dreams and tradtion reveal magic

Anyone who has seen the movie Coco (and if you haven't...um? what is wrong with you?!) knows alebrijes, even if you don't think you do. Alebrijes are the artesanía* that inspired the magical spirit guides in the land of the dead. There's even a quick fly-by view of alebrijes set out for sale at the beginning of the movie. But more prominently, Dante, the callajero** who adopts and is adopted by Miguel, and Pepita, the winged jaguar who is Mama Imelda's spirit guide, are both alebrijes come to life. The film-makers famously spent much time in Oaxaca and went to San Martin Tilcajete, learned all about alebrijes. They were so inspired that alebrijes got incorporated into the movie (much to the pride of Oaxaqueños and especially the alebrije artisanxs.

We were first introduced to alebrijes when we came to Oaxaca to see if it might be a good place to live (this was pre-Coco). We fell in love with the brightly and intricately painted creatures (both fantastical and real) that are for sale in every artesanos cooperative shops and all over the mercados and tinaguis. We bought several small pieces to take home and to give as gifts.


Today, we visited a taller^ in San Martin Tilcajete (one of two pueblos where alebrijes are made), the Taller David Hernández. Suffice it to say, that we knew very little of what goes on in producing alebrijes!!! The painting is only the half of it- possibly less!

First, the wood. Alebrijes in Oaxaca are made of the wood of the copal tree (Burseraceae). The Zapotec people of this region have a long, long history of carving creatures and figures out of copal. This is where the ancient tradition part of this artesanía comes from. (The painted part actually was the brain-child- or rather sick-dream-child because he was very ill and dreamt up alebrijes, name and all!- of one carver, Pedro Linares Lopez, from Mexico City) The copal tree is mostly known as the source of copal incense, widely burned here. As the folks at the Taller David Hernandez were describing the process of carving, they mentioned that the copal masculino is used for small pieces because it has small branches, which the copal feminino is used for the larger pieces...and I thought...hang on! Is copal dioeceous?! And it seems that indeed, Protium copal is indeed dioceous, as are most of the species of this genus. HOW COOL IS THAT?! okay, botany nerd moment over. The wood is pretty soft and very humid - this is when the carver does his work, which involves deciding what creature the piece of wood will be and then carving and naming it. Most pieces are of a single piece of wood-- the only exception being wings, tails, ears that are often removable. Then the wood has to dry out for some number of days...or weeks...or months...years sometimes...

 

Then the pieces are sanded down to reveal details and and any imperfections in the wood are sanded away or filled in with a paste made from the dust of the sanding . The pieces are then soaked in gasoline to kill any termites or other pests that might cause the piece to disintegrate over time. And then comes more drying...and more drying (all in the sun, mind you, no ovens!)...at which point the wood usually splits a bit so these splits are filled in with the paste and bits of wood. The entire surface of the piece is then covered with a thin layer of the paste and it's SUPER smooth at this point and ready for painting!

little (conejito) bodies all line up, during sanding/filling in stage

I had to ask what all those little guys lined up were, then the guy stuck ears in one of them-- aha! conejo!

The painting! Oh the painting... First, they showed us the beginning apprentices who, as far as I can tell, do a million small dots- which don't get me wrong is still GORGEOUS.

I asked how they know what colors/patterns to do-- basically the maestros come and tell them, do a little demo that the apprentices then follow.

As you move along the taller, the apprentices become more and more skilled and work on bigger pieces with more complicated designs. Everything is done by hand and there is no template on the piece-- it's all free-hand, I guess you might say. It's quite astounding.

Check out how tiny the brush they use is!!!

Finally, there's the table of the maestros who have been working at this for more than 6 years.

Few more fotos of the taller and various pieces in the shop,

The first two tables of apprentices

3rd and 4th tables-- the last table is that of masters/maestrxs

another view of the dog that's featured at the top of this post

Colibris in the shop. I loved the display

*artesanía: this word doesn't have a great translation into English...handcraft, sort of, but artesanía means something more than that, really
**callajero: stray dog (can also refer to cats), creature of the streets
 ^taller: workshop