Slices of Life - The Artisans of Michoacan

YOU CAN STILL SUPPORT THE ARTISANS!!!

2011-08-15T11:30:00.000-07:00

Hey, everybody!
If you're a little uneasy about visiting the artisans in Michoacan to buy their crafts, you can still support them by purchasing their crafts here. Mexico by Hand, based in California, just returned from Michoacan with lots of wonderful things for sale. Check them out on their Web site, which is located in my list of links.

Thanks!

Travis

CORAZON BILINGUE RADIO SHOW INTERVIEW

2011-07-21T09:09:00.000-07:00

Hey, everybody! Pull up the www.corazonbilingue.com web site and hear the interview they did with me about the Michoacan project and my life as a writer and poet!

I've found a publisher!

2011-03-08T05:33:00.000-08:00

Hey, Everybody! Great news! I've found a publisher for this project. Otras Voces Publishing, a local publisher, wants to publish the project. At the moment we're looking at having the book ready for sale in six months, although as you know, that can change. I'll keep you posted as things develop.
Take a look at my publisher's Web site: www.otrasvocespublishing.com.

PHOTOS - BEATRIZ AND MARIO

2009-12-05T07:17:00.000-08:00

MICHOACAN - ARTISAN PROFILE - BEATRIZ AND MARIO

2009-12-05T06:59:00.000-08:00

MICHOACAN - ARTISAN PROFILE - BEATRIZ ORTEGA RUIZ AND MARIO AUGUSTIN GASPAR RODRIGUEZ
By Travis M. Whitehead
PATZCUARO - The crucified Christ figure, smooth as marble over its fragile frame of corn stalks, looked tragically through distant eyes, dismal ripples of blood dripping from the wounds crafted into the pasta de caña de maiz image by Beatriz Ortega Ruiz. The emerald plumes of a quetzal, painted by Beatriz with the lacas perfilada en oro process into a red batea, sailed through a flowered jungle radiant with cobalt blue flowers, violet blossoms, and arched verdant leaves lined with ribbons of gold. Blue and pink flowers surrounded a group of Viejitos waiting for the next song, their story inscribed into the wooden plate by Beatriz's husband, Mario Augustin Gaspar Rodriguez, who created the piece through a pre-Hispanic process called maque.

This husband and wife team has labored for years to keep a part of Michoacan's artistic heritage alive. They both know how to do maque, a pre-Hispanic form of lacquer ware; lacas perfilada en oro (roughly translated as lacquer ware trimmed in gold), a contemporary method using industrial oil paints to create images on wooden plates; and pasta de caña, another technique in use when the Spaniards arrived about 500 years ago. Beatriz, 57, and her husband have each found their niche in one of the three techniques.

Beatriz, a thick mound of hair rolling away from a friendly, resolute face, devotes most of her time to creating laca pieces to support the family while she does pasta de caña on the side and Mario works on his maque projects. Beatriz, who won first place for her pasta de caña at Patzcuaro's Concurso de Noche de Muerto (Day of the Dead Crafts Competition) in 2000 and second place at the same contest in 2008, helps Mario by collecting and formulating the natural dyes for the maque, and he helps prepare her materials for the corn stalk art.

"I married him, and I started helping him in the workshop. This kind of work, it has to be a family work. It's so hard to do that the whole family is involved, crushing the earth, getting the oil."

Maque work requires the use of oil extracted from seeds of the chia plant. That oil is mixed with a substance extracted from aje, an insect found throughout Mexico and Central America. Locally, aje is found in Michoacan's Tierra Caliente region.

Mario's and Beatriz's four children have learned the family traditions by helping their parents. "They are learning because they are helping. They know how to do it, but for me and my husband, we want them to study something else. We want our family to study what we couldn't."

Mario's and Beatriz's 22-year-old daughter, Erandi Gaspar Ortega, spends a great deal of time in the family workshop learning her parents' secrets and building her own legacy.

"I like to be here watching them work. When I was little, I came here and I was bored," said Erandi, dressed in jeans and a tasseled top. The boredom obviously subsided long ago. After studying cultural tourism for a year at the University of Morelia, a private university, she returned to Patzcuaro to study art and cultural patrimony at the Universidad Indigena Intercultural de Michoacan, a free public institution.

"They will teach me the culture of Michoacan, the sculpture of the indigenous pueblos, their handcrafts. It will take four years and we will study everyday from 8 to 2. I will dedicate myself to doing this kind of work." She also studies Purepecha on Saturdays.

Beatriz, originally from Erongaricuaro, has spent much of her life learning the state's cultural legacy.

“It has helped me to live better. The fact that I didn’t study anything, and I learned to make this, gives me the opportunity to have an income and have enough money for my kids and family.”

On another day, she fastidiously placed golden flourishes through a spray of wings rushing from a lustrous peacock, one of her many original laca designs, in the workshop where she and Mario create their crafts; this visual delicatessen was one of many in the Casa de los Once Patios around the corner from Plaza de Vasco de Quiroga. Brushes dangled from a cup on a desk cluttered with polished wooden plates the color of cherry and warm honey; a window with wooden doors near Mario's work area opened onto a street trimmed with terracotta roofs and cobblestone streets. The smell of wet streets from the afternoon rain drifted into the shop and insinuated themselves into the acrid tang of paint emanating from Beatriz's work.

Mario, his thick salt and pepper hair falling toward the blue denim enshrouding his robust frame, worked on the wine-colored underside of a three-foot-wide batea nearing completion after almost two years of scrupulous, patient labor.

Mario's maque and Beatriz's pasta de caña would not be possible without Beatriz's laca.

"I have to do another job besides the pasta de caña. We have to do other work because we can't live from this work (pasta de caña and maque)," Beatriz said. Her colorful laca images, crafted onto wooden plates, burst into the store adjoining the workshop, cutting the shadowy light with images of a red cardinal perched on pink-thronged branches; delicate red roses and white calla lilies firing a radiant luminescence across black landscapes; a hummingbird with outstretched wings diving into a red hibiscus.

Her passion for pasta de caña de maiz, a lost art for many years until rediscovered in the early 1990s, showed throughout her shop. A blank face forged in the ancient technique stared up from a glass counter next to a box full of hands and a woman's body with the flutes of corn stalks flowing down like the folds of an elegant dress. Two other polished faces lay nearby with the individual stalks cut off at the neck like ruptured tendons and jugulars. The craft gives her a welcome reprieve from the laca.

LACA

Beatriz spends long tedious hours stamping glimpses of her imagination into polished wooden plates using industrial oil colors. "When I work, I just imagine them. I am doing little flowers, then I have another idea and put something else. I don't keep drawings." She had walked into the store now and looked up at a large batea with a wilderness of colorful blooms arranged in artistic disorder.

"These are very traditional designs. These designs everybody does. It has been done for many years."

However, artisans also create their own designs. "For example," she said. "This design -" She looked at a plate with steep golden triangles spinning around a center of diamonds and gilded drapes. "I designed it. I am the only one who does it."

Her husband learned to do laca after studying the maque process, and that's how she picked up the art. From that initiation, she has developed her own style; she continuously strives to extend the boundaries of her imaginary landscape.

"I don't like to repeat the designs. I like to invent, to think. I like to think freely. Even if I try doing something alike, I can't." This sometimes collides with the realities of running a business and abiding by the requests of her customers. "Sometimes they ask me to do 20 of the same thing, and then I feel bored. I do it, but it feels boring."

Such painfully detailed work can take its toll, and pasta de caña provides a welcome diversion. "With laca, my eyes get tired."

PASTA DE CANA

Pasta de caña has an intriguing history. When the Spaniards arrived in this area of Mexico, they encountered the local Purepecha Indians using the technique to create images of their gods; they used human or animal blood and other natural pigments, and they also decorated their pieces with natural human hair.

"By order of Don Vasco (Vasco de Quiroga), they made the first Virgins (images of the Virgin Mary)," Beatriz explained. "They wanted so many virgins, because there were so many churches." While the Purepechas used the maque technique to decorate their pasta de caña images, the Spaniards started painting them with oils. "They made wigs for the Christ figures. They say the Purepechas put their gods inside the Christs or Virgins. So they cheated the Spanish people, because they thought they were adoring the Christ figures but they were adoring the god hidden inside. When the Spanish discovered that, they asked the Indian people to leave a space inside for their treasures, so they hid treasure in there."

The specifics of pasta de caña de maiz, named for the paste used in one of the steps, had evaporated from common memory until a project was launched to rescue the technique. Beatriz explained that researchers from the University of Michoacan analyzed a piece of old pasta de caña sculpture in the 1990s to determine the ingredients used to create the images. Once they discovered the substances involved, Beatriz and other artisans interested in reviving the technique learned the process, and she has practiced the craft ever since. She and her husband maintain their own cornfield from which they harvest the cornstalks for the pasta de caña de maiz. They use only the criollo strain of corn, because that is the variety used traditionally in this area.

"First we cut it, peel it, make a selection, put it in the order by size," Beatriz said. "When we peel it, we select the pieces and stick them together with the juice of the nopal for glue, and put the string around it."

This initial step merely binds the number of corn stalks necessary for the sculpture. The collective piece is then allowed to dry, and the length of time necessary varies according to the climate. After the grouping of stalks has dried, Beatriz carves the piece into the desired form.After carving the image, she makes the pasta de caña, a paste of ground corn stalk, fig leaves, orchid bulbs, and other natural ingredients. Historically, some elements differed according to the plants in various Indian communities, Beatriz said. She covers the images with her mixture, which also includes plants such as the Santa Maria and the chipiri (chupiri) that act as natural repellents against animals and insects.

Afterwards, she uses an additional paste if she's going to paint the piece with oils. The paste, called pasta estuco, is made of rabbit skin and blanco de España, a light, porous material composed primarily of dolomite chalk. She washes the fur, and once it has decomposed to a certain degree she grinds it and turns the substance into a glue that she adds to the blanco de España. The mixture is then placed over the image before she paints the piece with oil colors. Once again, after applying the paste, Beatriz must allow the substance to dry before she can apply the paint.

"When I put the paste, you can't touch it for awhile. If I use industrial glue, it will dry in a day. With natural glue, you have to wait awhile. It depends on the climate. If it's in the rainy seas6n, because of the humidity, it takes longer. If it's hot, it's quicker. Right now, I have many pieces I have started. I have to wait because of the humidity." She prefers using the natural glue to maintain the integrity of the pre-Hispanic process.

Beatriz was currently working on an image of the Virgen de la Salud - Virgin of Health, Patzcuaro's patron saint; the image wore a long blue cape and would eventually take its place on a mount against the wall. Beatriz was decorating her with maque.

"The maque lasts longer. Maque was used 500 years before Christ. We try to do it just the way the people in pre-Hispanic times did. We are trying to keep doing it this way, like in pre-Hispanic times, to preserve the technique. These are the roots of the Purepecha people."For Beatriz, the most difficult part of this technique is keeping the proportions of human anatomy correct. "Maybe if I had studied sculpture - " she commented with wistful resignation. "Sometimes I have to do it over."

Erandi, she said, shows promise of pursuing the family's artistic heritage.

"She's learning sculpture and she's learning how to do the pasta de caña. I think my daughter likes it a lot."

Erandi had the workshop to herself late one morning as she painstakingly applied bits of clay to a figure braced against two sticks; the image slowly materialized into a crouching ball player.

"This is just the practice to do the pasta de caña,”she said, the sounds of traffic drifting through the window, the thin scent of aje and chia oil hovering in the workshop.

“I like to do the sculpture, like my parents,” continued Erandi. “I feel very fortunate to have parents that know how to do handcrafts. All my life I have done little things, heads, little dishes. I would like to do the same religious figures."

She recently sold a piece before it was even finished, a pasta de caña image of the Virgin's head looking up from a plate; she didn't even get a chance to paint the work.

"I didn't have time," said the young artisan, her smoothly contoured bronze face breaking into a smile that revealed braces.

"I was making it and a client came and loved it."

Erandi's involvement in pasta de caña will certainly require great diligence and commitment - this craft is no small affair. On a previous visit, Beatriz looked up at the tall, commanding figure of the crucified Christ with his head falling over his chest, thorns gouging his bloodied forehead. She spent two years completing the work, and she had no plans of selling it.

"That Christ is the first one I did. They will never pay what I put into it. It takes time to do Christ figures."

MARIO'S MAQUE

Her husband, Mario, also spends long tedious hours on his maque projects, which include both maque with incrustations - pieces with intricate designs carved into the surface and filled with color, aje and chia - and maque with gold, like the luminous flourishes surrounding a plate with a ship sailing across a sea of blue, its red banners billowing so vividly viewers could almost hear their flap-flap-flapping in the wind.

His maque work filled their workshop and store. Flowers showered over the side of a blue pot; a bright green batea was bedecked with yellow flourishes suggesting a flurry of untamed leaves and flowers diving in all directions.

"My husband makes wonderful bateas with different earths," Beatriz said. "He's won lots of awards. He's been to Spain, Venezuela, Guatemala and Chicago."

Mario, 58, has had a love affair with maque most of his life and has also won numerous awards. "When I was a little boy, I learned to do maque. My primary teacher knew how to do it. I began to go to his house to work with him, help him, whatever he asked me to do. So little by little, I began to learn."

As a child, he didn’t at first value the importance of his work.

“Now as time has passed by I realized my work is very unique, very different from others because I can create things and it’s a job I have here every day. I don’t have to check in at a certain hour. If I want to work 7 a.m. – 11 p.m., it’s OK. Or two or three hours, it’s alright. The work I think is very different. I love my work.”

His mother, a teacher, wanted Mario to enter the same profession. He tried it for awhile but it didn’t appeal to him. “I worked in a school for awhile and it felt like a jail because it was small. I didn’t want to go so long. This work I can work until two or three in the morning, and it doesn’t seem like I am working that much because I like what I am doing.”

Three sisters did become teachers; his youngest sister married an artisan in Santa Clara del Cobre. Mario’s brother used to help him with his maque but he eventually studied to become a dentist. However, the equipment for opening a practice was prohibitively expensive, so he moved to the United States and now works in a post office.

A project begins with Mario mixing oil extracted from the seeds of the chia plant with oil from the aje insect and rubbing the mixture into the base of a gourd or of wood, usually aile or cirimo. Wood is boiled to remove resins that could warp the wood.

One early afternoon, he rummaged through a serious of containers before finding one filled with a blue anil powder that he placed on a table. He poured aje and chia oil into a small bowl and began the slow process of rubbing the oil into the inside of a ribbed gourd, then dipping a wad of cloth into the anil and tapping it lightly on the surface. He then used his palm and fingers to rub the anil into the surface. After a few minutes, he added more of the blue powder, daubed small amounts of oil, and rubbed it all together, the rich indigo blue spreading like a royal blanket across the gourd. He would spend about two hours working on the underside of the gourd, and then he would let it dry for 22 days before repeating the process on the outside.

Some people use linseed oil, he said, but this doesn’t work as well.

“Linseed, it’s not the same quality,” Mario said. “Chia oil has the properties of making the piece that you can put water on it and nothing will happen. Linseed oil doesn’t have that. The chia oil has been used since pre-Hispanic ages. Chia is the inheritance. It’s the importance of giving the piece the quality it deserves.”

He’s developed his own style through the years.

"Each one has his particular style of work. When we learn, we learn what the teacher tells, but when the time passes, you get your own style. I can tell by looking at the piece who made it because I know how every artisan makes the maque."

Some designs he puts on a piece of paper and pulls them out as needed. Others simply reveal themselves in his imagination.

The artisan works slowly through each step, abiding time's deliberate pace as his art slowly awakens on the large bateas, some of which can take years to complete. He had worked on another three-foot batea with red scalloped edges for three years, during which time he'd adorned the piece with dashes of brown and yellow that now fired in all directions - dark purple and cherry red flourishes appeared and dissipated across the piece. Stylized flowers with sharp edges cut into the work with ecstatic shades of violet and geranium pink. He still needed to carve images from the outlines of Lake Patzcuaro and Isla Janitzio residing in three circles across the middle of the batea. When he finished, he planned to charge 50,000 pesos, about $5,000 USD.

The piece with the wine-colored underside on which he currently labored still required some small herons that would join the serrated outlines of black and burnt red flowers, willowy black lines with leaflets cutting away, and deer prancing across a light, cream-colored surface. This was the second time he'd made a batea with this composition. "The first one, I was asked to do it. That one was oil painted. This one has incrustations. I am just doing it for pleasure. Now the people that see it, they are interested. I have two people who want it. I am almost finished." This one will have a price tag of about $4,000 USD.

Mario has done pasta de caña in the past and he enjoyed the craft, but maque exerted a stronger pull on his soul.

"I have so much work in maque, and I don't have the ability to do pasta de caña like my wife. I am very slow to do the proportions and figures. She does it quick. It's easy for her to do that work. I have done Christs in maque, and it's a wonderful experience. When it's finished, it's warm, it's like a real person."

His maque work would never have had a chance to reveal itself if not for the laborious attention from Beatriz who helps obtain the colors, all of which are natural. The blue anil he spread into the gourd is found in many areas of the world, including Michoacan's Tierra Caliente region.

"That plant has to be fermented to get its color," Beatriz said. "When you want to ferment it, you have to put it in a big tank. They put it in water, and afterwards they pay people to chew cheese and spit it into the water. Thirty people chew the cheese, and it stays there for many days to ferment well."

An alternate method of obtaining the natural dye from añil entails fermenting the plant with chicken feet and banana peelings, she said.

"When the plant is fermented, they take out the sticks and twigs from the plant, and they put it on a manta and hang it to drain. When it's dry, it's like this." She picked up a compacted chunk of dark indigo lying beneath a glass cover with other natural colors for visitors' inspection. "It's a very dark color, so you can put different kinds of white to get different blues." She acquires green by adding zempasuchitl, an orange flower placed around graves during Day of the Dead. That flower also gives up its yellow colorations for use in maque. Soil from Tocuaro, a town distinguished for its wooden mask makers, turns a brilliant orange when it comes into contact with chia oil.

"This oil they don't sell it, I have to do it. When we have 20 kilos of seed, you make one liter of oil. When the seed is old, we have to grind 40 kilos to get one liter of oil."

She picked up a small bowl of chia oil mixed with aje sitting on her husband's workbench next to a larger bowl of light orange powder from the Cerro Colorado region of Michoacan. A fine mist of purple powder blanketed a metate where it had been ground from cochinilla, obtained from an insect found on the nopal. The extract yields a rainbow of tones ranging from bright red to lavender and ponderous purple, depending on the addition of other colors. She pointed to a gourd with a milky wine color.

