1. Spotlight On Jacobo Angeles - A Rich Wood Carving Tradition In
Oaxaca, Mexico
Try searching the Americas to find creators of folk artwork with more form, significance and
importance for the development and sustenance of their culture, than these of indigenous genealogy
in Oaxaca (wa-HAW-ka), one of the southernmost asian states.
Many so-called experts in folk art have wrongly written that the beginning of Oaxaca's solid wood
carving tradition date back fifty or 60 years, to a few carvers residing in one of several central valleys
involving Oaxaca, a few miles from the state funds of the same name. The mistake has consistently
recently been equating the recent commercialization of the art-form with its origins, along with
ignoring its pre-Hispanic roots and future development.
Jacobo Ángeles lives along with his wife Maríany and two children inside San Martíand Tilcajete, one
of three main native Zapotec villages, where most residents earn a living through carving and portray
colorful figures, generally generically referred to as alebrijes. The others are Arrazola and La Unión
Tejalapan.
At age 12 Jacobo began learning to define from his daddy. Later on he has been mentored by small
town elders. "Over the past a long time our craft has without a doubt changed considerably ," Jacobo
explains, "with the use of more synthetic shows , a tremendous increase in the product range of
figures being carved, and with household and international interest in our carvings developing
exponentially and affecting how and what we should produce. But remember, my own ancestors were
chiselling animals right here in this area before the Spanish found its way to the 1500's. And we were
using only natural paint colors which we derived from vegetables and fruit , plants and woods bark,
clay, and even insects. In my family we still make use of what we find all-around us to make fresh
paint for our figures, along with our wood of choice continues to be the limbs of the copal woods."
San Martíand Tilcajete is located of a 40 minute travel from the city of Oaxaca, along a freeway
leading to the california's Pacific resort neighborhoods , including one of the oldest ports, Puerto
Escondido. Puerto Escondido would have been a hub for the export of coffee along with other cash
crops throughout colonial times, nevertheless is now a popular seashore destination for Mexican
along with international vacationers the same. Many travelers combine their sun along with sand
vacation with a trip to Oaxaca, a UNESCO World Heritage site , searching out distinctive pieces of
folk artwork including dance face masks , pottery and clay courts figures, rugs along with tapestries,
and older binoculars from the colonial interval forward. And of course you will find the pre-Hispanic
spoils , galleries, impressive dominican rebublic churches, museums, along with renowned Oaxacan
delicacies.
"My forefathers used a 20-day calendar," Jacobo remains , "and each day has been represented by a
distinct creature. So every Zapotec person acquired an animal with whom he had a connection, and
every animal had specific characteristics which maintained over to the individual. By way of example ,
the jaguar signifies power and ultimate strength, the frog is characterized by integrity and openness,
the coyote watchful declaration , the turtle usually a troublemaker susceptible to breaking the rules,

2. the eagle technical along with strategic power, and so forth. My people accustomed to carve figures
involving just these something like 20 animals. They started out as small whittlings for good luck that
folks would keep in any revered niche in your home , or wear across the neck as amulets. They also
carved more substantial figures for their young children to use as toys."
After much probing, an almost forgotten story comes out of the use of decoys of wood along with
other materials. Jacobo shows : "My people utilized a variety of methods to appeal to different kinds
of game, but for hunting birds involving prey, rabbits, along with deer, yes that they at times used
decoys. A painted solid wood snake would be placed on the ground in an location where ants
acquired trampled the grasses so the snake decoy would easily be witnessed by eagles. For you to
hunt rabbit, my own ancestors would fasten a rabbit tail to one end of a hay hat, and at the opposite
end another tail with a face colored on it. For deer, a crude solid wood deer torso using real antlers
would be placed in the extra tall brush. So chiselling was historically imperative that you our people
for not only totemic along with related reasons, but it was directly related to your subsistence. All the
a diary from the period of the conquest, and not just nearby legend, confirm the incredible importance
of woodcarving."
