- Our Michoacan adventure begins — Tlalpujahua and the Las Dos Estrellas Mine
- Butterflies — on the road to Morelia
- Morelia
- Capula, Santa Fe de la Laguna, Quiroga, and Tzintzuntzan
- Pátzcuaro and Janitzio
- Tocuaro, Santa Clara del Cobre, and Cuanajo — visiting the artists in their communities
Today was arts and crafts (and shopping) day! Close to Patzcuaro, there are a number of villages that specialize in particular mediums of art. Our first stop was the town of Tocuaro. Tocuaro is all about wooden masks (or mascaras). There are several workshops in the town and their work can be found in a variety of Mexican churches and museums. Masks were used in pre-Hispanic times for religious ceremonies. Their designs generally reflected people or animals and contributed to their storytelling. After the Spanish arrived, they started to incorporate symbols and stories from the Catholic Church. But we knew exactly where we wanted to go — the workshop of Felipe de Jesus Horta Tera. Felipe’s work can be found around the world and he, in turn, has collected masks from carvers all over the world. His work spans local commissions for things like Carnavale to elaborate pieces that end up in museums. But all of his work has a local twist on it. The piece we bought plays a role in the pastorela, an annual series of pastoral dramas associated with the Nativity. In these small plays, good always overcomes evil. Unlike others across Mexico, however, the Tocuaro version of pastorela introduces the devil who plays mischievous tricks on those who are trying to find the Christ child. Our transformation mask incorporates that aspect of the story. While Felipe has had four children, three of them have become professionals (e.g., doctors). Only his daughter and wife have continued to help him (his daughter does the intricate painting using auto paint!). Felipe is often invited to do demonstrations around the globe. The nearest to us is in Spokane, WA where he not only did a seminar at Gonzaga, but some of his pieces are in the Mask Museum in Spokane.
From there, we went to the Pueblo Mágico of Santa Clara del Cobre. This is the home of the artisans who work in copper, passing the craft from generation to generation. And how far back you might ask? The town was actually founded in 1553 by Augustinian friar Francisco de Villafuerte, Santa Clara de Los Cobre, and from almost its inception, they focused on metalworking. The copper working really came into its own by 1858. Of course, if you are all about copper, there has to be lots of it around — and indeed there is, staring with the copper-roofed bandstand in the main square. We visited one of the workshops there. It was a great place to learn about the process or working with copper as well as the history of hammered copper. Many of these artisans are Purépechas, the indigenous people that go well back into Pre-Hispanic times. As we learned in Tzintzuntzan, their empire grew through conquest, but ultimately were never conquered by the Aztecs. Many believe that the metal ores in their kingdom, combined with their knowledge of metallurgy made them too valuable as a trading partner to conquer. What is incredible is that the current Purépechas artisans still hammer and mold copper in the way that their Pre-Columbian ancestors did. Needless to say, we had to buy a piece (in this case a lovely necklace for Deb)!
Our last stop was at the town of Cuanajo that produces wooden furniture and chests, elaborately carved with flowers, animals, and fish. There must have been at least 50 furniture workshops and stores there. We had seen a chest at the artisan workshop in Morelia that came from this town and we were interested in finding the artist/gallery that had created it to see if there were more things to look at. Sadly, none were as good as the one back in Morelia. We are now in the process of seeing if we can buy and ship that one!
That pretty much wrapped up our trip. In the morning we traveled 5 hours back to Mexico City. This was a memorable trip, both because of the culture and beauty of Michoacan and the expert guiding and care provided by Damian. We hope to come back again someday. Until next trip…
This entry was posted in Mexico, Michoacan, Travel
I am a traveler and sometimes clay sculptor, following a long career working in consulting. My work allowed me to travel the world extensively and I was hooked. Today, I travel with my wife/best friend to explore new places, meet new people, and learn new things.