"To get this color, you add cow urine to the cochinilla."

CONCLUSION:

Cochineal and cow urine are just two of the many curious pairings that comprise the Michoacan experience. The state's diversity has bestowed a notable legacy on the lives of its many inhabitants, and people like Mario and Beatriz have absorbed that legacy and developed it into a powerful inheritance which they bequeath to their many admirers; through their industrious creativity, that legacy has evolved into a multitude of intense manifestations through which their art communicates itself. Their journeys through the world of pasta de caña and maque, financed by Beatriz's laca work, help insure that Michoacan will continue for many years its own odyssey through the universe of the imagination.

TRAVELS WITH TRAVIS - HERMELINDA REYES ASCENSIO PHOTOS

2009-07-04T08:35:00.000-07:00

TRAVELS WITH TRAVIS - ARTISAN PROFILE - HERMELINDA REYES ASCENCIO

2009-07-04T08:05:00.000-07:00

TRAVELSWITHTRAVIS - MICHOACAN - ARTISAN PROFILE - HERMELINDA REYES ASCENCIO
By Travis M. Whitehead
COCUCHO - Her bold hands coaxed the thread through the cotton, relinquishing a fragment of the kaleidoscopic hues within her soul to cavort freely across the white landscape. The joints of her fingers moving with a tender dexterity, 84-year-old Hermelinda Reyes Ascencio pulled the filament through the material surrounding a needlepoint flower radiant with shades of violet, magenta, and lavender. She looked closely at the aqua and maroon forms stirring on the empty background, the seasons of her life written in artful prose across her face.

"I enjoy all of it from start to finish," said Hermelinda in her granddaughter Elena's yard as she worked on a guanengo. Her face occasionally broke into a thin, placid smile as she nudged the flowers into existence, courageously bringing the field of nothingness to the edge of a sheer cliff where it dove into a delicious exuberance of color. "The flowers are the most difficult. When I make the flowers, I can put the leaves in place. I make the flowers, and then I can fill the rest in." She spoke with the soft consonants and pinched whispers of her native Purepecha as her grandson Heraclio Reyes Remigio, 35, translated into English. Hermelinda doesn't speak Spanish, only Purepecha.

Cocucho, noted for its elegant clay pots, has also earned a reputation for its needlepoint artisans. I discovered this additional aspect of the town during a visit to Paracho a few days before the annual guitar festival in August 2008 when I ran into Juana Alonso Hernandez. She was doing some needlepoint with her comadre, Catalina Blas, after they had set up a station in the patio of the Casa de la Cultura to sell their Cocuchas. Elena Reyes Remigio, 26, had already set up her station nearby to sell her needlepoint. They invited me to visit them after the feria, and I eagerly accepted.

Arriving in Cocucho on a late Thursday morning, I first visited Juana's house, then went up the street a few blocks to the main square around noon where I purchased much-needed batteries for my digital camera at a small store. A stone cross stood on the main road through town, facing Templo de San Bartolome. The church wore a stone facade and scalloped parapet and loudspeakers clustered around a smaller cross on top; a road led away from the church toward Nurio.

A line of buildings wrapped around two sides of the plaza enclosing raised planting areas with
benches and leafy trees. The entrance to Elena's home stood recessed against a stone wall beneath brick arches. Elena met me at the door, and I entered a wooden entryway into a long vestibule of concrete-covered brick. A girl shouted commands from a nearby home, a muffled voice blared from a loudspeaker. Ears of corn hung from a long rope across the top of the left wall to dry before being ground into nixtamal for the upcoming Fiesta de San Bartolome in late August. Elena's six-year-old boy, Jesus Adain, dashed about in a pair of camouflage jeans.

Elena had several projects in the midst of completion, one of them a camisa de hombre - men's shirt, with panels of light blue and swirling black lines ending in bulbous Xs. She was also working on a guanengo adorned with violet blooms and green stems trailing across a reddish orange background. A needle dragging a length of thread in its wake lay impaled in mid-flight through a section of the fabric ensconced in an aro, - hoop.

The greatest challenge in the craft, Elena said, presents itself when she forms the borders for the different panels of color. "You have to count how many lines, and then you start making the flowers," said Elena, who prefers making guanengos, although she does make aprons, servilletas, and rebozos.

"That's what we're used to making," said Elena. "I enjoy putting the colors together."

Like many artisans, she prefers not using the same design twice. "We just make one design and then start with a new one. No two are alike, unless someone comesand asks for it."

Her brother, a husky fellow in dusty jeans and black jersey, had now arrived at the house, taking a break from his construction job to translate the interview and explain the needlepoint technique; he even showed some drawings of designs he made for his family to transform into needlepoint. He'd learned English while living in Portland, Oregon for 10 years, where he'd eventually worked as a line cook and earned his GED before returning to Mexico, now fluent in English as well as Spanish and Purepecha.

His grandmother, Hermelinda, soon entered the vestibule, moving with a tranquil grace in her pink lace-trimmed dress. She took a seat in the sun-drenched garden where her hands, defying the pestilence of time, awakened another piece of fabric from its slumber. The early afternoon sun skipped across the thick gray braids diving across her back; she wore a blouse rife with an ecstatic wonder of purple and lime green panels riddled with spinning wheels bathed in yellow stars and flame-tinted diamonds.

Typically, Heraclio explained, artisans purchase books of needlepoint designs that give the stitch
count so that they can follow the pattern. "She makes her own designs. A lot of people can't make their own designs, but she can. My grandmother, she started this when my mother was 18 years old."

Hermelinda learned to do needlepoint when her daughter decided to perform in a regional dance
competition. Her own mother, who had not pursued the craft as a livelihood, taught her the technique, and from that singular influence Hermelinda built a family legacy that has extended to her grandchildren.

"I am happy to do this," said his grandmother, looking up from the guanengo alive with flowers in fluttering tones of purple and blue romping about the material. "I feel more happy because I am the one who started this. I started making them in 1966."

What happened next provided the impetus to develop her skill into a livelihood. Her sister-in-law asked her to make some guanengos, then she sold them as her own in Uruapan and kept the money. Some of Hermelinda's friends saw this and reported back to her. Apparently, the woman had even won a contest with a guanengo made by Hermelinda.

Was Hermelinda especially angry? Was there a confrontation?

"No," Heraclio said. "She's my grandmother. She doesn't do like that."

Instead, Hermelinda made more guanengos and sold them herself in Uruapan and Guadalajara,
selling sometimes 20 at a time.

Guanengos are the most popular items for her customers. One guanengo, Heraclio said, requires three or four months to complete, and she'll only earn about $30 or $40.

"People here don't pay that much. Some American people come and pay a little bit more than people here."

Although Hermelinda still endows her pieces with a youthful energy, the years have prevented her from working the way she once did. She doesn't make rebozos anymore because the tassels, or rebasejos, around the hem have become too difficult. While she used to labor eight or nine hours a day, she now works only one or two hours.

While copious flourishes of orange, mauve, violet, magenta, deep ocean blue and opulent green rush in torrents across the guanengos of today, they haven't always commanded such a visual prominence.

"It was just like this," said Heraclio, holding up a miniature rebozo with simple black key work.

The more colorful designs arrived on the scene in the 1980s. "Things are changing, making flowers, having more color."

Heraclio's grandmother reached into her plastic bag and pulled out wads of purple, green, and aqua blue thread. Selecting some butterscotch that glistened in the sun, she began another leg of her journey through a patch of flowers that danced to the melody played by her fingers across the white meadow.

Beauty Amid Danger in Michoacan

2009-04-13T08:23:00.000-07:00

Dear readers:
This is a column that ran in The Brownsville Herald on April 12.

COLUMN – MICHOACAN
By Travis M. Whitehead
The Brownsville Herald
URUAPAN — Francisco Barocio Jacobo and his wife, Maria, were having a good run.
On the second day of the Domingo de Ramos Crafts Fair in Uruapan, the second-largest city in the Mexican state of Michoacan, the young couple from the village of Capula had already made some significant sales of their clay Catrines and Catrinas, images of skeletons adorned in a variety of clothing. Their garb ranged from elegant evening gowns to sombreros and ammo belts. One image depicted a skeleton weeping as he held his dead fighting rooster.

I was glad Francisco and his lovely wife were enjoying good sales; I had wondered if some of the artisans would even show up for the fair this year after the media and native Michoacanos told me things were getting even more dangerous there. I had planned to drive from Brownsville to Michoacan, which is west of Mexico City, but I heeded their warnings and took a bus.

At one point I wondered if I should even go at all. Just before I left, a friend told me that more than six people had been killed in a shootout near the home where I had lived last year with a local family, and I now imagined a repeat of the Sept. 15 attack in downtown Morelia that had killed eight people and wounded more than 100.

However, my host family said no one had been killed in this more recent incident, and I learned later that the incident had involved an attack on a police officer’s house and had wounded four people, but no one had died. There had also been recent shootouts in other areas of the city with which I was familiar, and along nearby highways, and some native Michoacanos told me Uruapan was very dangerous, while some American expatriates told me it was no more dangerous than any other time.

None of the problems seemed to be on anyone’s mind as I strolled through the fair, and I felt charmed by the burst of colorful images arising all around me: textiles from Cocucho embroidered with colorful flowers; copperware from Santa Clara del Cobre; handcarved wooden furniture from Cuanajo; woven baskets and furniture from Ihuatzio — just to name a few.

Furthermore, there were plenty of shoppers strolling through the fair. Perhaps not as many as the artisans and I would have liked, but I did see some Americans, although I suspect many of them were expatriates living in Mexico. After I relaxed and began to enjoy myself, I regretted not driving my car. I would like to have purchased some larger Catrinas from Francisco and Maria, but I felt that returning by bus with anything larger than the two smaller figures I bought would risk breakage.

I was delighted to see my friends, David, his wife, and their two small boys, from the village of Cocucho. I had visited them last year in their home on several occasions and observed them making their elegant clay pots. He had a station at the fair, as did his mother, whom I met a little later.

"When did you get here?" asked his mother, Juana Alonso Hernandez, a delightful and inspiring Purepecha woman who makes pots, decorates blouses with needlepoint, and raises her own fighting roosters.

"This morning about 8 a.m.," I answered her.

"And you didn’t come by and visit me?" she chided good naturedly.

I then explained that I had arrived in Morelia at 8 a.m., and after arriving in Uruapan in mid-afternoon, I had passed through her area and had not see her. I came by and visited with her a little later and bought a guanengo, a cotton blouse with colorful needlepoint, which I planned to sell.

When I visited Juana again the following day, she didn’t look so good. Was she concerned about the violence in Michoacan? I wondered. I asked her how she was doing, and she pointed to her right cheek to indicate a throbbing toothache, which explained the small box of Ibuprofen next to her. Was the Ibuprofen doing any good?

She shook her head. I told her I was sorry she was feeling so poorly and hoped she felt better. I purchased one of her Cocucha pots, wishing I could have purchased more from her. Because I was traveling by bus, I couldn’t buy as much from Juana. I feared I would be one of many examples of lost sales, and I wondered if the lack of sales would add a cranky headache to Juana’s ills.

It's a pity that the criminal elements are causing such economic hardship to the artisans through lost sales. I would like to have purchased some reed baskets from my friend, Santiago, who lives in the village of Ihuatzio. I had visited him in his workshop last year, where he and his family make not only reed baskets but also rebozos and key chains. They also make gladiolus flowers from dyed corn husks.

Santiago looked strong and healthy as always, but just a few months ago he had been beaten so badly in Morelia that he had landed in the hospital. His attackers had stolen his day pack and the cell phone I’d bought him. I was saddened to hear of this attack on such a proud soul; although he’s in his 60s, he still has the thick stoutness of a younger man. He’s not someone I would expect to be a target of violence.

Santiago, however, appeared unfazed by the incident. We talked awhile about his family, about the fair. Everyone seemed to be doing fine; he invited me to dinner, but I had just eaten, and I vowed to take him up on his offer on another one of my many visits to fabulous Michoacan.

The reality is, yes, there is some danger, and visitors must be careful. It’s also the reality that many wonderful things are happening in Michoacan and the rest of Mexico, and I hear the same stories about muggings and shootings in the United States every day while I go about my business.

In my opinion, those who are creating problems in Mexico are receiving a great deal of attention, and it’s important that we also give publicity to those who are creating positive experiences in that grand nation. They outnumber by far the criminal elements there.

TRAVELS WITH TRAVIS - MARTIN ANDRADE PHOTOS

2009-01-26T04:29:00.000-08:00

Dear readers:
Martin passed away suddenly on Jan. 27, 2009. I feel privileged to have known him and spent time with his family before he left us. Please keep his family in your thoughts and prayers.

Thanks,

Travis M. Whitehead

Martin works on a large laca plate with the

image of a droopy-eyed sun for a client from Spain.

TRAVELS WITH TRAVIS - MARTIN ANDRADE PHOTOS

2009-01-26T04:18:00.000-08:00

Martin Andrade paints designs in mordente into a
laca plate.

Palm trees, a deer, and colorful flowers embellish

this small plate.

Martin painted a scene of Los Viejitos into this

batea. Isla Janitzio rises over Lake Patzcuaro in

the background.

TRAVELS WITH TRAVIS - ARTISAN PROFILE - MARTIN ANDRADE RODRIGUEZ

2009-01-25T13:45:00.000-08:00

TRAVELSWITHTRAVIS - MICHOACAN - ARTISAN PROFILE - MARTIN ANDRADE REWRITE
By Travis M. Whitehead
PATZCUARO - The droopy-eyed sun, shrouded in a golden mane of tempestuous fire, stares from the wine-tinted wooden laca (lacquerware) plate as butterflies traced in Italian gold struggle through a tangle of sunflowers and water lilies. They wait desperately, suspended in mid-transformation, for the paint to rush from Martin Andrade Rodriguez's brush and saturate them with the metallic technicolor fury adorning his plates, jewelry boxes, and lockets. Golden rays shoot from the delicate lips of fuschia-petaled blooms, bulbous flowers shimmer with warmth, monarch butterflies flutter above cobalt blue flowers and violet buds.

"I do it with my imagination. I don't draw my designs on paper like some people do," said the 52-year-old artisan, thick folds of flesh around his jawline broadening into frequent smiles, a powerful nose reaching toward his cheeks.

Lacas perfiladas en oro (roughly translated as lacquerware trimmed in gold), first arrived in Mexico from the Orient in the 1600s on ships making port calls in Acapulco. While those pieces were covered with motifs from the East, local artisans adapted the skill to their surroundings, covering the pieces with monarch butterflies, calla lilies, sunflowers, images of Los Viejitos, traditional foliage, and other impressions.

Martin, who began studying the craft at age 17, immediately impressed me with the liquid professionalism of his explanations. He spoke with the articulate flourishes of one who had given numerous presentations of his art. Martin's explorations with laca have taken him to Guatemala, Venezuela, Chicago, Sacramento, and New York. "I just do the drawing using a very fine brush. If I had the drawings, it would be easier and faster. But I think handicrafts should be more spontaneous. I have changed my designs, but I just see what the people like and try to improve. Every artisan has a different style, different colors, different designs. In the work of the artisan, they shouldn't steal the way they do it."

His wife Maria brought cold glasses of tangerine juice for myself and my companions, who included Trinidad Martinez Garcia from the Casa de las Artesanias - House of Handcrafts, returning to her kitchen where she prepared a mid-afternoon meal of beef, beans, and minced squash with onions and cream cheese; her skillfull compositions sent a chorus of delicious smells frolicking down the hall, heightening my senses as I explored the riotous jungle of images that had escaped from Martin's imagination into his work. Outside the door, Yeri the family dog dozed beneath an arbor covered with yellow campanitas flowers, red arteries of color reaching around bell-shaped blooms. Yeri's sidekick Tomas (Tom and Jerry?) was nowhere to be seen, possibly exploring the pine woods surrounding the home on the outskirts of Patzcuaro.

The power of Martin's work, springing from the thermal hot spring in his soul where new forms of life continuously evolved, conjured visions incomprehensible to the physical eye. The vibrations of a tropical bird's wings radiated from dishes, gusts of air were tossed into the room by the pounding of colorful jewels in mid-flight. A hummingbird darted from a saucer, then dove back into the glistening darkness; butterflies caressed flowers with their graceful touch while the very music of this luxurious wilderness flew into the room.

Martin's apprenticeship began at age 17 when he went to work at a store in Casa de Once Patios, a collection of shops near Plaza Vasco de Quiroga in Patzcuaro. The business sold plates decorated in the laca technique, and Martin, through careful observation, meticulously pieced the process together on his own. "Everybody that does this kind of work is very jealous, so it's very difficult to get someone to teach you. When I wanted to learn, nobody wanted to teach me, because they were afraid of the competition, that someone will make better work than you."

After five years of patient study, he had finally acquired enough skill to produce his own pieces, embarking on a career that now spans decades and has earned him numerous awards that include the Galardon Nacional del Arte Popular Mexicana 1988, and first place in the laca division of the Day of the Dead crafts competition in Patzcuaro in 2008. He feels a great deal of gratitude toward the talented practitioners from whom he learned the craft. "It doesn't matter they didn't want to teach me. I think of them as my teachers."

When I first visited Martin, he had already completed much of the design work on the plate with the droopy-eyed sun, destined for a Spanish client who saw his work in a hotel and commissioned the piece. I had watched closely as he painted sharp-peaked onion domes around the perimeter with the mordente, a glue made of copper oxide, garlic, azarcon (an orange pigment), linseed oil, and other ingredients that he boils together so the gold laminate, which comes in delicate thin sheets, will adhere to the plate.

A laca piece begins surrendering the colorful wilderness huddling in its shadows when Martin boils the wood to prevent its breakage later in the process. This step draws out the resin from the wood and seals any cracks. Artisans can also achieve this by allowing the wood to simply soak in cool water for four or five days, but Martin prefers the quicker method through boiling. After this step, he allows the wood to dry outside, but not in direct sunlight. After sanding, he applies seven or eight layers of laca (lacquer), an industrial substance, which he described as "like a car wax. It's called laca automotiva."

He allows each layer of laca to dry and then sands the piece before applying the next coat. After Martin has applied all the laca, he paints the designs in mordente. Each ingredient of this glue serves a specific purpose: garlic as a natural insect repellent, copper oxide to give it body, and greta, a substance that gives the gold its shine. After laying the mordente, he places delicate sheets of gold on top, rubbing lightly to make the thin layer adhere to the glue.