"nevertheless look at what we currently carve. While in my family we still make use of natural paints,
and still carve our totems, we've transformed a simple yet important along with symbolic tradition into
something very different. Within our villages we now define many more than those something like 20
animals because of extractor demand. More importantly, we are able to make our heritage better
understood along with appreciated by the globe. In our own class , our painting shows designs and
representations of our culture... Friezes from the ancient destroy at Mitla, icons representing waves,
foothills and fertility, the totems, and other metaphors for our culture, past and present."
Indeed the world has taken observe. Jacobo's work is conspicuously displayed in The Smithsonian
Institute, Chicago's countrywide Museum of asian Art, and somewhere else throughout the continent
along with further abroad, inside museums, art schools and galleries. Jacobo regularly traverses the
U.S. Marketing Oaxacan folk artwork and his Zapotec heritage , teaching in a diversity of educational
locations ranging from junior educational facilities to university sectors of fine art, so that as honored
speaker with art exhibition open positions.
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A visit to the Ángeles class , accessed by a seriously pot-holed narrow dust road towards one end of
the small town , affords an opportunity to understand this extraordinary skill-set, from Jacobo, betty ---
an excellent painter in her own right --- and some two dozen fellow members of their family who
produce some of the very best quality carvings observed anywhere on the region.
The men carry out most of the carving, whilst women do almost all of the painting, but the
responsibilities are definitely not specifically based on gender lines. Carving is done using non -
physical hand-tools such as machetes, chisels and kitchen knives. The only time a more
sophisticated tool is utilized is when a string saw is employed to cut off a department and level a base
for a proposed determine.
Except when a unique order is gotten , the woodworkers inherited are given artistic license to carve

3. what ever figure they wish. A piece of tree trunk will "speak" to one of these specialists, and become
the inspiration pertaining to creating a particular dog : the shape, thickness, along with bends and
great ideas in the piece come alive. After the bark is slowly removed , a detailed outline is drawn,
defining the look with greater clarity and detail. The sculpting in solemn then begins.
"From the female copal tree we are able to help make figures out of one piece of wood , often very
large along with intricate. This solid wood is soft and to work with. The male woods is harder, along
with branches tend to be smaller and somewhat fine , so we use it to create animals which many of
us assemble in the process."
The carving alone uses up to a month, at times longer. The determine is then left for you to dry for up
to 15 months, depending on it's overall size along with thickness. Because of the properties of copal,
along with Oaxaca's semi-tropical local weather , the wood is susceptible to termite pests.
Accordingly, during the blow drying process the bit is soaked inside a gasoline / pesticide mixture for
several hrs. As an added guarantee , it's then placed in a good oven, just in case ova have evaded
extermination. "All of our pieces are guaranteed to never have any termite problem," Jacobo assures.
Since the figures are designed while the wood is green and more quickly workable, the solid wood
separates while blow drying. "There are a couple of members of my family whose main job should be
to fill the cracks before the painting will begin." For this remedial function they use wood shims as well
as a sawdust-glue combination. But even these kinds of slivers of solid wood and the sawdust
happen to be cured. "We're pleased with our work, and never want to have any problems with any of
our purchasers , whether someone is spending $20 or perhaps $2,000."
In almost all cases within the Ángeles class , one person carves along with another paints. Every
figure has left the hands of the carver, all proprietary legal rights are released, and another member
of the family is trusted with the painting. Nephew Magdaleno explains: "sometimes one of my
relatives will come up to us and say 'what do you think about these kinds of colors or this kind of
design concept just for this coyote,' along with I'll give my own feedback, but it will not happen very
often, and i'm invariably pleased with the end result. For me it's the kind that's most important, as well
as whoever's painting, oahu is the imagery it captures."
One cannot help but gasp in the sculpting genius which goes into each bit : A starving dog scratching
fleas, any bear with its foot in a honey container , a snake constricting a wincing jaguar, a winged
equine on its hinds, a woman with lengthy braided locks and the body of an armadillo, or even a deer,
life-size through Mexican standards. There is something particularly arresting about each creation:
the ever-so-flowing and reasonable movement, a fanciful stance, or a familiar pose striking any chord
with our well-liked characterization. However the portray is anything but familiar. No color goes
untested and the difficulty of and alternative in design is remarkable.
