. Raul lead me to explore and see so many things that would have never seen had I just stayed in Oaxaca City and one of them is the focus this post.
After describing the colorful animal sculptures to Raul, he immediately took me to the workshop of Jacobo and Maria Angeles. There is a sophistication and soul to the pieces created by Jacobo, Maria and the other artisans in their workshop. They are creating art, not just an souvenir for a tourist. That you can tell immediately by looking at any of their figures. The patterns are more mature and involved and the color choices clearly require more thought. They are looking to call upon their Zapotec heritage for inspiration. They shy away from the term alebrije instead preferring to call their works Zapotec figures so I will respect that preference as well.
The Zapotecs were a pre-Columbian civilization from at least 2,500 years ago centered in the Oaxacan valley. Monte Alban was one of the early major cities of the region. As a society, they were quite advanced having large cities with sophisticated buildings and tombs. The Zapotecs also had a system of writing which predates the Mayans and Aztecs. Touring their archeological sites today, you can see the Zapotec love for decoration and repetition of pattern on many of the walls that are still standing. Some designs are strikingly similar to the Greek key motif. One the left you can see the mosiac fretwork designs on a wall at Mitla which was a Zapotec religious center with many tombs. Once you examine the painting coming out of Jacobo and Maria’s workshop, you can see the Zapotec patterns worked into the designs on their figures.
The workshop is located in the village of San Martin Tilcajete. New carvers and decorators are paid during their training period and must exhibit a love for their work to be successful. Many of the artists are women and choose to work out of their homes as their schedule allows as they also have a household to run and children to care for throughout the day. On the day I visited, there were four carvers creating the figures in wood. There were around 15-20 decorators painting designs on a variety of animals. The size and other variables of each figure will determine how many artists will work on it from start to finish. The average number is six. Each artist specializes in a particular step in the making of a figure. The workshop offers tours so that visitors can understand the process of creating one of their Zapotec figures.
There are nine stages in the creation of a figure. It begins by selecting the wood to be used. Carvers like to work with wood from the Copal tree. They prefer the “female” version of the tree which they call Hembra as opposed to the male copal known as Macho. Feminine copal is used when the figure will be made from one piece of wood. If multiple pieces will be joined together, frequently the male copal is chosen. The word copal is also used to refer to tree resin which was burned as a form of incense and is gummier than its hard state of amber.
After the piece of wood has been selected, the second stage begins, the carving. Preferring to work with fresh, moist wood, the carver will use knives, machetes and gouges to shape the figure he has in mind. When complete, step three begins with the figure being sanded and left to dry in the sun. During the fourth stage, the figure is cured which is an important step to remove all insects and traces of disease from the wood. Baking the figure in the oven is step five and is necessary to make sure that the figure is completely dry all the way to its core. Next, in step six, any cracks that may have appeared in the wood during its final drying are filled with a paste of sawdust and glue. Then the figure is again sanded smooth.
Finally after six steps, the figure is ready to be painted. In step seven, a sealant is applied to the whole surface and then a base coat of color is added. Designs and colors are painted all over the figure in step eight. Once the decoration is completed, the figure is has a protective coat of varnish painted on top of the design to complete the creation of the figure and finish as step nine. The focus of the team of artists working on a figure is to create one of quality and they may sometimes take as long as a month to work through all of the steps.
Many of the finer designs are colored with dyes made from natural substances. A demonstration of how colors are made in included in the tour of the workshop. I was absolutely fascinated how different ingredients could be combined to create different colors and shades. Common items are tree bark, honey, pomegranate, indigo, zinc, lime juice, lime stone and cochineal. You can see in the picture how many colors can be easily mixed. In future posts, I will explore this process more as I visited a weavers’ cooperative that work with natural dyes and also explored a cochineal farm in Oaxaca.
After the tour, I visited their shop and was really excited by all the items they had available. I picked up a turtle, an owl and a rabbit for my animal collector friends and relations. I also like the lizard band figures an brought home a small mariachi group. They had painted half gourd bowls in so many beautiful designs that I wish I had room for a dozen but limited myself to just two. I also purchased a cat who is meant to sit at the edge of a shelf and let his leg tangle down as mine so often do. As always, I snapped pictures of things I loved but couldn’t buy. There are far too many of those to share in just this post so I have included them in my Mexico album on WanderShopper’s FaceBook Fan Page. Please visit and be sure to “like” WanderShopper while you are there so we can be sure to stay in touch. I am starting to develop more and more things for posting only on FaceBook and I would hate for you to miss it!
Contact Raul Felix for his Guide Services by email: [email protected] or Mobile: (951) 135 69 97 and Home: (951) 144 36 37
Learn more about Jacobo and Maria Angeles, their art and their workshop at Tilcajete.org. Their site has an “English” and a “Spanish” version available.