"The importance of putting the mordente is, for some reason, if you don't put that base it's very dull. It won't have the same shine. We have tried it before with other substances and it doesn't work. It doesn't have the same shine."

We broke for lunch, moving to a kitchen wrapped in orange stucco and taking our places at a lengthy tile counter that separated a larger room from the kitchen area. Maria, dressed in jeans and a white shirt with beige flowers, moved with the frenzied energy of a hummingbird as she made final preparations; she quickly served up clay bowls filled with the delicious meal, a glorious medley of flavors that also included a long pale green chile stuffed with ham and cheese.

"Is it very spicy?" I asked as she tended tortillas on a plate heated by a whispering gas flame.

"Not very," she answered, plopping the tortillas into a napkin with needlepoint flowers on the counter. I indulged myself in the delicious beans and the beef, taking a second helping of the chopped squash, and somewhere in the midst of the exuberant conversation sallying through the kitchen, I learned that the chile was quite hot. I cautiously sampled the ham and cheese inside, and found that the chile had christened the filling with an invigorating zip that I thoroughly enjoyed. I tried a piece of the chile and found it much too overpowering, and Triny took over, wrapping it in a tortilla and devouring the fiery bullet with ease.

The meal was delicious, which did not surprise me. On my first visit, Maria had served another meal of soup swimming with generous chunks of fish. They had told me then that they had moved to this home eight years before from Martin's native Tzurumutaro, where they protested their neighbors illegally cutting trees."We were against it," said Martin. "The people that were chopping down the trees didn't like us because we were against it. So we moved."

After we'd finished the mid-day banquet of beans and carne (and frightening chiles) we returned to the work area where Martin explained that he spends a great deal of time passing on his knowledge to others, teaching schoolchildren, university students, even the handicapped so they can support themselves. He cherishes the opportunity to stimulate the interest of young people.

"Sometimes in the afternoon I teach children how to do the work. Some of them can't walk. I teach them because I want them to learn so they can have a way to live."

Many of his and Maria's nine children have shown interest in the craft. Martin Jr., age 27, does laca work and clothing design. His daughter, Itzel (A Mejica name meaning "eternal flower along the way"), 17, paints some of the images, and then Martin puts in the shadows; 16-year-old Yuritzquiri ("little girl" in Purepecha) also paints, and so does 15-year-old Victor.

Young Jesus, who'd just turned 11, began studying the designs about two months ago. "He's interested in learning," said Martin. "I give him little chores, not too difficult. How to draw. I have himpracticing on a piece of paper."

Jesus, a thick frock of hair crowning his jowly face, fidgeted in his chair as he talked about the trade in which he had just begun his own apprenticeship. He expressed a deep admiration for his father's work. "I'm very proud," he said, his grubby hands twisting the tail of his black T-shirt.
"I would like to travel like my father," he continued, adding that he draws maybe an hour a day after finishing his homework. "I practice how to make flowers."

He already has some ideas about what he'd like to put on his own laca plates when he's older."I would like to put birds instead of butterflies, when I have learned enough to do it right, maybe when I am 17."

Sometimes, young students become Martin's teachers. He recalled a children's class he taught in which a boy began to erase something he'd drawn. "I told him 'No, leave it alone.' He said it was a flower but it was not perfect. I said, 'Nature is not always perfect.'" He chuckled a moment as he recalled the lesson he'd learned from this encounter. "You learn from everyone, sometimes kids. Even some of the people you teach."

That's a crucial lesson in the life of an artisan, that craftsmanship is a voyage of discovery without end. "I am always learning. In this kind of work, we are always learning."

Older, more traditional designs, such as paisley tear drops splashing from simple flowers suspended from curvilinear vines, sometimes compete with his more original works: sparks of gold exploding from rum-colored blooms with curved petals, bands of white swirling through violet pools, amber-colored monarchs fluttering through leaves cloaked in prismatic emerald.

"Sometimes people will ask us to make Oriental designs, like dragons. But I don't want to go out of the normal designs of the region."

He turned now to the project at hand, the droopy-eyed sun on its way to Spain. "I like to experiment. Like this little sun, this is a new design. There are some other people that have done it, but I try to do my sun curvy. Each one has his own style, own color. Like this one, I put colors that look like sun colors, and that's what we do. It's what tradition is made of."

His own tradition has provided a wellspring from which the human imagination can express itself across his plates, where fresh young minds oblivious to limitations can colonize their lives with vivid images lurking in their dreams. Martin's creativity, festering, pulsating, heaving, rushes across the plates reclining restlessly in the shadows, providing a fountain of inventiveness. From that jungle-shrouded wellspring arises a river that flows into deserts of atrophied perceptions, beckoning their stalled visions to pursue again their own emerging dreams.

TRAVELS WITH TRAVIS - FRANCISCO BAROCIO JACOBO - PHOTOS

2009-01-25T12:21:00.000-08:00

Maria de los Angeles works on a small hand-sized
Catrina.

Maria, left, and her husband, Francisco Barocio
Jacobo, work in their shop.

Francisco puts the final touches on a husband and
wife pair of clay figures.

And elegant Catrina with flowers
on her fancy dress.

Francisco Barocio Jacobo places

Catrinas in his oven for firing.

TRAVELS WITH TRAVIS - ARTISAN PROFILE - FRANCISCO BAROCIO JACOBO

2009-01-25T12:12:00.000-08:00

TRAVELS WITH TRAVIS – MICHOACAN – ARTISAN PROFILE – FRANCISCO BAROCIO JACOBO
By Travis M. Whitehead
CAPULA – From a lump of clay, Maria de los Angeles created a being of morose elegance: a foot-tall skeleton called a Catrina enraptured in an elegant evening gown covered with flowers. As Maria cut out the Catrina’s chest cavity to make room for the ribs, her husband, Francisco Barocio Jacobo, busily molded the parrots that would crawl up the figure’s dress. The Catrina was part of an order of 15 “Frida” Catrinas dressed to resemble Mexican artist Frida Kahlo for a store here in town. She would soon join the others on a shelf, some with monkeys perched on hips or shoulders, where they waited for their appointment with the round brick oven outside the workshop. Just a few hours before, these exquisite figures had been lost in a bag of dry dust but they had been transformed in the workshop of these two artisans into tangible apparitions of death's Gothic comedy.

Outside the workshop, Manchas the pit bull, who had demanded a perfunctory sniff of my hand before allowing entrance to the yard, dozed next to the round brick oven, about 3 1/2 feet across, where Francisco would fire the Catrinas. A bicycle rested in front of pink geraniums growing next to the house, clothes dried in the sun, and a mound of lumber and pine logs lay like splinters gouging the air. A stack of neatly-placed firewood waited near a much larger oven – about 10 feet in diameter – in which Francisco’s father Antonio and his mother Sara placed large jarros upside down.

Francisco and Maria had first captured my attention at the Domingo de Ramos Crafts Fair in Uruapan where their pieces portrayed a broad spectrum of existence, showing the narrow impasse that lies between the grotesque humor of life and a boundless gulf on the other side. A group of thoroughly intoxicated male Catrines sat spread-eagled against a saguaro pouring beer down their skeletal mouths; richly-dressed Catrinas sat with legs folded beneath them on boats with baskets of fruit and flowers. Other Catrinas danced about joyfully, while a pot-bellied Catrine with an ammo belt and a rifle wore a wide smile and commanding moustache. Another, much more reserved Catrine wore a black and white tuxedo. Perhaps they all represented different aspects of the physical world’s tug-of-war with its own demise, seeking to replenish itself with the pristine humor that offers a retreat from the shores of eternity.

Making Catrinas requires many years of practice. “I learned from watching other artisans around town,” said Francisco, 34. “It’s a tradition. I get ideas from the Revolution. I try to make something comical, like a guy trying to hug a girl and she’s pushing him away.”

“Frida,” interjected Maria, 32, pointing to a black clay figure with Mexican artist Frida Kahlo’s distinctive hair piece around her head. She had been painting a dancing Catrina – a bailarina, still headless – endowing her with hands holding out voluminous skirts adorned with a sea of vines and dappled with red or yellow flowers. Maria chewed slowly on a piece of gum and leaned close to the Catrina she was painting.

“It takes me two hours to do the one like the man in the tux. Then I let it dry for a day or two. Then I put it in the oven for five hours at 450 degrees. It takes me one hour to paint.”

In their shop a few weeks later, Francisco and Maria gave a much more detailed explanation of their craft. The small workshop next to their orange stucco house in Capula, constructed of corrugated tin over a frame of wooden boards and crooked branches, was a hive of activity by two solitary workers who had an instinct for the clay, massaging it with a deliberate precision until it released the images locked within its grasp.

The calm demeanor with which Maria and Francisco labored concealed the speed with which they worked. Maria’s crescent lashes veiled the warm glow of her sparkling brown eyes as she pressed tiny florets into slivers of wet dough with a home-made clay pattern. Francisco, in baggy brown corduroys, used small make-shift tools to cut lines of feathers and eyes into the parrots he pinned on the Catrina’s dress. He and his wife had an intimate connection with the clay, as if they knew exactly what the material needed to release the energy within its formless mass.

From their meticulous, tedious activity emanated a sweet nectar spilling from the quiet river pouring through their souls; it was a primal luxury of invention, this opportunity to reach into the very marrow of the collective human consciousness and extract at least a shadow of its reality, softening the hot hunger of death with a moment of ridicule at its most sinister visage, the human frame stripped of its pulse and dressed for a dinner party. In the world of the Catrina, nothing can stop the festival of life, not even the specter of permanent decay.

They worked quietly at a table near a wall of porous cinder brick and chipped mortar; plaster molds for the dresses lay on a lower shelf. Porous rock protruded through the dirt floor littered with shards from discarded projects. Behind Francisco stood two stone slabs resting on cinder blocks; two gleaming spools of wire lay curled on a wooden shelf nailed to the cinder brick wall and supported with more wire.

Maria and Francisco seemed suddenly masters of anatomy, creators of new personalities, or perhaps benefactors of restless lives dormant in the clay. Maria, dressed in a pair of rolled-up jeans and red Skecher shoes, rolled out long ribbons of clay and cut them in sections, placing them in the chest to form ribs. The flowers she had pressed into the clay now blossomed across the Catrina’s dress. She draped a thin line of dough around the waist and then pressed small scallops to match the gentle ripples of the dress.

Francisco pushed a wad of clay into a mold and out popped a skull. He carefully cut away at the piece to define the eye sockets, mouth, and teeth, then fit jagged clay sticks together to form the hands and connected them to arms that he attached after moistening the shoulder. The hands rested on small pieces of wire placed in the waist and hip to keep them in place until they dried.

“The first thing I started making were little bulls and horses, small things,” said Francisco, a moustache spilling over the corners of his mouth. “I started making the Catrinas when I was 13, maybe a year after I started working.”

That’s exactly how their children, William Antonio, 9, and Viridian, 12, have begun. When they come home from school, they make small leaves and feathers and flowers, simple objects to give them the feel of the clay.

Suddenly, William Antonio poked his head through a window between the workshop and their well-furnished home. Maria stopped for a moment to speak with him, then went back to her work, a craft that she also began practicing at about age 12. Although she began working in clay at that young age, she didn’t start making Catrinas until about 12 years ago when she married Francisco.

“Before I got married, at my house we used to work at making flower pots. We didn’t make the Catrinas.” She enjoys making the figures, although they require substantially more work. “It’s more tiring. Before I got married, it was 6 o’clock when I stopped. Now it’s more like 10.”

“We start at 7 a.m.,” added Francisco.

If their children decide to approach the Catrina challenge they will have their work cut out for them. Making Catrinas is not something you learn to do overnight; Francisco learned the craft through many difficult attempts.

“It was all hard. When I made my first Catrina, they came out to be not so fine.” They come out fine now. The newest member of the Frida Catrinas, now crowned with her own exquisite wreath about her head, was set aside to dry, while several of the others were placed in the oven.

Manchas still dozed just outside the opening where Francisco now needed to put the wood.
“He doesn’t want to move,” Francisco said with a laugh. He splintered a piece of wood with a loud crack that finally roused Manchas, who moved about six feet away and plopped onto the ground.
Francisco placed sheets of tin over the oven, anchored them with a brick, then lit a single piece of wood on the bottom. He would keep a very low fire for the first two hours – anything hotter and the Catrinas would break – then increase the heat for another three hours. The process would turn them a much brighter orange, and they would be painted before delivery.

By now a good fire had started in his parents' bigger oven, sunk halfway into the ground except for an excavated area for the opening where the wood was placed. Thick smoke filled the yard with a sweet pine flavor while roosters crowed from distant yards and birds sang in the trees. Hot sunshine burrowed into the yard and Manchas moved into some shade under a truck to continue his nap.

There would be no sleep for Francisco and Maria. They still had to finish another order: 30 hand-sized pairs of Catrinas depicting a bride and groom, complete in wedding dress and a tuxedo, for a business in Uruapan.

“These are harder to make,” said Maria, undaunted as she began the new task.

TRAVELS WITH TRAVIS - COBRE EL PORTON - VIDEO

2009-01-25T10:09:00.000-08:00

TRAVELS WITH TRAVIS - COBRE EL PORTON - PHOTOS

2009-01-25T09:49:00.000-08:00

Jesus Lucas Barajas pounds sheets of copper
at Cobre El Porton.

A young apprentice heats a pot in the furnace
at Cobre El Porton.

Monarch butterflies, flowers, and other images
erupt across copper plates.

A worker demonstrates coppersmithing.

A visitor gets to try his hand at the craft.

TRAVELS WITH TRAVIS - COBRE EL PORTON - PHOTOS

2009-01-25T09:43:00.000-08:00

This pitcher is one of many sparkling beauties at Cobre El Porton.

A worker at Cobre El Porton gives a demonstration for visitors.

TRAVELS WITH TRAVIS - COBRE EL PORTON

2009-01-25T09:10:00.000-08:00

TRAVELSWITHTRAVIS - MICHOACAN - COBRE EL PORTON
By Travis M. Whitehead
SANTA CLARA DEL COBRE - Monarch butterflies crowd a polished pitcher like glitter dancing in a ray of sunlight. Baby sea turtles swim freely through the copper frozen solid by the heat of the workshop's furnace, hogs with teeth bared charge across the sides of a bowl the color of charred ebony, and calla lilies rush like streams of water up the sides of a jar at Cobre El Porton, one of many copper shops in Santa Clara del Cobre.

The coppersmiths of this community about 45 minutes from Morelia have established the town's reputation as a mecca of copper pieces popular throughout the world. Indigenous tribes in pre-Colombian times discovered ample deposits of copper coarsing through Michoacan's fervent landscape and had developed a vibrant coppersmithing tradition when Christopher Columbus arrived in the Americas.

Spanish Bishop Vasco de Quiroga, who found indigenous people engaged in a variety of crafts upon his arrival in the 1500s and introduced new trades, is often credited with introducing the copper industry to this area. However, Juan Jose Paz, owner of Cobre El Porton, said Quiroga simply introduced new techniques to an already flourishing tradition. One of Quiroga's most important contributions, Paz said, was the use of the bellows.

"They started to do this kind of process, it changed the whole thing," Paz said. "They not only developed arms and weapons, but also some other things."

The area's copper deposits dried up years ago, and now the coppersmiths transpose their exquisite creations with scrap copper purchased from sources throughout the world. Paz's store was filled with glistening pitchers shiny as glass, objects endowed with a liquid grace that soothed the troubled soul and delighted the senses. Flowered charolas, containers riddled with minute indentations or blooming with sunflowers, and exquisite designs etched into glistening surfaces crowded the shelves, beckoning the vulnerable eye to yield beneath their spell. Diamonds deeply cut into copper pieces ruptured their surfaces with a noble intensity that rendered mute the power of uncultivated metal.

The copper objects clustering the shelves of Paz's store were born in a lab in a sort of absurd foray into the struggling imaginations of the artisans. In the workshop behind Paz's store, the "ding-ding-ding" and vacuous booms of mallets puncture the air as workers extract shapes and images from their copper cloister. Glittery accordion music playfully teases plumes of growling red ash rising like a genie from a coal fire, now hovering in anticipation of an artisan's command.

A worker removes a plate from the fire and places it on a table; more artisans crowd together and hammer the piece to demonstrate how they work copper for a group visiting the workshop, arms lifting mallets high into the air, pounding the work into submission.
"After we shape it," says Jesus Barajas Lucas, 28, "we put it in water, then use a smaller hammer to give it the shine."

Barajas Lucas began working in copper at age 9; the trade has passed from generation to generation in his family. "We used to work in our own house. Now, we work here. All the people who work here already know the work. I like making all the pieces. There is the fair, we design a piece that should be the best one. That is the most difficult work." His 10-year-old son began studying the copper industry two years ago. "I feel proud that he will learn. I want him to learn faster."

A bottle of blackberry liquor sits next to the tip jar, along with more spirits brewed from peaches, guayaba, nance, and sugar cane. Helmets left over from an order for the movie "Troy" starring Brad Pitt sit on a shelf - artisans throughout the town shared an order for 1,000, Barajas Lucas says. Pots and sinks browned with age hang on the wall, fused with the discoloration of neglect. Discarded bowls, pitchers, and jars, bent and gouged and warped by the confusion of mistakes and armed with jagged mouths, await their next opportunity at transformation.

Many of the shiny copper pieces are adorned with eloquent white floral and leaf designs, which are inscribed by first covering the objects with tar, Barajas Lucas said. The workers then scrape out the designs, place them in nitric acid, and fill the areas cleaned by the acid with silver by dipping them in a solution for about 15 minutes, he said. Then it's removed and covered with bicarbonate of soda to turn the silver areas white. The entire process from hammering out the piece to the completion of the designs takes seven days. "The design takes one day," says Barajas Lucas. "This (the design and decoration) is all done by women and children."

The artisans' use of lemon and salt to give the pieces their shine intrigue Ashley Fish, 19, a chemical engineering student at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Col., who was visiting Mexico with friends and family. "It's neat how they use simple materials to do different little designs. Now we're so dependent on chemicals that are so harmful to the environment. I think I've never seen so much copper in my life. The only copper I see is in a lab."

Even to an artist's eye, the work is something to admire. Jorge Alberto Gonzalez, an oil painter from Baltimore, appreciated the work of the artisans. "I did enjoy it a lot, especially the demonstration, how they make the pieces," said Gonzalez, 59, originally from Cuba. "I had no idea it was so labor intensive. You see them and buy them and never realize how much work they have to put into it."