Theories are readily available regarding the beginning of the modern-day manifestation of the
convention. Some say that will because hallucinogenic mushrooms are native to this section of
Mexico, drug induced revelations caused the imaginations of some to wander, in the long run
becoming expressed inside their carvings. The better description is that knowledge of colorful , large,
papier maché alebrijes or dragon-like forms which came from the State of Mexico, sooner or later

4. filtered down to Oaxaca, and were the inspiration for the daddies of contemporary painted solid wood
carvings. "You know, it isn't accurate to refer about what we create while alebrijes, because for the
older generation of mexicans , and to true folk art collectors, alebrijes were developed in close
proximity to D.F. (Distrito Federal, or mexico City, the nation's funds ), and what we carry out is
completely different."
Jacobo demonstrates how the ancestors created natural paints, historically utilized for dying
garments , painting buildings, along with ceremonially as deal with and body decoration used by rites
of verse , fiestas, prayer along with other important occasions. These days their primary make use of
, at least in Jacobo's family, is for portray the carvings. He explains with the assistance of his machete
and a tree trunk how he cuts away the red inside part of the will bark of the male copal, allows it for
you to dry, then toasts and grinds that : "This is a primary bottom that we use, allowing us to create a
variety of colors, tones along with shades. Just watch."
Using his palms as palettes, Jacobo begins by placing small amount of the powder bark in one hands
, squeezes juice from a lime, creating a darkish , which he then places on an unpainted solid wood
owl. "Yes the owl is also one of our sacred creatures, the fantastic healer, quiet along with humble."
He shows : "Now over time, plus the sun, this shade will change or reduce and be absorbed into the
wood. So what each of our ancestors learned to complete was take the dehydrated sap from the
copal tree and heat up with honey. The resulting liquid is then mixed with the fresh paint , changing
the color slightly ; see, it turns into a deep fruit... But most importantly that acts as a mordent
generating the color permanent, and also a little shiny." he adds powdered limestone, and the color
adjustments to black. By building baking soda plus much more lime juice that becomes a strong
yellow, and with a lot more chemical it miraculously becomes magenta. A new base is then began ,
with crushed pomegranate extract seeds. Magically the pulverized pink is transformed into green by
building limestone powder. Combined with the magenta, that becomes navy blue. By building zinc it
turns into grey, and with a lot more zinc, white. Azure from the añil tree, indigo, is altered with the
addition of bicarbonate, zinc, lime liquid or the powdered lime scale mineral. Corn form , a black
gooey culinary delicacy referred to as huitlacoche, when fermented and then powdered, makes
ochre. The crimson of the dried after which crushed minute pest , the cochineal, which feeds off it's
host nopal prickly pear , becomes orange by building the juice involving any of a number of acidic
fruits.
The demo terminates with Jacobo asking, "what´azines your favorite animal," subsequent which he
hand paints a bunnie from the rainbow of colours on his hands , as only Alice could have imagined.
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With approximately 150 households now producing colored wooden figures of these and a couple of
some other smaller villages, the questions left unanswered remain: What caused and drove a lot
more carvers to adopt the papier maché design of using brilliant shade combinations, and how can
easily everyone in these communities make a living from this one art-form?
As along with other crafts in the main valleys of Oaxaca, their production wasn't always the primary
way of sustenance for the human population. Traditionally, handicrafts were a hobby or part-time

5. trade, beginning with not many items being sold for the odd passerby, adventurer or traveler. In the
case of rugs from nearby Teotitlán del Valle, there were buy and sell routes that producers followed in
order to impact more sales inside other regions of the state of hawaii , and in some cases beyond.
NEvertheless the primary means of family survival was working the land along with small-scale
ranching. Plus the case of the chiselling villages, there by no means was a broader industry ,
although in San Martín Tilcajete embroidered shirts, blouses and dresses were an extremely well-
received craft throughout the 1960's along with into the 80's.
