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A Rich Wood Carving Tradition in Oaxaca, Mexico: Spotlight on Jacobo Ángeles

Alvin Starkman MA, LL.B.

Try Search in the North and South America to find creators of folk art with more form, symbolism and significance to the development and preservation of their culture than that of indigenous descent Oaxaca (wa-HAW-ka), one of the southernmost Mexican states.

Many so-called experts in folk art have mistakenly written, that the origins of Oaxaca wood carving tradition back fifty or sixty years ago, on a small number of carvers residing in the central valleys of Oaxaca, a few miles from the capital city of the same name. The error has been consistently equating the recent commercialization of the art form with its origins and ignoring its pre-Hispanic roots and later development.

Jacobo Angeles, lives with his wife Mary and two children in San Martín Tilcajete, one of the three most important indigenous Zapotec Villages where most residents earn their living from carving and painting colorful figures, often generically called Alebrijes. The others are Arrazola and La Unión Tejalapan.

At age 12 Jacobo began learning to carve from his father. Later, he was was supervised by village elders. "In the past few decades our craft has without doubt changed dramatically, "Jacobo explains," with the use of more synthetic paints, a tremendous increase in the range of numbers is carved, and influence exponentially with national and international demand for our carvings growing and how and what we do. But remember, my ancestors were carving animals to produce here in this region before the arrival of the Spaniards in the 1500's. And we were using only natural paint colors, we made Fruits and vegetables, plants and tree bark won, sound and even insects. In my family we still have what we find around us to make paint for our figures, and our wood of choice remains the branches of the tree are Kopal. "

San Martín Tilcajete is about 40 minutes drive from the city of Oaxaca away, at a highway leading to the state of the Pacific resort cities, including one of the oldest in Puerto Escondido. Puerto Escondido was a hub for the export of coffee and other crops during the colonial period, but is now a popular seaside resort for Mexican and international tourists. Many travelers combine their sun and sand holidays with a visit to Oaxaca, a UNESCO world heritage site, the search of unique pieces of folk art including dance masks, pottery and clay figures, rugs and tapestries and antiques to be transmitted from the colonial period. And of course there is the pre-Hispanic ruins, galleries, impressive Dominican churches, museums and renowned Oaxacan cuisine.

"My ancestors, a 20-day calendar," Jacobo continues, "and every day was represented by a different creature. So every Zapotec person had an animal with which he a connection, and each animal had certain characteristics that made the individual. For example, the jaguar represents power and ultimate strength, is the frog of honesty and break openness, the coyote watchful observation, the turtle always a troublemaker too susceptible to the rules that characterized the eagle technical and strategic Power, and so on. My people used to carve figures of just these 20 animals. It began as a small fortune for whittling that people keep in a revered niche in the Home, or wear around their necks as amulets. Also carved figures used more for their children as toys. "

After much probing, an almost forgotten story emerges of the use of decoys of wood and other materials Jacobo disclosed. "My people are a variety of methods to attract different types of the game, but for hunting birds of prey, rabbits and deer, yes they sometimes used decoys. A painted wooden snake in an area where ants had on the Soil would be placed trampled the grasses so the snake bait would easily be seen from Adler. to hunt rabbit, my ancestors would a rabbit tail on one end of a straw hat while eating, and painted at the other end another tail with a face on it. For deer, deer would be a gross wooden torso with real antlers in high brush to be placed. So carving was historically important to our people not only totemic and reasons, but it was right in our living connection. All written records from the time of the conquest, and not just local legend, confirm the importance of woodcarving. "

"But what we see now carve. While in my family we are still natural colors, and even carve our totems, we have a simple, yet important and symbolic Tradition into something quite different. In our villages we now carve many more than those 20 animals because of collector demand. More importantly, we can use our heritage are better understood and appreciated by the world. In our own workshop, our painting shows designs and representations of our culture … Frieze on the ancient ruins of Mitla, Icons, waves, mountains and fertility, the totems and other metaphors for our culture, past and present. "

has in fact The world took note. Jacobo work is prominently displayed in the Smithsonian Institute, Chicago's National Museum of Mexican Art and elsewhere across the continent and further abroad, in museums, art schools and galleries. Jacobo regularly crosses the U.S. to promote Oaxacan folk art and his Zapotec heritage, teaching in a variety of educational venues from primary schools to university departments of fine arts, and so honored speaker at art exhibition openings.

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A visit to the workshop Ángeles, accessed by a heavily pot-hole narrow dirt road to one end of the village, offers the opportunity to have this extraordinary ability to learn from Jacobo, Maria — an excellent painter in her own right — and some two dozen other members of their Family to produce some of the best quality carvings anywhere on the continent.

The men do most of the carving, while the women to do most of the painting, but the tasks are definitely not exclusively by women, and lines. Carving is not done – mechanical hand tools such as machetes, chisels and knives. The only time a more sophisticated tool is used when a chain is used to cut off a branch and level a base for a planned figure saw.