TRAVELS WITH TRAVIS - ANITA ZIRANDA - PHOTOS

2009-01-25T09:01:00.000-08:00

Anita Ziranda traces designs in the tar covering a plate, then removes sections of the substance

to reveal the shiny copper.

After Anita finishes a plate, the piece is put through

a chemical process to reveal the final product.

TRAVELS WITH TRAVIS - ARTISAN PROFILE - ANITA ZIRANDA

2009-01-25T08:48:00.000-08:00

TRAVELSWITHTRAVIS - MICHOACAN - ARTISAN PROFILE ANITA ZIRANDA
By Travis M. Whitehead
SANTA CLARA DEL COBRE - The tar yielded before the onslaught of the knife, setting free the intricate flowers and leaves hibernating within the black emptiness spread over the copper plate like dark winter embracing withered landscapes. As Anita Ziranda's hands cut the delicate lines of the petals, the copper broke through like sunshine clawing its way through dead clouds, illuminating the garden erupting to across the piece.

"I started doing this because I was a widow; I had a daughter," said the 46-year-old Anita, lines like starlight radiating from the corners of her eyes as she spoke, generous wisps of hair falling across her full cheeks.

Anita has worked for Cobre el Porton for about 20 years; after the workers at Cobre El Porton pound the pieces into shape, Anita instills them with their glowing personalities, etching their faces with refined and eloquent expressions that reveal the joy she derives from the experiences while creating them.

Dressed in a blue top and white skirt, she spoke exuberantly of her trade. She has a number of designs she likes to imprint into her pieces. "I especially like the woven flowers. When I do this I'm thinking, 'How is it going to come out?' The emotion. In the moment it's done, I say, 'Wow! This is going to work!'"

She's won several awards for her work; often, Rosie Paz, the wife of owner Juan Jose Paz, creates special designs for her to create. Ziranda has a thorough understanding of the copper trade, having taken classes at a local school. "I don't have the tools to do everything, but I know how to do it. I started learning how to make jewelry. I got bored because it was just tiny pieces I had to weld together."

She's created a tranquil artistic grotto where she can cultivate the peace necessary for the liberation of her talent. Cola de borrego - sheep's tail, plants with clusters of juicy pale green pods, hung from coffee cans attached to the eaves over her back porch. Her young grandson shoveled dirt into a toy truck; clothing hung from twisted twine wound around two large poles leaning away from the house; oleander and a small avocado tree lingered near clumps of lantana adorned with burnt orange blooms. Hibiscus with delicate pink blooms, and fuschia-colored arete flowers whose fragile filaments dangled from bulbous blossoms, crowded a brick wall.

She's passed the skill on to her daughter, Maria, who took a drawing course and now approaches the decoration of copper pieces from a different direction. Departing from the more popular floral designs, she prefers adorning herpieces with abstract medievel motifs, twisting and turning lines, gently flowing waves flipping back on themselves, sharp angles and downward spirals. These are details, Anita said, that insist on great skill and concentration.

"It takes more time. You have to be very careful not to go into small parts. She just does it with a needle. It has to be a special order."

TRAVELS WITH TRAVIS - JULIO ZEPEDA - PHOTO

2009-01-25T08:46:00.000-08:00

Julio Zepeda tends a pot in the furnace.

TRAVELS WITH TRAVIS - ARTISAN PROFILE - JULIO ZEPEDA

2009-01-25T08:43:00.000-08:00

TRAVELSWITHTRAVIS - MICHOACAN - ARTISAN PROFILE - JULIO ZEPEDA
By Travis M. Whitehead
SANTA CLARA DEL COBRE - Fire bellowed from the edges of the round copper sheet that Julio Zepeda had just shifted on the furnace. Agitated coals coughed thick gusts of smoke that fled toward openings in the corrugated tin ceiling. Now the sheet began to warp as the 19-year-old Zepeda, in tattered jeans and emerald green shirt, used a pair of tongs to shift the piece on the fire at Cobre El Porton.

A threatening glow spread from the center, the heat endowing the sheet with the freedom to express itself in some new shape. Zepeda, with jewelry piercing both ears, was making a table, one of many he'd crafted since he began working in copper four years ago. "I learned here in the workshop," he said, as his brother, Gustavo, worked on another table nearby, on the second level of the workshop.

Julio and Gustavo both preferred making table tops to some of the other more elaborate pieces; they can complete a top in one day. He pulled the plate from the fire and placed it on the floor where it turned a cool gray before a spackled gold color spread like a fungus across the surface.

Julio, with a cigarette tucked behind either ear, took a brush and swept some debris away from the table, revealing more of the fiery golden color underneath the bleak facade. Only a few minutes after leaving the fire, the plate was cool enough to touch; he used a rope to pull the piece to the second floor where he continued working at it. He flattened the top with a board, then a smaller piece of wood to straighten tighter indentations. "Jesus invited me to work here," added Gustavo, 21, who's been here a little longer. "I liked it, and that's how I started to learn."

While they both enjoy the work, they don't plan to stay here in the copper industry forever. They'd like to opentheir own bakery.
"I used to work for a bakery," Gustavo says. "This takes a lot of time and it's a lot of work, and making bread is easier and you can make more money."

TRAVELS WITH TRAVIS - EMILIO ALEJOS MADRIGAL - VIDEO

2009-01-24T15:40:00.000-08:00

TRAVELS WITH TRAVIS - EMILIO ALEJOS MADRIGAL - PHOTOS

2009-01-24T15:07:00.000-08:00

Emilio Alejos Madrigal applies pasta blanca on

a candelabra.

Emilio Alejos Madrigal and an assistant load

pottery covered with pasta blanca into an

oven for firing.

Emilio's wife, Juana, applies pasta blanca to clay

pots.

TRAVELS WITH TRAVIS - EMILIO ALEJOS MADRIGAL - PHOTOS

2009-01-24T14:53:00.000-08:00

Juana, Emilio's wife, applies pasta blanca to

pottery with her daughter Diana, right, and

niece Juana Blas, center.

Diana, above, and her cousin Juana Blas apply pasta blanca to

clay pots.

Some large pinas and candelabras bake in the sun

before getting a coat of pasta blanca.

TRAVELS WITH TRAVIS - ARTISAN PROFILE - EMILIO ALEJOS MADRIGAL

2009-01-24T11:23:00.000-08:00

TRAVELSWITHTRAVIS - MICHOACAN - ARTISAN PROFILE - EMILIO ALEJOS MADRIGAL

By Travis M. Whitehead

SAN JOSE DE GRACIA - Emilio Alejos Madrigal dipped the brush into a bowl of pasta blanca, then ran the squirrel-hair instrument along the arms of the candelabra standing majestically before him, the white paste forming a base for the paint that would soon follow.

A rooster's braggadocious "ERRR!-errRRRR!-errRRRR!" exploded into the yard, the blast immediately followed by a screechy imitation from Diana, Emilio's 10-year-old daughter who sat grinning from the back of a truck. The precocious girl had earlier demonstrated her adoration of animals, cradling Saro the kitten who hissed at her cinnamon-colored dog, Glovis.

Diana soon joined her mother, Juana, at the concrete water tank, called a pila, and the ribbed lavadero (wash board) to clean fresh chicken legs and chunks of pork; her mother painfully remembered washing clothes there by hand before purchasing a cylindrical washing machine eight years ago that now stood nearby awaiting the next load of laundry.
"I like it a lot better," Juana said, then added, "It was a lot of work."

Meanwhile, Emilio diligently caressed the ribs of leaves flowing over the candelabra with the pasta blanca that would form the foundation for a luminous frock of green paint. Pushing the mixture around tiny corners and sharp curves while leaving other areas dark, the piece gradually became more alive with panels of light and shadow; he planned to fire the piece later that day and then paint it tomorrow.

"Mine and my brother's techniques are very similar, but I have my own way," Emilio had said two days earlier in his laboratory of visual experimentation a block away from his brother Jose Maria's house. "I work with pico fino," he said, referring to the pointed tick marks cutting their way across many of his pieces. "My mother taught us how to do pico fino. I like everything, especially my pico fino because it's the best quality, the real traditional."

On my first visit, I didn't arrive in San Jose until early afternoon, having left Morelia at 10:30 a.m. for the three-hour journey. I dropped by his brother's place first, and by the time I made it to Emilio's he'd left to get his car repaired in Tangancicuaro. His wife Juana, 47, selling snacks on the small street outside their home, said he would return a little later.

I drove into Ocumicho a few miles away where crowds of teenagers in formal attire thronged a home for a big quinceanera, then into Patamban where I asked how to get to Cocucho. A woman in a store explained I would need to go to Ocumicho and from there drive to Cocucho. I remembered then the ride I had taken from a street corner the previous year to Cocucho. I drove back to Ocumicho and found the turn easily. After passing through Cocucho, I drove leisurely through the towns, familiarizing myself with the area and the roads, passing by Emilio's place a couple of times before catching him as rain began to fall.

He eagerly welcomed me to his home as the clouds fussed and quarreled overhead and flung bits of rain; the simple and elaborate complex of rooms and workshops and outdoor cooking areas impressed me with their comfortable personalities and their austere directness. Passing through the front door, I walked across a broad tiled floor past bedrooms on either side, then past yellow walls decorated with pink birds, drowsy quarter moons, pictures of Snow White, The Little Mermaid, and other Disney princesses, and paintings of jungles and oceans and pine-covered mountains.

The long seat from a van served as a couch placed between the living area and the hallway next to a wooden waist-high swinging door that led to the yard. Yellow and red tissue flowers surrounded a wooden image of the Virgin of Guadalupe that had been in Emilio's family for 260 years. A rocking chair faced plastic plants rising from a couple of yellow ceramic pinas; the living room was separated from the garden only by a three-foot-high wall that invited the fresh air of the yard - filled with pink roses, geraniums, avocado, and citrus trees - to perfume the cool air of the house.

Emilio readily showed me his workshop. Two clay munecas with paunchy cheeks and pencil noses burst from the vases on the dirt floor; sunflowers erupted across aprons draped over the clay cloisters from which they sprang, ropy braids falling across their backs as they held large plates over their heads.

"I made them this past week," he said on this stormy Saturday afternoon. The rain did a tap-dance across the pitched tin roof as it escaped from the grumbling clouds. "A place in San Miguel de Allende ordered them. I'll put the white on in the morning. It dries in a few minutes. I'll put the green esmalte on Tuesday."

The munecas stared wondrously around the workshop filled with cactuses trimmed in diagonal ribs laced with flowers, vases blooming with scallops, pineapples riddled with starbursts, conical jars with an armada of diamonds sailing up the sides. I would sum it up as a sort of visual jazz, this spontaneous dance of the imagination, in which Emilio Alejos Madrigal, like the other artisans around town, could take an idea and run with it in any direction.

A pine wood bench sat against a brick wall. White pasta covered pineapple leaves rising from tapas bristling with espigas - short stalks bubbling with luscious berries. Ruffled molds sat on a wooden shelf clothed in shredded bark, a huancipo hung on the brick wall, stacks of pine wood sat at one end of the workshop. Wads of newspaper, a styrofoam cappuccino cup, and clay calla lilies cluttered the work area.

Catty corner to his workshop sat his ovens and the small fogon where his family makes tortillas over a comal. Lamps with dark beads swimming up ridges of cactus; stately pineapple pitchers; and tall vases sat on the rim of the largest oven. Patches of cream-hued paint scratched through the coffee-colored veneer of some pots dappled with shells on a board over a smaller oven.

"They need more greta and more heat," he said, referring to the substance used in the paint to give his pieces their lustrous shine. He picked up a small vase with dark frustrated green struggling against lighter shades. "This green is very pretty, but the greta is not thick enough." The pieces would all get another trip to the oven and a fresh dose of greta.

While artisans in Tzintzuntzan are trying to find a lead-free paint that shines with the same luminescence as the leaded variety, San Jose de Gracia's artisans don't have that problem; their pieces aren't used for cooking or serving food. However, they're still exploring the possibilities of leadless paint.

Emilio picked up a small pitcher covered with a dry white paste. "This is esmalte sin plomo. It will come out very dark. Customers prefer leaded paint because they are decorative pieces."
Withdrawing a brush from a bowl of pasta blanca, he explained the preferred material comes from a squirrel's tail. "It's smooth and strong, very flexible. It's good for us."Picking up a thick stubby brush, he continued, "We use this for the peiscos, but very carefully. This is not very good, it's very tough." The peiscos are similar to pico fino but they have a separate ridge with flattened sides.

With the dark sky intruding ever more rudely on our conversation, I decided it was time to leave. Not so fast.

"Have you eaten?" he asked. Not since very early that day, I answered.
He invited me to have dinner with him and his family, a generous and priceless opportunity I couldn't bear to refuse. We sat in the warmth of their kitchen and dining room at a plain table while his wife prepared a delicious meal with hearty servings of chicken in a tasty broth, with sides of bread and fresh, finger-sized avocados.

"The Purepechas had an advanced civilization before Columbus came," he explained proudly while we ate. "They were never defeated, even by the Aztecs." He didn't know when San Jose de Gracia was founded, but he did say that the Purepechas used to pass through the area in pre-Hispanic times while traveling between the state of Mexico and Colima.

"I had this guy from Germany, he was studying some ruins near here, Purepecha ruins. He lived with me for three months."

We talked about the Purepecha language. I told him about the few words I knew, such as Kumanchekua, which means house. I was surprised the word is actually spoken much more softly than its written form indicates. The consonants "ch" and "k" are actually spoken very delicately, as are the consonants in the word "jucheti", the word for "my" that I had picked up from the title of a favorite Purepecha song, Jucheti Consuelito. John Williams had taken part in a performance of this song at the Paracho Guitar Festival in 2006, and it had stuck with. Purepecha songsare also called "Pirekuas".

This was perhaps the highlight of my trip, sitting in Emilio's kitchen, visiting his family, listening to the storm outside while the cool wet air slipped in through the open doorway, and forging a new friendship and a new direction in my exploration of Michoacan.

I looked forward to my next visit, which came a couple of weeks later when I was back in the area to follow up an interview with Cecilia Bautista Caballero (whom Emilio identified as his cousin - she makes rebozos) in Ahuiran and to speak with an artisan in Ocumicho.
On this particular afternoon, he was spreading pasta blanca on yet another candelabra with swollen bands of pico fino and flowered serpentine braces.

His cousin's wife, in a blue velour top and a soiled rebozo of cream and maroon, poured water into a wheelbarrow full of saw dust that she and Emilio's niece then mixed together; the concoction became clods and then masses of clay that were stored in plastic bags. Juana, Diana, and Juana's niece, also named Juana Blas, applied pasta blanca onto small jars rippling with waves, florets, diamonds, and cactus ribs.

I told them I was excited about having met an artisan friend of mine (Juana Alonso Hernandez) from Cocucho selling her clay pots in Paracho a couple of days before the annual guitar festival. I had spotted her there late one evening doing needlepoint with a couple of friends. I hadn't realized Cocucho is also famous for this craft, called punto de cruz in Spanish; we made arrangements for me to visit them after they returned home so I could do some stories about their needlepoint.

"My grandmother's in Cocucho," said Juana. "She does punto de cruz, without glasses, and she's 90." Juana, it turns out, is from Cocucho, but she never learned how to make the famous Cocuchas. However, her niece, Juana Blas, 11, was getting experience in both the Cocucha trade and the pineapple pottery of San Jose de Gracia. "She kneads the clay with her feet in Cocucho. Here she just paints. She's my brother's daughter. She lives in thesame house as my grandmother. She comes here a lot."

The younger Juana Blas, grinning as she painted the conchitas (little shells) on a small jar, said she liked both types of barro the same. But, she added, "I like working here better."
Meanwhile, as Emilio and a couple of friends placed some pieces in the oven, one of the candelabras broke. Emilio sat down to perform surgery on the piece.

"I am going to try to fix it," he said, placing wet clay on the gaping nub where a candle holder was supposed to be and then re-attaching the serpentine limb.

His wife shook her head seriously and said, "It's too much work to just throw out."

TRAVELS WITH TRAVIS - ANGEL CUIN JUAREZ - PHOTOS

2009-01-24T09:34:00.000-08:00

Angel Cuin Juarez works on a cuadrado at his shop in Cuanajo.

Angel Cuin's daughter, Guadalupe, 16, paints pieces carved by her father or her brother, Juan Esteban.

Guadalupe, 16, and her 12-year-old sister, Blanca, painted this elaborately-carved trunk.

Angel Cuin's son, 15-year-old Juan Esteban, works on a cuadrado.

TRAVELS WITH TRAVIS - ARTISAN PROFILE - ANGEL CUIN JUAREZ AND FAMILY

2009-01-24T09:15:00.000-08:00

TRAVELS WITH TRAVIS – MICHOACAN – ARTISAN PROFILE – ANGEL CUIN JUAREZ
By Travis M. Whitehead
CUANAJO – Angel Cuin Juarez leaned into the cuadrado as his knife peeled slivers of wood from the swirling lilies that bubbled from the fresh pine wood. Cutting, slicing, pulling, he slowly removed anything that repressed the hidden images from taking flight through the wood frame that would soon wrap itself around a picture or mirror. Nearby, his nephew Francisco worked on a long bench that could seat three people, the back elaborately carved with a woman and calla lilies; Angel’s daughter Guadalupe painted the delicate flourishes on a wooden basket of fruit.

The family had enjoyed a good run at the Domingo de Ramos Crafts Fair, having sold most of its items including a table and chairs, although the workers broke one of the chairs as it was being loaded for transport and Angel had to cut the price from 12,000 pesos to 11,000. Overall, however, the two-week stint paid off well, and Angel and his family had returned to their workshop to begin crafting a whole new set of creations.
“I have to be creative to make this work because people don’t want the same thing all the time. I am not going to build the same thing all the time. That’s why I sell the work. People tell me how they want it. Some people want flowers, some people want fruits, and that’s how I make more and more.”