Dramatic change in production along with marketing of solid wood carvings had it's genesis in the
forties. The pan-American freeway cut through the Sierra Madre del Sur mountains, reaching
Oaxaca, opening up the region for the north, in particular mexico City and the border states. Until
then Oaxaca was relatively singled out notwithstanding a train connection. By the fifties and early 60's
Americans and Canadians were prospering from your post-war boom, bank cards had been mailed
for you to virtually everyone, along with word spread of a new kind of holiday , in a third world region ,
Mexico. Jet air travel facilitated the alteration. The women's movements meant more 2 income
families, producing more disposable revenue for traveling. Mexicana Airlines and Oaxacan travel
agents partnered to begin offering tour plans , which further caused tourism to the area.
The hippie movements of the 1960's along with early 70's introduced Oaxaca to the forefront of the
alternative way of life , with throngs involving youth and their particular pop idols planing a trip to
Huautla de Jiménez, then a small Oaxacan village, to eat hallucinogenic mushrooms with the
currently infamous healer María Sabina. American youth saw along with purchased the first
generation of contemporary wood carvings.
By the eighties era , as a consequence of multiple components , Oaxacan alebrijes acquired become
well-established while folk art, using the market continuing to cultivate. The economic implication has
been that farmers along with ranchers were able to take more time carving and portray , and less time
in the countryside and in areas vending their generate and animals. With an all new toll-road opening
through Mexico City for you to Oaxaca in 1997 , access to the southern state became actually quicker
and easier, along with safe. In very good conscience, travel writers were no longer able for you to
warn tourists about driving the switchbacks, back-road banditos, or perhaps cars overheating about
secondary roads without having service stations.
The future market for the artistry? While the peculiar visitor to a Oaxacan coastal resort for instance
Puerto Escondido, or perhaps the more popular Huatulco, can visit the state funds and the workshops
involving carvers like Jacobo, most do not. NExt four years a new highway to the coastline will open,
cutting road travel occasion by at least 1 / 3. Even more sun worshipers will visit Oaxaca, and marvel
in the art of Jacobo and Maríany Ángeles.
Since opening their family class in 1996, undoubtedly Jacobo and María have primarily raised the
quality pub for other villagers who aspire to mirror their success. Using Oaxacan wood carvings of
superior top quality now well established on the world stage, along with access no longer a good
impediment, the challenge persons in San Martín Tilcajete is to achieve the success with the Ángeles
family through production of similar to quality, until now eluding most.

6. A problem for all carvers in your community is to ensure a consistent supply of copal to meet
demand. A reforestation project spear-headed about 15 years ago with the late master of
contemporary Mexican art, Rodolfo Morales, continues via his Foundation. The Ángeles family with
friends along with other villagers spend a final Sunday of each this summer , in the midst of the rainy
season, sowing , a part of their eco friendly living effort: making sure an ongoing supply of raw
product, cutting merely branches for making stats so that the tree is maintaining growth , reducing
waste by means of the slivers along with sawdust in repair work and any leftover twigs and limbs as
firewood to cook , and using the drain and bark inside paint production. "so you know," Jacobo
reminds, "for generations we've been using the hardened drain as incense, primarily at religious
cememonies. There are even knifemakers later on in Ocotláand , who engrave their particular hand-
forged blades using a special ink made out of the sap. Perhaps you have visited the cuchillería of
Ángel Aguilar?"
For high end collectors, we can only encourage the achievements all efforts targeted at maintaining
the growth along with development of the Oaxacan woodcarving tradition, as it satisfies and
improvements our penchant pertaining to and obsession using quality hand-fashioned craftsmanship.
For the artisans in your community , aside from the obvious economic importance, it's section of
maintaining their Zapotec heritage and illustrating the richness with the culture to the broader world.
The class of Jacobo along with María Ángeles is located with Calle Olvido #9, San Martíand Tilcajete,
Ocotláand , Oaxaca ( t: 951-524-9047 ; w: http://www.tilcajete.org ; at the : angeles@tilcajete.org ).
Learn About the Nopal Juice called Nopalea