Unless an order is received, the woodworkers in the family are given artistic freedom to carve what you want to shape it. A piece Tree trunk will "speak" to be one of these specialists, and the inspiration for the creation of a specific animal. Shape, thickness, and bends and twists in the play After the bark is removed alive, a detailed outline is drawn, defining the image with greater clarity and detail. The sculpture begins in earnest.

"From the female copal tree, we can make figures out a piece of wood, often very large and complicated. This wood is soft and easy to handle. The male Tree is harder, and branches are usually smaller and somewhat delicate, so we use it to animals that we collect to make in the process. "

The carving alone takes up to a month, sometimes longer. The figure is then left to dry up to 10 months, depending on size and thickness. Due to the characteristics of copal, and Oaxaca semi-tropical climate, the wood is susceptible to infestation by termites. Accordingly, during drying, the piece is in a gasoline / insecticide mixture soaked for several hours. As added security, it is then in an oven, just in case eggs have evaded extermination. "All our pieces are guaranteed never have a termite problem, "says Jacobo.

Since the figures are formed, while the wood is green and more easily workable, the Wood during drying off. "There are a few members of my family, whose most important task is to fill the cracks before the painting begins." For the remediation work they use wooden discs and a sawdust-glue mixture. But even these slivers of wood and the sawdust have been cured. "We are proud of our work, and want to have never Problems with one of our customers, whether someone spending $ 20 or $ 2,000. "

In almost all cases in the Ángeles workshop, carves out a Person and a different color. Once a character has left the hands of the carver, all rights are released, and another member of the family is entrusted with. Painting Nephew Magdaleno explains: "Occasionally one of my cousins come up to me and say," What do you think of these colors or this kind of design concept for this Coyote, "and I give my feedback, but it does not happen very often, and I am always satisfied with the results. For me it is the form that is most important, and for each, of painting, it is the imagery it captures. "

One can not help but gasp at the sculpting genius which goes into every piece of an emaciated Dog scratching fleas, a bear with its paw in a honey pot, a snake constricting a Jaguar shrugged, a winged horse on its hinds, a woman with long braided hair and the body of an armadillo or a deer, live large by Mexican standards. It'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 something else. familiar. No color is untested and the complexity of variation and the design is remarkable.

There are many theories about the beginning of today's rally of the tradition. Some say that as hallucinogenic mushrooms are native to this part of Mexico, drug-induced revelations caused some of the imagination to wander, always ultimately carvings, expressed in her. The better explanation is that knowledge of colorful, large, papier-mâché Alebrijes or dragon-like Forms, which is in the State of Mexico, eventually filtered down to Oaxaca, and were the inspiration for the founding fathers of modern painted wood sculptures. "You know, it is not read carefully to what we, as Alebrijes because the older generation of Mexicans and true folk art collectors, were to Alebrijes DF developed in the vicinity (Distrito Federal, or Mexico City, the nation's capital), and what we do is completely different. "

Jacobo demonstrates how his ancestors, natural colors and historically to dye clothing, painting buildings and used ceremonially as face and body decoration for rites of passage, Fixed set used prayer and other important occasions. Today their primary use, at least in the Jacobo family is for painting the carvings. He explains, with the assistance of his machete and a tree trunk, as it cuts the red part of the inner bark of the male copal, allows it to dry, then toast and grind it: "This is a primary basis, we use that allows us to create a palette of colors, tones and shades. Watching."

With his hands as palettes, Jacobo begins by adding a small amount of the powdered bark in one hand, squeeze juice of one lime, creating a brown, which he then places on an unpainted wooden owl. "Yes, the owl is one of our sacred beings, the great healer, quiet and modest," he says: ". 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 from the copal tree resin and heat it with honey. The resulting liquid is then mixed with the paint, changing the color look a little, it will be a deep orange … but above all it acts as mordent making the color permanent, and a little gloss "He adds powdered limestone, and the. Black changed. With the addition of baking powder and lemon juice it is a deep yellow, and with more chemical it miraculously magenta. A new base is then started, with crushed pomegranate seeds. Magically the pulverized Pink is in green with the addition of limestone powder turns. Mixed with the magenta, it is dark blue. With the addition of zinc, it turns gray, and with more zinc, white. Blue from Añil Tree, indigo, is the addition of bicarbonate, zinc, lime juice or the powdered lime mineral changed. Corn mold, a black sticky culinary Ochre delicacy known as huitlacoche when fermented and then powdered, yields. The red of the dried and then ground minutes insect is, the cochineal, feeds from its host cactus, to the addition of orange juice from a number of acidic fruits.

The demonstration ends with Jacobo asking, "What is your favorite animal "to which he finger paints a rabbit from the rainbow of colors on his palms, as only Alice could have imagined.