The incubator in which their imaginations gestated included a bandsaw on which Angel and Francisco kept shaving off the end of an arm to fit the long bench. Corn cobs hung from a beam; several unpainted servilleteros waited for a paint job from either Guadalupe, 16, her sister Blanca, 12, or their niece, Cinthia. Chair backs were cut with ridges of quarter moons and images of suns, pineapples, melons, and papayas. A plastic Starbucks cup sat on a bench, tracing paper with Juan’s designs lay on the ground amid layers of sawdust. Overcast skies fell through holes in the pitched roof of corrugated tin. Occasionally a frustrated storm released a few waves of drizzle, but the family labored patiently, each artisan at his or her own tasks, instilling wood with vibrant personalities while accordion music traded places with resonant vocals flowing from a CD player and radio on a shelf; CDs hung on nails protruding from a timber.

Stained brushes dangled from bowls of water where Guadalupe "Lupe", with a brown cover over her pink shirt, used jars of paint to bring life to pale representations of fruit cascading from a basket freshened with white calla lilies. She dipped a stern brush matter-of-factly into a cup of water and then a bottle of red paint before running the delicate fibers over the inner part of a calla lily bursting from a delightful cacophony of apples, bananas, oranges, papaya, strawberries, and grapes. She invigorated the area by daubing over it with pieces of foam rubber for a spotted effect, then awakened a white grape leaf with yellow and then green around the edges.She then gave it a more powerful breath of life by touching the edges with shadow.

Lupe and Blanca had both collaborated on the paint job of a trunk that came with a separate piece of furniture with drawers and doors. A shower of color cascaded like a jungle waterfall across the surface; hummingbirds thrust their enormous beaks into thick aqua blue flowers while parrots with candy apple red heads and streams of gold and blue feathers perched with crossed wings amid emerald green leaves braced with steep ribs. Blooms with deeply-grooved violet petals and centers of greenish umber grooved danced across the surface with mauve blossoms burning with orange centers.

Many of the colgantes and cuadrados, decorated with fruit, flowers and suns, came from the imagination of Juan Esteban, the 15-year-old son of Angel Cuin. Juan Esteban was busy cutting away at a cuadrado, from which suns with swollen rays of light began to ripple from the pine wood. He had already drawn the design on a strip of tracing paper and then transferred it onto the wood. A finished cuadrado decorated with fruit in relief sat nearby. “I feel very very good,” said Juan. “When I am doing my job, I enjoy doing it. I like the carving.”

I had first met Angel Cuin and his family two years before when Juan Esteban was only 13. I had understood then that Juan wasn’t sure he wanted to continue this line of work as a career. Perhaps something became lost in translation and I misunderstood, or he may have just been having a bad day and a moment of indecision, but on this particular visit he declared without reservation that he did in fact want to pursue this as a profession and had always wished to do so.

He had now grown at least a foot taller and exuded the confidence and focus of a dedicated artisan. His dedication showed in the elaborate designs of his colgantes, cuadrados, and other works that had been born from his talented hands. A colgante depicting calla lilies spilling from a yellow basket took one day to carve and another day to paint – the piece would fetch about $25. His brother, one of three who has moved to the United States to seek better work, taught him how to carve.

The first thing he learned to do was sanding, when he was about 10 years old, then he learned how to draw. “I only imagine designs. I first imagine and then put it on.” Juan has had plenty of time to become the skilled artisan he is today. When he’s not in school, he’s working in the family shop like his sisters and his niece. They can't afford to live any other way.

The following day after beginning the cuadrado with the bulging suns, the project – an impressive congregation of suns, long-beaked birds, and graceful leaves - leaned against the foot of the bandsaw, anticipating its appoint-ment with Lupe or Blanca. But first Juan needed to put his finishing touches on the piece. Dressed in frayed bib overalls over a loose T-shirt, he clamped the cuadrado on the bandsaw table and began sanding away, his slim fingers gripping a shred of sandpaper, filing at the full rays of sun, spitting tiny grains of sand like someone flossing their teeth after a full meal. He stopped and chipped away some more, sanded, carved, cut some more to reveal the divine contours in the wood until the piece took on a graceful shine. Soon the elaborate frame would fall under the spell of a paintbrush.

Juan Esteban had imprinted a part of himself into the wood, a recording of a moment of his life. That story would soon join the lifelines of admiring connoisseurs who would share the story of Juan, his family, and the rest of Cuanajo, ensuring its permanent place in the physical world.

TRAVELS WITH TRAVIS - CITY OF CUANAJO - PHOTOS

2009-01-24T08:29:00.000-08:00

Winnie the Pooh gets into a tussel with Tigger on a headboard behind some wooden Don Quixotes posing as Augustin Rodin's "The Thinker".

Families enjoy browsing the colorful shops of Cuanajo.

Dalmation puppies, trogons, and numerous other carved images tumble into the streets of Cuanajo.

Mickey Mouse offers a rose to a demure Minnie Mouse carved into the headboard of a bed frame outside a shop selling carved furniture. Small wooden planters face the street.

One of the many renditions of the maiden with flowers motif in Cuanajo. Diego Rivera used this image in many of his paintings.

TRAVELS WITH TRAVIS - CITY OF CUANAJO - PHOTOS

2009-01-24T08:23:00.000-08:00

A woman and infant wait for customers outside a shop in Cuanajo.

A young girl walks through Cuanajo's plaza with the church in the background.

A child lingers in the courtyard of Cuanajo's church.

Another rendition of the maiden with flowers motif.

Headboards, colgantes (wall-hangings) and cuadrados (picture or mirror frames) show their bounteous colors in Cuanajo.

TRAVELS WITH TRAVIS - CITY OF CUANAJO

2009-01-24T08:03:00.000-08:00

TRAVELS WITH TRAVIS – MICHOACAN – CITY OF CUANAJO
By Travis M. Whitehead
CUANAJO – A trogon, its cherry red neck gleaming against a body of emerald green, crawls up the side of a cuadrado (picture frame), followed by a chattering monkey. Mickey Mouse, decked out in a blue jacket and red trousers, offers a rose to a demure Minnie Mouse carved into the headboard of a bed frame. A cross-eyed Dalmatian puppy stares from a colgante (wall-hanging), its blue ears flopping over its face as the canine waits to decorate some child’s room; the pup bursts from a doorway along the cobblestone streets of Cuanajo, one voice in a visual chorus of images protected by the imagination of innocence.

This little gem of a town west of Morelia – complete with a charming colonial church, a carnival of eye candy, and a mesmerizingly slow place – beckons visitors looking for a trip to another time, a place where nothing can disrupt the fantasies of youth. Like Superman leaping from a phone booth, blocks of wood enter the town’s workshops and reappear days later transformed into a circus of shapes and colors. Homes sheltered with terracotta roofs harbor the workshops where artisans spend long hours practicing their trade secrets to produce masterpieces of both form and function.

Each family has its own technique - an endless number of approaches to familiar motifs show themselves throughout the town, where residents have found a way to escape the monotony of daily life with a delightful chaos that has become their livelihood; through their systematic labor, they indulge the necessities of routine existence by endowing that routine with joyous escape.

To get there, take Highway 14 west toward Patzcuaro. Before getting to Patzcuaro, you’ll pass the turnoff for Tiripetio before observing signs directing you to head back in the opposite direction to find the road to Cuanajo.After making the turnoff, you’ll take a slow winding road a few miles to Cuanajo, passing first through Tupataro, another picturesque community with a colonial church and a handmade furniture tradition of its own.

Once in Cuanajo, take the twisting road up a hill and turn left to arrive at the plaza and the church. The dramatic power of the church is enhanced by its simple façade: a stone entrance adorned with scallop and leaf motifs set into a stucco face. One Sunday just a few minutes before noon, tiny microbial birds spun their webs of shrill tunes, cutting through the silence before someone in the tower spun a huge iron bell mounted in a tulip-shaped housing.

The bell coughed up a deep-throated gong that ricocheted over the tiny community, followed by the high-pitched sound of a second tocsin and the beating of an even lower chime. A slow trickle of people moved up the stone walkways toward the gaping mouth of the church through a courtyard manicured with pink roses and birds of paradise.

A man in khaki pants limped shakily toward the structure; a woman doubled over and shrouded in her blue-striped rebozo walked in tiny measured steps; a man in leather sandals creeped toward the church with a cane. A young man with a cell phone strapped to his belt approached with his wife and two children.

They came in groups or as solitary seekers of security in their quiet world, blessed with the sanctity of remem-brance and connection, their footsteps casting faint whispers on the stone steps. Perhaps those soft-thronged shadows of sound joined the lingering memories of their generations past, for this was an ageless community where the passage of years had crept by leaving tangible traces of itself in the crevices of every memory.

Before the altar, an image of Christ rose through a picture of sunlit clouds behind him, and festoons of green, pink and blue lace seemed to flower overhead. Before the Christ image stood vases of white lilies, gladioluses, and pink roses. White candles, with beads of wax like sweat frozen, flickered from glistening holders. On the left stood an image of Christ in a glass casket and carved wooden panels of calla lilies, sunflowers, and grapes boiling from vases in the Cuanajo style. On the right was an image of the Lady of Guadalupe.

Two teenage boys sat joking amongst themselves outside, as if postponing the inevitable; teenage girls in tight jeans and tennis shoes, sandals, and heels, still within the grasp of a humorous story, emptied the courtyard and flooded into the church. The parishioners sat now in quiet respect; they stood, a strumming guitar leading them into a song that flooded into the ceiling crisscrossed by panels of light blue and trimmed with gold flourishesand festooned with lace curtains before rolling into the churchyard and the plaza.

The plaza was a rather simple affair, small and manicured with hedges around small gardens of roses and palm trees, with ficus trees providing shade for the iron benches along the walkways. Broad eaves of terracotta hung over sidewalks leading to small grocery stores and carved furniture establishments. Muebleria Ambakity Muebles Rusticos y Tallados sold a number of furniture items in varying styles, fashioned by members of the same family. A wardrobe depicted a man drowsing beneath sombreros next to a blazing fire, crafted in a tranquil floating effect with fluid lines. The headboard, with sunflowers painted the colors of solar flares against emerald green leaves and aqua blue stems, was done in the same style. However, a china cabinet with a rustic, earthy look bore images with a choppy, more energetic effect, revealing apples, pears, bananas and grapes that seemed to scramble nervously from a basket. A table and chairs struck a balance between the two styles, a graceful approach that evoked lively movement.

At Dona Ofe, Ofelia Prudencio Cabrera’s family sold fragments of their imagination that had crawled into their wooden pieces and received the ointment of paint giving to give them their final sparkle. A carved picture of a familiar maiden with her back turned showed her in a red pleated skirt facing a bundle of flowers in light shades of lavender, orange, red, and gold. This piece, like many of the painted works in the store (made up of several rooms) had more of a crackled appearance, unlike the spotted look of Angel Cuin’s work, which gives his work an entirely different impression.

The motif of the familiar maiden with her back turned and holding a bundle of flowers deserves special mention here. She appears often in drastically different guises, holding loads of flowers on trunks, headboards, tables, and other pieces of furniture. At Muebleria Ambakity Muebles Rusticos, she was seen on a headboard with her head turned slightly, but not enough to see her face. She wore a striped blue rebozo and red skirt, and the position of her arms, heavy with a load of flowers, evoked an impression of strength, as if she had born the burden for many years.

Elsewhere in town, Hector Paque had a servilleta depicting the maiden as a little girl, and a framed picture depicted her with brown hair and her feet showing beneath her black dress.
Next door, at Cruz Vega’s place of business, the maiden was carved into a very large picture in which she was in an open meadow. Her skin was much darker in this rendition, and she grasped the stems of a balloon-shaped bundle of calla lilies and sunflowers about three times her size while her feet poked out beneath her red dress.

Just up the street at El Pina Muebleria, there were even more renditions of the maiden with flowers; in one carved picture, she wore a bright red dress and had dirty blonde hair, quite a different treatment of the subject. In another she wore a brown dress that matched her hair, and she grasped a bulging bouquet of calla lilies. A blue shawl was draped across her white blouse, and a single lily lay on the ground at her side. Back at Prudencio’s shop, another picture in more earthy colors showed the same woman with flowers but much older because of her more sophisticated dress, a deep dark indigo top with shoulder pads before a bundle of sunflowers the colors of peeled mangos and glowing embers.

Robert Toy and his friend Joan James, both American expatriates living in Patzcuaro, were both enjoying their little shopping trip to Cuanajo.

“I think everybody who comes here initially wants to decorate the entire house like this,” said Toy, 67. “But eventually you settle down to one piece. If you walk around enough, every store has its style. It’s very subtle, but it’s very different. Some, I would consider gaudy, some very rustic, some are very high end.”

Walking down one of the streets will give you an idea of what he’s talking about. Peak inside a plain brick dwelling and you might see sunlight flooding the face of a sad moon, painted carvings of Pope John Paul II and the Virgin of Guadalupe, and a crib with the Three Little Pigs and the Gingerbread Man. A crouching Spiderman shoots a web from the confines of an unpainted headboard leaning against a wall.

On this Sunday morning, truckloads of lattice-backed chairs, stools, carved trunks, and corner shelves rumbled slowly down a road and out of town. A woman stirred potato chips in a hot skillet before bagging them for sale; a man with a deeply-pitted face hung out a doorway, his dugout eyes frowning against the sun.

At El Pina Muebleria, Winnie the Pooh got into a tussle with Tigger on a headboard, capturing the imagination of a little girl who scrambled down from her mother’s arms to explore the playground of images inside; an older boy climbed around two wooden Don Quixotes sitting on logs and poised as Augustin Rodin's "The Thinker". Here, however, the maiden finally showed her face on a trunk. It was in profile, but she cautiously surrendered a glimpse of her wonders: full cheeks with thin cherry lips and sharp glistening black eyes. The store also had tables carved with men leading horses through hillside villages where women with gourds gathered around fountains and a sun rose over church steeples and green hills.

In the village of Cuanajo, fragmented images from discarded memories find new life through the talented workmanship of the local artisans. A playful puppy, a squawking parrot, and baskets of fruit remind visitors of life’s vitality and the power of play. Man’s destiny to return to the timeless joys of life form the fabric of this community where the pace of life has made the daily instruction of this lesson possible.

JUANA ALONSO HERNANDEZ - PHOTO

2009-01-23T11:28:00.000-08:00

Juana Alonso Hernandez makes huancipos at the Domingo de Ramos Crafts Fair in April 2006 in Uruapan, Michoacan, Mexico.

VIDEO - JUANA ALONSO HERNANDEZ AND FAMILY

2009-01-23T10:59:00.000-08:00

In this delightful video, Juana Alonso Hernandez, in a yellow skirt, and her daughter-in-law, Lydia, gather corn leaves to make corundas. Juana's son David, who learned English while living in Oregon, tends to his and Lydia's two young boys. Listen to the boys, Cesar and Lorenzo, chatting away in Purepecha, keeping the language alive. To read more about David, Lydia, and their two sons, keep an eye out for the complete book when it is published!

ARTISAN PROFILE - JUANA ALONSO HERNANDEZ

2009-01-04T16:50:00.000-08:00

TRAVELSWITHTRAVIS - MICHOACAN - ARTISAN PROFILE - JUANA ALONSO HERNANDEZ
By Travis M. Whitehead
COCUCHO - The needle, beckoning the thread to follow its lead, sent shimmering bands of emerald and jungle green fluttering from the orange blossom in the guanengo, a white cotton blouse. A rush of color spread slowly across the garment, spilling from the dexterous hands of Juana Alonso Hernandez. Freshly-picked corn on the cob boiled over an open fire in the wooden kitchen area behind her; several of her recently-fired clay Cocuchas lay on the ground beneath the muddy sky. They waited with mute resignation for Juana to scrub them down in preparation for the upcoming Day of the Dead Crafts Fair and Competition in Patzcuaro in late October and early November.

"I was playing with munecas," said Juana, 69, explaining how she learned needlepoint while endowing a piece of cloth with some colorful stitchwork. "I learned to make the blouses and the aprons. I taught myself. My aunt made dresses. When I started making them, she gave me little pieces. I just get the ideas from my memory. I do pajaritos, grecas (geometric keywork), and flowers. Flowers are the most difficult. I have won 15 awards. I make servilletas, and shirts for men. I like both Cocuchas and needlepoint, but I prefer doing Cocuchas."

This versatile artisan, who also raises fighting roosters, is usually associated with her Cocuchas, which have also won numerous awards; she's a common sight at crafts fairs, sitting next to her pots, laughing with her fellow Cocucho artisans and making huancipos, the round corn leaf wreaths on which the pots are placed.

I had wanted to visit Juana ever since I met her at the Domingo de Ramos Crafts Fair and Competition in Uruapan in 2006. She charmed me with her acceptance of my questions and was completely at ease with my camera. I loved her refreshing spontaneity, her genuine warmth, and the consuming smile that easily overtook a stormy and vibrant face textured by the many roads she'd traveled.

Juana's husband, Juan, had been an industrious maker of trojes, a traditional wooden shelter, before dying 35 years earlier from liver ailments caused by excessive drinking; 12 years ago she lost a son, Salvador, in Oregon. He'd traveled there for work with his two brothers, David and Guadalupe, and one evening he stepped away from the dinner table for a moment and fell, hitting his head. He died later at the hospital. At about the same time, Juana's daughter Maria had been struck by lightning in Cocucho while washing clothes and died instantly, leaving four young children to be raised by relatives. I discerned later these tragedies had provided the well-spring for her powerful sense of joy, a contagious vitality that inspired me.

On my first visit to her home in Cocucho, her intense, gleaming black eyes, complemented by an enchanting smile, greeted me at the door. She motioned for me to follow her across the yard; she moved like a cat past sand drying in the sun for use in the clay, her mud-caked feet gripping the concrete that spread through the living quarters of 12 relatives, including a son, two daughters-in-law, numerous grandchildren and even a cherub-faced great-granddaughter named Maria del Carmen.

This was the power plant of Juana's industry, the multi-chambered heart that fired a vibrant pulse into her work. The laughter of her grandchildren at play - chattering in Purepecha, racing down the alleways, dodging wet Cocuchas and her cranky fighting roosters, or jumping into the matriarch's arms - invigorated what might otherwise become an exhausted soul with the exuberance of youth. That energy continually awakened her with a renewed vitality and flowed into her Cocuchas, her needlepoint, her laughter, love, and joy.

We stepped into her kitchen, a sanctuary of exhilarating simplicity made of wood and a steeply-pitched roof. Her skirt of burnt gold waved around her slightly bowed legs as she stepped through the open doorway into a darkened room where cheese and blue corn tortillas sizzled on a comal over a fogon built into the concrete floor; a bowl of churipu simmered on sticks of wood jutting from the side of the fogon over glowing coals. Bunches of corn leaves hung like thick untamed hair from a low smoke-stained beam against a wall, blue corn tortillas lay in a woven reed basket. Bowls decorated with animated floral designs sat on shelves with glasses and clay pots. A metate leaned against a wall. Her daughter-in-law, Prudenciana, sat next to her and popped open a large bottle of Pepsi and poured herself a glass.

"She made those two Cocuchas," said Juana, pointing at two tall pots standing beneath a tarp just beyond the door. "My granddaughter made the two smaller ones."

The smoke rising from the fogon spit frustrated whispers into the room, wrestling with my senses, alerting me that another doorway had cracked open to awaken some spent and atrophied perception, like a fallen sundial awakened to the reemergence of time's meticulous crawl. Juana sat on the floor, her vise-like hands placing cheese and quelites (a local plant used as a salad green) and red salsa on a blue tortilla.

I enjoyed generous chunks of cheese with quelites wrapped in tortillas, eagerly partaking of a rapturous cultural experience; the light flavor of the cheese, crouching within the earthy relish of the blue tortilla and paired with the capricious crunch of the quelites offered a scrumptious culinary excursion as I absorbed the wealth of sensations approaching me from every direction. Juana chatted with Prudenciana in Purepecha, finishing up her meal and then sitting on a wooden stump (doubling as a chair in the kitchen) for a nice long smoke from an unfiltered cigarette.

"I like Alas," she said, referring to the brand. "I don't like Del Prado. They aren't strong enough for me. Alas are strong enough."

We finished eating and Juana gave me a tour of her place. We walked past bags of barro against a brick wall and a group of children sitting on some stone steps, a closed geography book laying nearby. I trailed behind her down a narrow alleyway and into her work area where two bare wet Cocuchas stood and a third sat covered by an apron and a black and blue rebozo. She'd worked on this project for a week.

"It's waiting to dry," she said. "Probably tomorrow I will add some more. I worked on it some yesterday."

Her fighting roosters fidgeted in their cages. She took up the fighting rooster trade after she married at age 14. Her husband, 22, had a couple of roosters.

"That's how I learned," she said. "He got a lot of money for that."

I had come to Cocucho to meet not only with Juana but with Elena Reyes Remigio, whose family makes beautiful needlepoint. I'd told Elena I would stop by her home at about 11 a.m. and I was already late, so I decided I neededto see her quickly. Juana said she would be home for awhile but then she would have to go tend her corn field. I figured I could finish up at Elena's in time to return before she left.

I stayed at Elena's place longer than expected, visiting with her grandmother through the afternoon, and by the time I returned, Juana had left. However, her family filled the yard with an industrious energy that enthralled me through the afternoon.

Prudenciana had already rubbed down a wet olla with a purple scrub pad; now she used shredded plastic the color of Easter grass to smooth out the boisterous lip, her gray skirt dancing around her slender, powerful legs as she worked. Her daughter, Jovita, with ecstatic magenta flowers falling across her black blouse, worked on her own piece next to her. Maria Dolores, Prudenciana's other daughter, sifted black sand on a sheet of plastic before moving to the kitchen where she began splitting and grinding anise on a metate for atole.

Music bounced from a radio inside a troje where a young woman folded clothes. It swung around ears of corn hangingon a rafter over clusters of pots gathered around the wooden porch and the huancipos laying beneath piles of cardboard. One of Juana's fighting roosters strutted about the yard, golden plumes falling down its rippling neck over russet and turquoise plumes, kaleidoscopic emerald tail feathers showering past his back.

Prudenciana carried some wood into the kitchen to indulge the fire's impetuous appetite, then spread some sand over a tarp, tossed in some clay, poured more sand and splashed water on the mixture before stepping into the medley and kneading it all together with her nimble feet; she suddenly appeared juxtaposed with the classic scene of Lucille Ball stomping through a vat of grapes. Prudenciana's feet and toes squish-squish-squished through the mixture, authoritatively insisting the sand and clay submit to her demands. They slowly, hesitantly gave in to the pressure and fused their talents. The artisan's diligent labor burned the mixture's complexion into the deep roasted reddish color distinctive of Cocucha clay.

The gray skirt flipping around her legs reflected the pesky afternoon clouds that threatened to spoil the afternoon. Undaunted, she squatted next to the mixture and kneaded the hot-tinted dough by hand. Jessica, one of Juana's granddaughters (not Prudenciana's child) joined her, breaking off tiny bits of the substance with her elfin hands, leaning her vivacious body toward the clay as she worked. After a few minutes, however, she became bored and trotted off, seeking some new adventure in the maze of trails and stone walls spreading through her extended family's home.

Suddenly, big raindrops crashed into the tarp, sending doltish wallops of metallic sound into the air. Jovita, whohad been washing clothes, hung them on a line over the covered porch of the troje to dry. The day was drawing to a close; Juana still had not returned, but I knew I would be back to experience more of the laughter and persistent energy abounding in this family.

JUANA ALONSO HERNANDEZ - PHOTOS

2008-09-22T18:10:00.000-07:00

Juana inscribes colorful flowers into her guanengo.

Juana, right, and her daughter-in-law Prudenciana shuck corn.

JUANA'S GRITO

2008-09-22T17:39:00.000-07:00

TRAVELSWITHTRAVIS - MICHOACAN - ARTISAN PROFILE - JUANA'S GRITO By Travis M. Whitehead

A tragic incident occurred in Morelia the night of Sept. 15, 2008, during the Mexican Independence Day celebration. Assailants threwtwo grenades into crowds of families celebrating the event, killing eight people and injuring more than 100.

A large section of Avenida Madero through the historical downtown area had been blocked off for the festivities, and the grenades exploded at opposite ends of the celebration. This may have been done to create a stampede, which fortunately didn't happen.

One of the grenades exploded in Plaza Melchor Ocampo on the east side of the Cathedral of Morelia and directly in front of the balcony where Michoacan Gov. Leonel Godoy gave the grito. "Viva la Independencia!" he shouted. "Viva Hidalgo! Viva Morelos! Viva Michoacan!" to which the crowd responded "Viva!" after each phrase. The grenade ripped into the crowd at the very moment the grito took place; another was tossed several blocks away in front of Templo La Merced.

I had planned to stand at the location in front of the balcony for the grito, but I later changed my mind and went about two blocks up the street to Sanborn's where I browsed the book section and became very engrossed in a National Geographic article about the 43,000-year-old remains of some red-headed Neanderthals. The remains were discovered in a Spanish cave where they had been cannibalized; scientists were able to retrieve enough DNA to learn that, not only did they possibly have red hair, they may also have had the capacity for speech. The article captivated me so much I didn't want to put it down, and I finally stepped outside about five minutes before the grito at 11 p.m., which I watched on a screen across the street from Sanborns.

Possibly because of all the revelry and shouting and exploding fireworks I didn't hear anything, and I didn't notice any panic or other disturbance. I did see some ambulances as I was leaving but I didn't think anything of it because ambulances are a common occurrence at events like this as a precautionary measure. I didn't even know there had been an actual attack until the next day. The whole city was furious and deeply saddened. This had never happened before in Morelia, an elegant Spanish colonial city, and she had lost her innocence.

The coffee shops, restaurants, dining tables, and living rooms around the city were rife with rumors and allegations, but many people seemed to feel the narco-traffickers were retaliating against the government for its crackdown. One friend suggested a separate group bent simply on creating disorder. A couple of days later, the U.S.government handed down indictments against several hundred members of a major drug cartel, and news sources suggested the narco-traffickers would retaliate against U.S. for this move.

The gravity of what had happened didn't occur to me right away, and I remained firm in my resolve to continue with my project. However, as I drove alone into western Michoacan the following Thursday to finish up some interviews in the village of Cocucho, I wondered if I was being foolish, if I were heading toward my own death, if I should just pack up and head home. I drove along the rural roads wondering if a cluster of cars would appear from nowhere, cut me off, and take me hostage in retaliation for the US indictments, but I safely arrived in Paracho without incident.

The next morning I drove along more isolated rural roads to Cocucho, again with no problem, and I spent the afternoon with Juana. I had planned to meet with her son David to help me translate an interview with his mother. Although my Spanish had improved during the past few months, people in the rural areas sometimes use speech patterns and pronunciations with which I was as yet unfamiliar.

I had already been to Cocucho a couple of times and had only a few questions I needed answered, and by this time I had become so unnerved by the grenade attacks that I wanted merely to finish the interview and rush back to Morelia. When I arrived in Cocucho, however, I discovered David had left to cut wood for his cook fires and would not return until much later in the afternoon. This change in plans provided me with a wonderful opportunity to spend more time with Juana, a glorious serendipity.

Juana had just fired some of her clay pots when I arrived at her door, and she now sat on a stool outside her cooking area working on some needlepoint. She said when she and her family heard about the attacks in Morelia, they and other residents of Cocucho met at Templo de San Bartolomeo up the street and said prayers for us. I found this solidarity for the Morelianos, the victims, and their families deeply touching. Morelia herself had become very much a part of me, and I felt powerfully moved by Juana's endearments toward us.

After she had worked on her needlepoint for awhile, she and her two daughters-in-law, Gloria and Prudenciana, got in my car and we went out to a corn field collectively owned by the three of them just off the road to Paracho. They bailed out with their burlap bags and went into the field to pick corn. I stayed with my car and absorbed the sunshine; rich purple blossoms, known locally as San Miguel, and more popularly called mirasoles, lined the dirt roads winding through the corn fields. Mesmerizing sunlight poured across the low hills bounding away in every directions, lifting my spirits.

However, I realized as I stood there that I was in the middle of nowhere. I wondered if someone would suddenly appear and kidnap me to make a political statement. As this thought intruded into the sunny afternoon, two trucks full of people ambled down the road. The drivers and passengers gave me a passing glance, then continued down the road before stopping. The occupants climbed out and went into the field to pick corn.

Juana momentarily appeared with three corn stalks for me to chew. These are a very popular local favorite, dreadfully fibrous but refreshingly sweet. On one of the corn plants, she had also found a mushroom-like growth called cuacaduchi that she collected for use in a stew. They are apparently good for lung health and are very tasty.

She returned to the field, and a young man with two smaller boys appeared from their plot of corn a few minutes later with loads of the juicy ears. They moved past me down the road and out of sight. Soon, Juana and her daughters-in-law returned to the car with loads of corn and arm fulls of San Miguel flowers, plus corn leaves for making corundas, a type of tamale.

We returned to Juana's home where she peeled several ears of corn, called tirhiapu in the Purepecha language, and put them in a pot of water to boil over the fogon, the cooking area built into the middle of the concrete floor inside the wooden cooking shelter. She sat down outside and peeled more corn ears, and soon some other relatives brought me a plate of five ears of corn to eat with salsa, salt, and some delicious local cheese. The corn, being freshly picked, was delicious. I tried stopping at the fourth one but Juana insisted on my consuming them all, so I was quite stuffed with her gracious hospitality.

Once she finished peeling the ears of corn, Prudenciana sat with us and they began shucking corn to make huchepos, another type of tamale. I asked if I could try to shuck some corn and they smiled and said of course, and they gave me a few tips to get me started. At the same time I asked for a few more Purepecha words to add to my vocabulary. I learned that the Purepecha word for shucking corn is Piiyuuni (phonetic spelling), and the leaves of the corn are called xarakata.

David finally returned to town about 5 p.m., announcing his presence with several blasts of his horn as he passed his mother's house on the way home. I drove to his house. He was exhausted. After a three-day round of festive drinking in celebration of Mexican Independence Day, he'd spent a whole day cutting wood, and huge blocks sat now in the back of his truck. He pulled one out and reduced it to thin shreds with an ax, then stoked the fire in the cooking area where his wife Lydia prepared beans and eggs and blue corn tortillas. It was a delicious meal, and I would have liked seconds, but I was already stuffed from the corn on the cob I'd devoured at Juana's house.

Rain crashed into the roof as we engaged in small talk and finished the meal, the chilly air warmed by the fire and our own laughter as I turned down some scary-looking chiles, explaining once again that "I still don't have enough callouses on my tongue." The rain slacked off and we went to his mother's house where I finally got the interview I needed.

I asked her where she found the energy and the time to make Cocuchas, do needlepoint, raise fighting roosters, tend her own corn field, make huancipos, prepare meals, Whew! Where does she get it?

"I get it from Jesus," she replied. "Jesus helps me."

Spending the day with Juana and her family reinvigorated my own faith in Michoacan, Morelia, the artisans, and my project. She had indeed performed her own grito, a cry for independence from fear, from alienation, from thedesecration of optimism. The day with Juana reminded me that the violent criminal element in Michoacan is sharply outnumbered by the peaceful citizens of the state. True, the small number of violent criminals can do a great deal of damage, but there was no need to be afraid of every person I met, because the dangerous ones were few and far between. Most people there were busy making clay pots, doing needlepoint, cutting wood, preparing meals, laughing and living and loving their relatives, friends, and strangers. Throwing grenades was the last thing on their minds.

Festival in San Jose de Gracia

2008-07-13T13:31:00.000-07:00

San Jose de Gracia

2008-07-07T13:36:00.000-07:00

Hey, everybody!
I had a wonderful weekend. Saturday I went with my friends from the Casa de las Artesanias to plant trees near Lake Zirahuen as part of this state's reforestation efforts. It was wonderful to be able to help contribute to Michoacan's welfare in a more tangible way.
Yesterday I went to a festival in a little village called San Jose de Gracia where they make some beautiful, pineapple-shaped pottery. First they had a crafts contest, then a big dinner at the home of the president of the artisan group which included corundas (a type of tamale), churipu (a traditional stew of meat and vegetables), nopales with onion, tomato and cilantro; and beans and homemade corn tortillas. Afterwards we were showered with confetti, and paired up for a dance. The way this worked, several of us partnered up and ran in a long circle through the streets, each time moving a little further up the street while the band played. We'd stop and dance a few minutes, then run further up the street until we ended up in front of the church.
Then a group of young men gathered in the patio in front of the church and some young ladies through small ceramic pots filled with confetti toward them and they tried to catch them. If they missed, the pots crashed to the patio spilling confetti everywhere. The locals also walked around handing out small gifts of ceramic pottery for which the town is known. the band played again, we partnered up and run to the small plaza where we ran in circles and danced again, even when the rain fell in torrents.
Nothing could diminish the joy of the afternoon, and it was wonderful to be a part of this tradition instead of standing on the sidelines just writing about it. The townspeople eagerly invited me to join in the festivities. I was glad to be the only foreigner there, which meant there was nothing touristy about this at all. It was all very genuine and real.
I shot some video of the event, which I've posted above. I finally figured out how to compress it enough to upload.

Thanks!

Travieso

Visit to Santa Clara del Cobre

2008-07-02T15:43:00.001-07:00

Hey, everybody!
I had a wonderful day yesterday in Santa Clara del Cobre where I visited the store and workshop of Juan Jose Paz. His store is filled with beautiful copper pitchers, plates, bowls covered with images of monarch butterflies and calla lilies, showers of colorful blooms, and figures of lizards and turtles. It was fascinating also to see how the artisans in the workshop behind the store fashion these delightful pieces from scrap copper. Anyone can drop by Jose Paz's shop, Taller El Porton, and see the magic for themselves.
Also, Mexico Connect published two stories yesterday that I wrote about Cuanajo and Capula. Just Google Mexico Connect and you'll see the stories and pictures.

Morelia - Expo Feria Artisan Show

2008-06-21T15:15:00.000-07:00

TRAVELSWITHTRAVIS – MICHOACAN – EXPO FERIA ARTISAN SHOW
MORELIA - David Santos Alonzo's hands briskly massaged the wet clay, healing the battle wounds of its creation, wiping away the cracks with a round stick that left wakes of texture.

Pulling more of the reddish-brown dough from the vacuous interior of the Cocucha (named for the town of his origin), he increased the height of the container that slowly acquired its curving conical shape.

Santos, from the village of Cocucho, was one of 240 artisans showing their wares at the Artisan and Municipal Pavilion at the Morelia Expo Feria 2008. Artisans from throughout the state, from Ocumicho, Cuanajo, Cheran, Santa Clara del Cobre, and Santa Fe De La Laguna had set up their pottery, woodcarvings, copperware, textiles in a martyrdom of the senses, a celebration of a selfless ego in which they released their artistic expressions with complete abandon.

A stall labeled Ciudad Hidalgo sold candied figs, peaches, camote, tejocote; Maria del Rocia Diaz Olivarez sold more of the intriguing tamales like those she'd been selling at the Municipal Food Show. From Lazaro Cardenas came macadamia nuts and coffee liquor, and a stall from Madero offered mezcal, bottled chilis and peaches, and tamarind wine. A man from Santa Clara del Cobre, with thick graying hair and a gray vest over his white shirt created a wool blanket on a loom; a few feet away, an artisan from Tarecuato crafted straw hats on a sewing machine. Dancers performed for delighted audiences on a small stage throughout the two-week affair, winners of the Concurso de Alfareria 2008 were awarded for their entries.

Each trip to the feria's artisan show revealed moments of exhilaration. Earlier in the week, a young boy made a fuss over a palm-sized devil mask the color of burnt pine wood and trimmed in white tic marks, one of many spells cast by Barbara Jimenez Pascual of Ocumicho. Jimenez was away at the moment, but her two granddaughters - carefully eating a bowl of beef soup to avoid any drips from their red tops - watched over the playground of colorful figures: bird-shaped whistles with frozen white eyes and flowers flashing across their breasts that seemed poised to fly away from the feathered devils, strange animals with toothy grins in their wide flat heads, winged serpents and frogs with legs jutting from their heads. Other, more tame objects included gentlemen on horseback and women in flowered dresses. A woman in a blue denim dress with a picture of Che tattooed on her left shoulder stopped with a young girl to
look over the images then moved on. A girl with green streaks in her hair purchased an orange bird whistle.

Purchases, however, had been few and far between, said Jimenez's granddaughter, Julieta Ochoa Pascual, 20.

"We haven't sold much. It's the same all over."

Her grandmother had by now returned.

"It's a new feria," added Jimenez, breaking into a smile with jagged teeth.

"Patzcuaro and Uruapan are better. At Uruapan I sold more. I lot of people go through that feria."

A few days later, Jimenez sat next to her wares but Julieta and the other granddaughter were gone.

"You want to eat some of these?" asked Jimenez, her radiant eyes recessed like finely placed black onyx into her sculpted face as she held out a handful of tortillas she was eating with a bowl of hot beans.