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With about 150 families now producing painted wooden figures in these and a few other small villages left the questions remain unanswered: What drove more carvers and easier to adopt the style of paper mache with brilliant color combinations, and how anyone can in these villages living from this solitary art form to make?

As with other crafts in the central valleys of Oaxaca, their production was not always the most important means food for the population. Traditional crafts as a hobby or part-time, trade, beginning with very few products sold to animate the random passers-by, Adventurer or traveler. In the case of carpets from the Middle Teotitlan del Valle, there were trade routes that the manufacturer, followed by more sales activity in other regions of the country, and in some cases beyond. But the most important means of family survival was working the land and small livestock. And in the case of the carving villages, there was never any broader market, although in San Martín Tilcajete embroidered shirts, blouses and dresses were a very well preserved craft in the 1960s and in the 80s.

Dramatic changes in the production and marketing of wood carvings originated in the 1940s. The Pan-American Highway section of the Sierra Madre del Sur mountains and reached Oaxaca, opening up the region to the north, especially Mexico City and the border states. Until then Oaxaca was relatively isolated despite a rail link. By the 1950s and early 60's Americans and Canadians from the postwar boom were prosperous, had been credit cards by mail to almost everyone, and the word spread of a new type of vacation in a third world country, travel Mexico. Jet Air facilitate the transformation. The women's movement means more two-income families, leading to more income for the journey. Mexicana Airlines and Oaxacan travel agents together, to get started, tour packages, which further facilitated tourism in the region.

The hippie movement the 1960s and early 70s Oaxaca brought to the forefront of the alternative lifestyle, with throngs of young people and their pop to Huautla de Jiménez, then travel to a small village Oaxaca idols hallucinogenic mushrooms eat the now infamous healer María Sabina. North American youth saw and purchased the first generation of contemporary Wood carvings.

By the 1980s as a result of several factors that had Alebrijes Oaxaca are well established art as folk, with the Market continues to grow. The economic impact was that farmers and ranchers in the situation, more time carving and painting, and less time in the countryside and in marketplaces spend their produce and animals were machines. With a new toll road opening from Mexico City to Oaxaca in 1995, access to the southern state became even quicker and easier and safer. In good conscience, travel writers were no longer able to warn tourists about driving the switchbacks, back-street or cars overheating Banditos on secondary roads without gas stations.

The future market for art? While the odd visitor to a Oaxacan coastal resort such as Puerto Escondido, or the 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, the coastal will open, cutting road travel time by at least a third. Sun still visit Oaxaca, and marvel at the art of Jacobo and María Ángeles.

Since opening their family workshop in 1996, without a doubt Jacobo and Maria have the unique quality bar for other villagers who seek to mirror their success increased. With Oaxaca wood carvings of the highest quality now well established on the world stage, and no longer a barrier to access, the challenge for others in San Martín Tilcajete be to achieve the success of the Ángeles family through the production of similar quality, far beyond most.

A challenge for all carvers in the region, is to make ensure a continuous supply of copal demand. A reforestation project was about 15 years old under the Speer Leadership of the late master of contemporary Mexican art, Rodolfo Morales, continues through his foundation. The Ángeles family with friends and other villagers spent the last Sunday in July, in the middle of the rainy season, planting, a part of their sustainable lifestyle effort: to ensure a continuous supply of raw materials, cutting only activities for the preparation of figures, so grows the tree, reduction of waste through the use of the tapes and sawdust in repair work and the remaining branches and branches as firewood for cooking, and with the sap and bark in paint production. "And you know," Jacobo reminds, "We have for generations with the hardened SAP as incense, especially religious cememonies. There is even a knifemaker down the road in Ocotlán, their hand-forged blades with a special ink with the SAP engraving made. Have you visited the Cuchillería of Ángel Aguilar? "

For the high-end collectors, we can only encourage the success of all efforts to sustain growth and development of wood carving tradition of Oaxaca directed because it satisfies and advances our penchant for and obsession with quality hand craftsmanship. For the craftsmen in the region, apart from the obvious economic importance, it is part of maintaining their Zapotec heritage and illustrating the richness of the culture of the wide world.

The workshop of Jacobo and María Ángeles is located in the t Calle Olvido # 9, San Martín Tilcajete, Ocotlán, Oaxaca (: 951-524-9047, w: http://www.tilcajete.org , E: angeles@tilcajete.org ).

About the Author

Alvin Starkman received his Masters in Social Anthropology in 1978. After teaching for a few years he attended Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto, thereafter embarking upon a career as a litigator until 2004. Alvin now resides in Oaxaca, where he writes, leads small group tours to the villages, markets, ruins and other sites, is a consultant to film production companies, and operates Casa Machaya Oaxaca Bed & Breakfast. ( http://www.oaxacadream.com ) .

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