I declined then asked how she learned to make the barro. She started to explain that she learned to make barro from an older woman who had since died, then she stopped and said, "Someone else will be here to help you."

I thought perhaps I had touched on a story that was too painful; later I saw her sitting next to a
younger woman in another stall who was holding her hand and Barbara appeared to be crying; later, she sat alone next to her objects with her head resting in her hand. I waited to speak with her another day when Julieta was with her, and several times as I spoke to her Barbara, Julieta or another friend sitting nearby translated in Purepecha. It occurred to me then that perhaps she wasn't competely comfortable talking without someone to translate my broken Spanish, something with which I could surely relate.

With her friend and granddaughter there, she spoke with unbroken liberation about the craft she first began learning at age 14.

"At first I used molds, but no more. It's all by hand."

She picked up an orange bird whistle.

"I started out making these little birds. Afterwards I made gallinitas, toritos, puerquitos. My favorite objects are Nacimientos, pastorcitos with nino Dios, and angeles."

David Santos Alonzo, who goes by the nickname "El Carajito", has continued the craft passed to him by his mother, Juana Alonzo, a familiar figure around crafts fairs. Her large oval eyes watched with detached interest from above broad cheekbones spreading out over her animated face; her spirited lips chewed on gum while she wove another huancipo. She repeated the same pronouncement shared by Jimenez and her granddaughters.

"We haven't sold much. It's the same all over the fair."

Waves of clay rippled before Santos's hands as they worked back and forth on the Cocucha. Fatigue rose to his face, his light magenta shirt bearing the words "BMG Entertainment" rippling as he made circular motions on the Cocucha.

He stopped and dipped his hands in a cup of water, sprinkling it over the surface, then using his fist to dig clay from the inside, the structure slowly acquiring its distinctive conical shape as he extended the walls ever higher.

A woman joining the crowd of onlookers dipped ice cream from the carved-out half of a pineapple, and three young boys watched anxiously with an older man who wore a restless graying moustache and beard, and danger prowling in his eyes. They moved on. A young boy with blond curls wandered toward Santos with a Spiderman balloon before his mother quickly lead him away.

The sides of the Cocucha quivered and warped as Santos pulled more clay from the bowels of the clay being, which told its story now in the splashes of smeared mud imprinted across his loose white trousers. The sides increased rapidly as they rebelled from the confines of their cloistered existence, swooping into the air to become something greater than themselves, a capsule of enclosed space; Santos was now a sort of mad scientist who performed impromptu surgeries on loose pieces as the need arose, dismissing any blemish that would impoverish the perfection
of his project. He sniffled over his bristly black moustache, his beard remaining stoically where it trailed away from his thick lower lip, then removed clay laying on a black plastic bag and added small pieces to the top.

While sales at least for some of the artisans were disappointing, they seemed to improve as the feria drew to a close. Later in the week, Santos was working on another Cocucha. Joyously inebriated, he declared in English, "I think we will sell all of it," after first announcing that he had sold five large Cocuchas earlier that day to one customer.

"Domingo de Ramos is better. We do sell pretty good."

His mother said she had only made a few sales. Two thick braids of black hair streaked with gray and tied at the ends with black yarn fell over her iridescent blue blouse trimmed in lace. She sat on a small stool in her purple pleated skirt, silver crescent moons dangling from her ears as she plunged a plastic spoon into a carton of chilled strawberries.

Surrounded by her coffee-colored Cocuchas, caressed with flashes of volcanic red and burgundy, and brief flashes of purple bronze, she gestured to a larger one about four feet tall and said she cooked it once in the oven and it was priced at about 35 dollars.

"I learned from my sister-in-law, Dolores Molina," Alonzo said. "I began to do this work when I was 16. It's special, all the time. it's an old tradition."

Her son spoke to her in Purepecha for a moment, and then she conversed with two young men, one with glasses pushed over his head who measured heights of her pieces with a ruler. She came back and said she was just paying them forthe space.

"In Monterrey, I sell a lot, more than Domingo de Ramos and Intermex. I go to Monterrey once a year. There's an exposition."

Domingo de Ramos Crafts Fair

2008-06-21T15:11:00.000-07:00

TRAVELSWITHTRAVIS – MICHOACAN – DOMINGO DE RAMOS CRAFTS FAIR
By Travis M. Whitehead
Monitor Staff Writer
travis@blogspot.com
URUAPAN – Marsha Burns couldn't get enough of the images surrounding her at the Domingo de Ramos Crafts Fair.

''It's so outstanding! It just makes you feel good. We just love it!''

The 50-year-old Huntington Beach, Calif., resident and her neighbor, Frances Bauer, had stopped in front of some glistening ''pineapple'' pottery produced by an artisan from San Jose de Gracia, but that was just one of the numerous crafts awaiting her discovery at the fair in Plaza Morelos in Uruapan. With the crafts fair, competition, parade of artisans, Purhepecha Food Show, and numerous musical performances, the Domingo de Ramos celebration in Michoacan’s second largest city is reputed to be one of the biggest – if not the biggest – in Latin America; it is Michoacan’s biggest crafts fair and competition, with the Dia de los Muertos fair in Patzcuaro running a close second.

Burns’ enthusiasm for the arts and crafts set up across the plaza was understandable. The images throughout the fair, reflections of fragmented dreams struggling for identity, materialized on clay pots, danced across cotton dresses, and crashed into plates, pitchers, and bowls in a glorious playground of creativity.

There were clay pots from Huancito with Doberman, bulldog and parrots heads; cotton dresses with elaborate needlepoint from Cheran; from Uruapan came the famous maque, or lacquerware, with bright red flowers dancing across black backgrounds; shining vessels from Santa Clara del Cobre forged from discarded scrap copper; toys and wooden trucks from Pamatacuaro.

The crafts fair was an awakening of the senses, a rebirth of identity, a rediscovery of hidden recesses of the soul where the powerful incense of imagination transmitted a wave of tangible passion into the physical world. A color, a stitch of fabric, earth metamorphosed into art, opened doorways where the fragrance of forgotten memory spilled into the sunlight of consciousness; it was a pupated monarch butterfly curled up in the cave of its iridescent chrysalis suddenly released into the Savage Garden of enlightened senses.

Locked away in the shadowy realms of the subconscious, they now became flavors with taste, smells christened with fragrance, pictures radiating with color. The artisans had spent endless hours in their workshops deciphering the language of their souls, and the revelations of their own discoveries revealed a consciousness stripped clean of the illusions of memory, free to explore the boundless ranges of their visual dialect. Now they had gathered to show what they’d learned, and how they’d used that knowledge.

I found myself at once a refugee from the dissipating rages of deliberate action, struggling to unravel my own shifting dreams that yearned for realization. I began to relax as I shook off the burdens of mediocrity, the passion of the crafts fair invading my own worn-out longings, exhausted routines, and spent hopes.

I was delighted to find so many people who also appreciated the intoxicating power of the crafts show, people like Sandie Alden of London who currently lives in nearby Patzcuaro. She had just been looking at the pottery from Ocumicho and was now admiring the goods from Huancito across the aisle.

''Because I live here, I have an idea of what will be here,'' she said, explaining that she, her Mexican husband, and several other Patzcuaro residents endeavour to support local artisans.''We look for quality,'' she said. ''There's something from Ocumicho I quite like, which is a dragon with a mermaid on the top.''She looked over the goods from Huancito, with its distinctive red clay appearance, and smiled.''I like these very much,'' she said. ''I love straightforward barro.''

Carlos Magana Lorenzo, one of the Huancito artisans, looked intently at a clay vase as he gently ran a brush over its surface, the stroke exuding a treasure of sparkling maroon that took the form of an apple. His wife Juana Aparicio Cipriano, 24, worked on another piece beside him, stopping occasionally to cradle their infant who lolled about her lap in a blue jumper; the 25-year-old Magana, his short black hair looking as though it were spiked, daubed his magic wand into a bowl of yellow and showered golden leaves onto the vase around a cluster of grapes poised between two watermelon slices; they joined the juicy mangoes and strawberries in the cornucopia of fruit parading across the piece.

He grasped the neck of the pitcher a moment and scratched his head before setting the piece aside, then removed the paint-stained shirt he used for a rag to protect his black slacks. He picked up a cup and began painting again, leaning carefully over as he became more absorbed in his work, his loose-fitting blue shirt well clear of the danger.

''I have been doing this since I was 10 years old,” he said. “I can make six in one day. My grandparents taught me. I like everything about it.''

Carlos said he and his wife heat their pots between 8 a.m. and 11 a.m.

''We take them out and clean them, check them to make sure they don't have any defects.''

Surprisingly, Carlos didn’t really know how hot he heated his kiln. ''I just keep putting more wood until it's hot enough,'' he says. ''I can just tell when it's hot enough.''

At the end of the aisle from where Carlos and Juan worked, Florentina Rafael, of Ocumicho, and her family had set up their own creations on a tarp near the busy street; red and blue devil masks with delirious eyes and piercing horns stared at the passing crowds, along with birds, men on horseback and a two-tailed mermaid in a basket.

Nearby, the sound of a scraper slicing shards of ice for cold drinks cut through the wet sound of rubber chewing on asphalt. Vendors throughout the plaza sold nance fruit, garbanzos, mame fruit, and macadamia nuts, while children rushed up to sell “palmas” the woven palm leaves so popular on Palm Sunday. A man in a beige guayabera bought potato chips from a young woman pushing a blue cart. She also sold twisting slices of chicharrones and curling snaky charritos, while a row of men do a brisk business shining shoes.

Florentina's daughter, Antonia, leaned her head against her hands and spoke to her mother, her droopy eyes revealing a moment of fatigue while her son sat in Florentina's lap playing a video game, the grandmother’s finger’s interlocked about his waist. Antonia's teenage daughter, Lupita Estrella, sat nearby doing homework, knocking her knuckles against her head before suddenly knodding emphatically and writing a stubborn answer on paper.

Florentina seemed to be at an admirable peace as she watched the crowds go by. She sat beside the clay images of maidens in flowered dresses, black-faced birds, images of the Virgin Mary, crucifixes, and devils driving cars her family have created.

Sitting directly in front of a red devil – with teeth bared and pink tongue hanging viciously out while riding a delirious elephant – was a depiction of The Last Supper. Only in this particular account, the twelve disciples were topless mermaids, each holding a banana. The Christ figure was also a topless mermaid but wore a crown and held a cup.

Antonia said it took her two days to mold the entire work.
“The hardest part was the bodies around the table. We made the base first.”
The charge was about $35.

The smells of grilling chicken, bistek, and nopalitos emanated from a vendor a few feet away, floated down the alley past Carlos Magana, and collided with the eggs and steaming menudo emboldened with chile ancho, onions and garlic prepared by Jaime Leon and his family.

Jaime and his family own and operate a café a couple of blocks away; however, he frequently turns the business over to a his sister-in-law and moves his wife Sylvia Lepe, and their two boys, Marvin and Matthew, frequently to California where he works in a factory building air conditioning systems.

They had set up their operations this morning next to a small stall where the family of Angel Cuin Juarez of Cuanajo sold colorful hand-carved furniture. Cuin wasn’t there, but his two daughters were manning the station, and Marvin, 9, jumped in to translate at every opportunity. He exhibited an infectious enthusiasm for language, as well as for the chance to spend time with the two girls, Blanca Margarita, 12, and Cintia Hiridion, 9.

Blanca Margarita, with a complexion of deep roasted coffee beans burned into her skin by the sun of her heritage, had busied herself around her station. She had already stepped around the corner to the Leons’ food stand to purchase a bowl of menudo in a Styrofoam cup. Taking her sat back at her small station, she’d leaned over to scoop a spoonful into her mouth, then rolled up a tortilla, dipped it into the watery, spicy mixture, then bit off a mouthful. She’d looked frequently at the 3 or four year old lingering nearby before finally handing him a tortilla.

Now Blanca was finished eating, and with Marvin’s eager help she explained that she had painted many of the items for sale.

''It was hard to paint this because it has a lot of little things,'' he translated for her as she pointed to a colgador of cantaloupe, papaya, and grapes spilling from a basket.

But this was just one of many treasures waiting to pass on a delightful new personality to any home. More colgadores depicted sunflowers rushing from a basket and kissing parrots, and napkin holders – servilleteras – were aptly carved with images of apples and watermelons. The wood had been caressed into an image of polished stone worn smooth by hours of relentless labor. A sun, with bold unblinking eyes, creeped out of the face of a demure, unblinking moon, its thick yellow rays, speckled with faint suggestions of orange, radiating toward a ribbon of moonlight wrapping itself around the image like a protective embrace.

These pieces combining art and utility covered a carved table I couldn’t see, but the chairs lingering around the table gave me a good idea of its appearance; a captivating cobalt blue glistens on the frames, and a woman’s sweeping curves cast waves that echo through the cluster of calla lilies rising like a fountain, the red and yellow stamens lit like a fire against the snow white blooms. The woman sits with her back to the viewer, her braids falling across a blouse whose striking blue matches the frames.

''This is a lot easier, it takes like an hour,'' she said, referring to the napkin holders. Pointing to another piece, this time of a parrot with bold red head and tranquil splashes of deep blue across its shoulders, with fleeting streamers of red, green and blue cascading toward the ground, she said, ''I like this the best. It has bigger things.''

Blanca's nine-year-old niece, Cintia Hiridian, had left for a moment, and now returned with a red-eared turtle she'd bought at a nearby market. All three children and the youngster from the next stall over made quite a fuss over the turtle. Cintia brought a cup of water to replace the plastic bag. The girls' father, Juan, came by a little later and said his son did most of the carving work.

''Juan carved just about everything here, and she painted it,” said Juan Sr., a short, stocky powerful man with a severe jaw line and sharp features, looking at Blanca who sat with quiet reservation in a chair. He knodded enthusiastically, speaking with a biting energy as he spoke about his children's work. Cintia has also been getting involved in the activity, painting some of the napkin holders.

''I am very proud they are carrying on the tradition,'' he said.

They all work together in a small shop at the family home in Cuanajo, and he remembered with precision how long each child spent on a piece. ''It took Juan five hours to carve the calla lilies in the basket,” he said. “It took her (Blanca) four hours to paint it. It took me four days to carve the table, and it took her five days to paint the table. It took her one day to paint each chair.''

I found Florentina later sitting in a chair doing needlepoint. Her thick fingers carefully pushed the needle into the cloth, then pulled the thread out and away. She looked down at her work, heavy eye pockets shadowing her eyes as her heavy lips slowly opened and then closed.

Meanwhile, a little girl stopped, knelt down and gazed in wonder at a clay girl hanging from the mouth of a horned oxen, a brown smiling devil herding sheep, and the clay lizards on the ground. Florentina got up, put the chair away and placed some cardboard on the ground where she sat back down, carefully folding the green dresses and butterscotch apron around her before continuing with her needlepoint. She leaned over and her face broke into a big smile, the thin wrinkles playing a hidden melody as she spoke in Purepecha to her daughter and granddaughter. I asked if she’d sold much.

She shrugged as she broke into a huge smile and said, ''Sometimes yes, sometimes no.''

ARTISAN PROFILE - LUCINA TULAIS LOPEZ AND FAMILY

2008-04-29T11:17:00.000-07:00

Maria Tulais Lopez and her husband Bruno package some of their wares they have just sold at the Domingo de Ramos Crafts Fair in Uruapan, March 2008.

Lucina Tulais Lopez's husband, Bruno Ramirez, works on a jicaro made from a gourd.

Wooden fruit in a frutero, all made in the maque technique by Lucina Tulais Lopez and her family.

A gourd decorated by Lucina Tulais Lopez and her family.

ARTISAN PROFILE - LUCINA TULAIS LOPEZ AND FAMILY - URUAPAN

2008-04-27T14:06:00.000-07:00

Lucina Tulais Lopez brought out a scalloped crown fashioned from a gourd and decorated with images of flowers. Delicate stems with “florecitas de campesinos” flew like carefree butterflies from roses energized with soft shadows; light spilled from those shadows, caressing the petals with a soft suggestion of life. Tulais, dressed in jeans and black shirt shrill with the white outlines of leaves and flowers, had been applying the flowers of the crown in a process called maque.

Uruapan, Michoacan’s second largest city, is famous for its maque, a form of lacquer ware in which successive layers of color are applied using earth, aje, and linseed oil. Each time the artisan applies a color, it must be allowed to dry for four or five days before applying the next color. Aje is an animal fat obtained from the female coccus axin, an insect found in the Tierra Caliente region of Michoacan.

The crucible in which Lucina, her husband Bruno, and sisters Rosa Maria and Margarita performed their magic was the workshop behind their home beneath an open air shelter made of corrugated tin supported by course timbers and a wall of brick and concrete. Sunlight slung shreds of shadow across the wall and fell into a scorched stain from a brick and stone hearth where the family prepares rice and mole con pollo for visitors during Paseo de la Magdalena in late June. There was certainly a powerful flavor in the family’s artistic creations. The crown Lucina would soon complete was intended to be worn by the Queen of the Fiesta de la Magdalena when a parade passes through Colonia Magdalena where the Tulais family has lived for generations. Just up the street from where Lucina and Bruno lived sat a corner house where Dona Francisca, her father, and grandfather were all born. Her father later purchased the property where Lucina now lives.

Against the wall leaned a paddle used for removing bread from another, much larger, round horno powered by a wood fire – the family spends its Sundays preparing bread for sale to visitors. Across the yard next to the house, vegetables and carne were being cooked over a gas fire. Lucina, who revealed her age only as “50-something,” said she prefers cooking the family meals outside to avoid the heat and save on the light bill.

Lucina and her two sisters, Rosa Maria and Margarita (who come to Lucina and Bruno’s home to work during the day), learned how to make maque from their aunt, Dona Francisca Tulais, who had no children and therefore viewed her nieces as her own children. Dona Francisca’s picture appeared with a New York Times article in the 1990s and was featured in several books for her talent; she died in 2007, but her presence was clearly felt at Lucina’s stall at the Domingo de Ramos Crafts Fair, where Lucina’s visual language had obviously carried on the spirit of her aunt.

Wood, paint, and aje had come together to create works of art transmitted from a river of wild abandon through Lucina’s talented hands onto her pieces. There were large pizza-sized bateas decorated with vines twisting and turning around flowers like red and yellow flames, bulbous purple blooms, lavender spades, aqua blue birds poised in mid-landing on chartreuse petals. There were gourds with scalloped lids and decorated with delicate flower spikes in canary yellow and mauve that zoomed across the black sky.
''I feel very good because we protect the artisans,'' said Lucina as her husband Bruno, 62, translated during a break between visitors to her post.
''We don't want to lose the tradition. I just want the art to go around everywhere, to know what we do in this city. Artesania, you can see maque in the U.S., but you don't know who does it. This is like the fifth generation that's been doing this, for many, many years. My aunt passed away last year. She learned from her father and grandfather, and I learned from my aunt.''

Back at the shop behind their house a few days after the crafts fair, Rosa Maria, who won an award in the Domingo de Ramos Crafts Contest, said she was grateful to have learned so much from her Dona Francisca.
“It’s something you feel really good to remember all the things she taught us. We’re not going to forget either.”

She had to leave at this point to pick up her six-year-old grandson from school, who along with his two brothers ages 3 and 5 is also picking up the technique. The two younger boys, with short cropped hair framing toothy grins and eager black eyes, had been gallivanting around the yard with sticks that had become horses and shrill voices that had were shouts of challenge and victory. Their play collapsed beneath a towering avocado tree into the speckled shade on the grassless ground stiffened by years of activity.

They would become the next generation of artisans. Lucina was about their age when she began learning the maque trade. She didn’t know for sure at what age she began learning the craft – she saw Dona Francisca working at it everyday and picked it up naturally. First she learned to apply the black foundation, which is created by mixing black ashes (in her case from the ashes they retrieve from the horno after baking the Sunday bread) with earth and then ground together on a metate. Then a mixture of aje and linseed oil is applied, followed by the spreading of the ash and earth mixture. After she learned that basic step, she learned to apply colors, then draw the image and etch in the profiles.

The steps of the actual process are different; the artisan still applies the black maque first, but then she draws the image, etches in the areas to be painted and puts in the colors.

“For many people, the most difficult is drawing,” said Bruno, who began learning the technique from Lucina about 15 years ago when they married. “But the designs, for us nothing is difficult. Many people know how to do maque but don’t know how to draw. Some people know how to put the maque, but they really don’t know how to draw the picture. They have to go somewhere else and have somebody do it.”

Bruno sat on a wooden chair with crumbling white paint working intently on a basket released from the confines of a gourd from his brother’s ranch, scraping away the area surrounded by the outline of a flower. A serrated leaf had gentle variations of green. “The other color has to be stronger than the green, to give more feeling to the leaf,” he said.
The two boys watched Bruno pull the images kicking and screaming from the gloom of the blackness into the percolating luminosity of the workshop. Lucina took the gourd – it was a joint project – and used a needle to show how she brought the subtle flourishes into her pieces. She handed the gourd back to Bruno, then retrieved a wooden plaque with red roses on a blue background.

“These have shadows,” she said. She picked up the crown, which already had the same graceful lines, and said, “this will have the profiles.” She pulled out a small black jewelry box with flowers and said, “This is in profile but with traditional designs.”

She spoke now with the exuberant virtuosity of someone still in the unrestrained throes of youth, light flooding her face, transforming her complexion from a burnished mahogany to a golden caramel. Dona Francisca still powerful presence in Lucina – there was a generous glow in her words, an eagerness that struggled for release from the fetters of mid-afternoon fatigue. But this was a fatigue born entirely of the trivialities of time, not of memory or action, for Dona Francisca’s blessing had opened a portal through which spilled an imperturbable breath of life, removing any chance for premature atrophy. The playful colors, the laughter of the two boys, Bruno’s excited concentration, Lucina’s refreshing delight about her work, and Rosa’s stoic demeanor seemed to cast oblique reflections of the sun even into the shadows around the avocado tree and the gas stove where the heat slowly convinced the mid-day lunch to releasing the flavors it zealously concealed. The energy of their maque, however, couldn’t possibly be restrained, instead pouring out its mesmerizing warmth into the surrounding streets as it as done for generations.

DRIVE TO URUAPAN

2008-04-09T17:47:00.000-07:00

Hey, everybody:
Well, I had a fabulous day. I drove out to Uruapan, and what an incredible drive. The rode between Patzcuaro and Uruapan was a twisting, winding road through pine-covered mountains and the view was breathtaking.
In Uruapan, I interviewed Lucina Tulais Lopez, her sister Rosa, and her husband Bruno in their workshop where they make macque, a form of lacquerware. Lucina and Rosa learned the trade from their aunt, Dona Francisca, who has been featured in the New York Times and several books for her skill. Dona Francisca never had children, so she shared all her knowledge with her nieces. Dona Francisca died last year, but Lucina and Rosa proudly continue her tradition.
I'll be posting more about the family later.

Until then,

Travieso

CUPATITZIO GORGE NATIONAL PARK

2008-04-04T10:25:00.000-07:00

DRIVE TO PATZCUARO AND THOUGHTS ON CUPATITZIO

2008-04-04T09:56:00.000-07:00

Hey, everybody:
I took a drive over to Patzcuaro yesterday, and I was surprised at how easy it was to find my way there. On they way, I took a detour through Cuanajo and Tupataro, two quaint attractigve little towns where artisans make handcarved furniture. Then I went on to Patzcuaro; I thought I had been there twice for the Dia de los Muertos two and three years ago, but I realized as I drove through town how little I had seen of it. This is a fascinating colonial town with a number of beautiful plazas and filled with intriguing architecture along narrow winding streets, kind of like Guanajuato. I can't wait to explore the town again.
It's amazing what time can do for your perspective. I wrote a story a couple of years ago about Cupatitzio Gorge National Park in Uruapan, but when I took a stroll through the park again earlier this week I had a whole new range of thoughts.
The moment you enter the park you encounter water rushing from the earth through a fountain where it descends, bounces, crawls its way back down before coming to rest in a quiet pool. An African tulip tree, dotted with flaming orange blossoms and glitters of sun, heaves over the terracotta roof of an office building; light magenta blooms hanging on a thick vine rush up a palms as if to contemplate strangulation, but the tree reaches up to the sky, showing no signs of resignation.
Broad stone pathways, lined by a green wall of ferns, palms, and spindly coffee bushes heavy with dark red fruit, wind their way through the forest, frequently perforated by gazebos selling coffee, cups of fruit, quesadillas with pumpkin flowers, chicken enchiladas, tortas, and cold drinks. The paths are riddled with streams of water that exhale their sweet musty breath as they descend toward the river. The people who constructed the elaborate stone walls and pathways were true artists, harnessing the water into a series of exhibitions: water shoots in tiny loops through a wide series of steps, crashes over rocks, pours gently down walls, rises into elegant fans, rushes, screams, gallivants down narrow corridors.
At a place called Arcoiris, three plumes of water shoot into the air, capturing a wandering rainbow that arches through the thin mist toward the blackberry vines falling over a stone wall. A young girl stops and gazes at the spectacle a moment; she sees the rainbown, the leans forward, hands open in frantic, unrestrained joy, her jet black ponytail whipping about as she rushes to the other side, her wondering nervous black eyes wide and quivering.
Spent with the fatigue of thunderous discovery, she recedes to the security of her mother while her excitement seems to have seeped into the consciousness of another family that crowds around for pictures of the moment.

I'VE ARRIVED!!!

2008-03-30T09:02:00.000-07:00

Hey, everybody!
Well, I've made it safely to Morelia and have gotten settled into my new place. Seriously, the trip from McAllen, Texas to Morelia went off without a hitch, no problem. I don't know what I was so worried about. I was able to find my way around quite easily, and what a trip! I passed through some incredible countryside between Ciudad Victoria and San Luis Potosi, beautiful mountains and sweeping deserts! I loved it!

I made it all the way to Queretaro the first day, then from Queretaro to Morelia the next day was only two or three hours, and I found the house where I'm staying quite easily.

This is a dream come true for me. I've wanted to be here for so long, and I've finally made it. I've already made friends with employees of the Starbucks right around the corner from where I'm living. Having friends in new places makes the experience so much more pleasant. I'm sooooo looking forward to visiting the artisans I met at the Domingo de Ramos festival in Uruapan. I'll be traveling during the next few months to their homes in communities throughout the state and watching them at work in their shops.

Tomorrow I'm off to Uruapan to work on a story about the town where the Domingo de Ramos festival took place.

Well, that's all for now.

Until next time,

Travieso

PICTURES OF THE PARADE

2008-03-17T10:00:00.000-07:00

THE PARADE

2008-03-15T18:26:00.001-07:00

MARCH 15, 2008

The parade of artisans poured through Uruapan like a current of pure poetry manifested in the flowers splashed across their white cotton dresses glistening in the morning sun. They came from throughout the state, from Santa Fe De La Laguna, Cocucho, San Felipe de los Herreros, Pamaticuaro, and myriad other communites.

Women from San Juan Nuevo wore straw hats covered with colorful papel picado; the green sequins and jeweled flowers covering their red blouses punctuated their movements to the flute music fluttering about the dashing trumpet lines that raced down the street. The pleated red skirts waving about the forms of the Ihuatzio artisans kept time to the rhythm of their feet, while the needlepoint flowers covering their aprons rippled as if tossed onto a quiet pond. The Tzintzintzan artisans, bearing burdensome clay pots with dreamy green flowers, strolled along to the music. One woman wore a blue apron with impressive splashes of yellow flowers; another had magenta flowers that shimmered about her neck.

Everyone seemed captivated by the spectacle.
''Welcome to Uruapan!'' shouted one woman.
A man in a blue denim jacket hugged and kissed a dancer from Ihuatzio, who carried a straw basket as her sandled feet flew about the pavement to the shrill flute music behind her. Purple, magenta and orange flowers awakened the life enshrined in her cotton dress, transforming the morning sunshine into an ecstasy of celebration that rushed into the air, invigorating everyone on the street.

Even before they began moving toward the crafts fair in Plaza Morelos they impressed those who saw them.
David Scarratt, a tall fellow in a green jacket, watched from a sidewalk as the dancers gathered in front of Parque Nacional Barranca del Cupatitzio.
''I think they are just fantastic, colorful, imaginative,'' said Scarratt, 72, a British expatriot who divdes his time between San Miguel de Allende and Nova Scotia.
''You get sort of lost for words. There's not enough vocabulary to describe the dynamism that exists here, the incredible energy, such incredible variety. So much of it is clearly traditional, but you can see the times have changed in their handwoven hats to manufactured products. Nevertheless, tradition persists. It's very very exciting. The energy is palpable.''

As the dancers made their way through town now, crowds on the sidelines tossed confetti at the dancers who accepted it goodnaturedly. A dancer handed out gifts - one woman gave me a small plastic cup of juice. A man in an Office Depot shirt scanned the dancers with a point-and-shoot camera looking for the perfect shot.

Suddenly, the jagged face of a red devil appeared, his nose soaring in front of his face, horns spiraling into the air, ears flaring back. He strolled down the street wearing a black cape with red and amber sequins, while a masked man with a huge sand-colored roiling beard pouring over his costume spun about pounding his wooden sandles into the pavement. His massive straw hat whirled about, the sinister grass cape rustling with erratic cracks and whistles. He poked the pavement with his cane, as though to keep time, or perhaps to summon the devil who had already appeared. Behind them, a young woman in a pleated dress the color of Christmas waved a white cotton flag slowly and rhythmically. Nearby, a man with the image of a cow mounted on sticks over his head ran about about, the rows of blue, red and yellow tissue paper fluttering as the tiny horns thrashed the air.

A woman from Tzintzuntzan, her shoulders bobbing as she danced, grasped her red pleated skirt and blue apron as she loped about. With her other hand she held a glazed bowl with blue flowers on her shoulder while the sun rushed across its surface. The wide panels of orange and red flowers about her neckline and sleeves seemed a perfect match to the confetti in her hair.

A band in butterscotch corduroy moved down the street. Directly in front of them, a young boy in a white cotton costume and a blood-red sash about his waist took off his hat, stooped over and whirled around, slapping his wooden shoes loudly into the pavement as the crowd erupted with loud clapping.

This was the first time Ken Peterson and Roberta Rich had seen the parade. The Vancouver, Canada couple spends its winters in the nearby Mexican state of Colima, and their friends had strongly recommended they see the parade.
''The display of civic pride is so touching, so wonderful,'' said Roberta Rich. ''They have such interesting faces. They have Indian faces, and you also see some Spanish faces. It's a very interesting variety of facial types.''
Rich observed that Indian faces seemed to get more interesting as they aged.
Ken Peterson cut in, ''You are aging fine, dear. Don't worry.''

DAY 2 IN URUAPAN

2008-03-14T18:16:00.000-07:00

March 14, 2008
8:26 a.m.
Well, by the time I finished blogging last night, the artisans had already started showing up, hammering their stalls together. The hammering lasted way into the night, and when I got up this morning they were at it again. I can't wait to get over there.
Right now I'm at Cafe Tradicional de Uruapan, just up the street from my hotel and the plaza. The waiter, in a white button-down shirt and black slacks, hands me a menu with tantalizing offers: fruit plates, oatmeal, granola with honey, and a large number of egg dishes: apporreadillo con frijoles (eggs with beef, the Michoacan version of machacado con huevo), huevos tibios, rancheros, estrelladas, a la Mexicana, con jamon, tocino, chorizo or tocino. I settle on the Uruapense breakfast: juice or fruit, chilaquiles con pollo, frijoles, bread, and coffee or milk.
Some cool jazz fills the room, the saxophone rippling about as grumbling engines invade the scene and the whistles of traffic cops shoot their barbs into the air, and inside I can hear the soft whirring of espresso machines.
The breakfast crowd hasn't arrived yet, but there are a few people here. A woman crunches loudly into a chip that she holds gingerly while speaking in hushed tones to a man who is probably her son. She pours sugar into a spoon hovering over her coffee.
A sudden rush of drums and band music crowds the air outside and a brief parade of school children pass by carrying flowers that flutter in the morning light.
The waiter brings a straw basket of toast wrapped in a cloth, along with a saucer with packets of strawberry marmelade and butter. My breakfast arrives, a plate of chips doused in a delicious salsa and generous chunks of chicken, with a side of refried beans. I finish it off eagerly, then
I venture down to the plaza and am delighted to find so many artisans have already set up their wares. Several stalls operated by residents of Pamatacuaro have shelves covered with wooden objects: large spoons, rolling pins, miniature dining sets decorated with red and green hearts, toy trucks with ''BF Goodrich'' written on them and small logs tied on the back, and miniature ironing boards and beds with colorful spreads. A young boy fusses over some toy dump trucks before his mother urges him on.
One woman busily sets up the tarp that will shield her and her stall from the aggravating sun during the next several days. However, she explains that the strange wooden stick with the grooved ball on the end and wooden rings is called a molelillo and is used for stirring chocolate.
I walk farther down and turn to my left, where another aisle is filled with artisans. On the left, people from Huancito have set out their heavy glazed cooking pots with yellow lilies; fat pots with red orange and green flowers exploding across the sides, some with Doberman or bulldog heads poking out the top with a hole in the mouth for pouring water.
Rosalindo Valtasare Espicio carefully paints a pot with green and purple leaves, and a bulgy red birding fluttering ecstatically toward a blue pine tree. He gently brushes over the jar, smoothing out the paint.
Sandie Alden, a London expatriat currently living in Patzcuaro, stops to admire some Huancito pottery. She's already been looking over the treasures from Ocumicho that line the other side of the aisle.
''Because I live here, I have an idea of what will be here,'' she says, explaining that she, her Mexican husband, and several other Patzcuaro residents endeavour to support local artisans.
''We look for quality,'' she says. ''There's something from Ocumicho I quite like, which is a dragon with a mermaid on the top.''
She looks over the goods from Huancito, with its distinctive red clay appearance, and smiles.
''I like these very much,'' she said. ''I love straightforward barro.''
On the right, people from Ocumicho have spread out their clay figures on tarps along the sidewalk. A young boy in jeans and grey jacket arranges red and blue devil masks with delirious eyes and piercing horns on a plastic sheet on the ground next to birds, lizards, men on horseback, and a two-tailed mermaid in a basket. Antonia Cruz Rafael, in a cotton blouse with green needlepoint and an apron with magenta flowers and green leaves, and her mother Florencia Rafael, dressed in a green skirt with brown gingham apron and thick braids about her shoulders, pull more items wrapped in newspaper from a box before setting them out.
A man in a beige guayabera buys potato chips from a young woman pushing a blue cart. She also sells twisting slices of chicharrones and curling charritas, others shave blocks of ice for raspas, and a row of men do a brisk business shining shoes.
Many of the stalls are still in process, shifting structures of peg board, metal and tarps that move in the light breeze. A man sets two boards on a metal frame and hammers them together. A woman with a single thick braid and green gingham bib rocks against loose boards on a wooden frame, talking to several other women. They've been nailing boards on the frame where, I later discover, they'll sell sweets. Across the aisle a group of young men pull shoes from big bags and place them on display.
Mercedes Uribe, 46, of Cheran, prepares to sell the cotton dresses and blouses she's decorated with needlepoint. She hangs them from rails and lines she's set up. She spent long hours making these garments and it shows. When I see her a little later, I ask her if she's sold much.
''Today, no, but tomorrow it begins!'' she says emphatically. ''This is the best craft show at a global level, every year. It's better than Patzcuaro.''
Some of the artisans are all ready for business. Herminia Torres Cervantes, of Capula, has her flower pots decorated with calla lilies and sunflowers, yellow farolas (street lamps) with diamond piercings, and brown trim with red flowers and gren leaves.
Across the aisle, Angelina Ayala Martinez, also of Capula, sells big ollas for cooking.
''You can cook frijoles, soups, rice, salsa, bistek,'' says Ayala, her bright eyes looking out over heavy cheekbones. A middle aged gentleman in a blue striped shirt, accompanied by a young woman stops and speaks to Ayala, then moves on. A woman with a young child stops briefly and passes by. Finally an Indian woman in a light blue blouse and pink skirt stops and purchases two cups.
At another stall, Susan Baker, an American expatriot living in San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, purchases a delicate white garment with fringes.
''I just bought a shawl,'' she says. ''But this kind of unbleached muslin-like fabric, they call it manta. It's the same thing.''
What interests her about this garment?
''The fringes,'' she says. ''I like the fringes.''
Her friend, Anne Jones, an expatriot from Harlingen, Texas who also lives in San Miguel, says there are all kinds of things you can do with a garment like this.
''You come up with different ideas to use it for, different uses, and thinking outside the box,'' she says.
However, textiles aren't the only things that interest the two women.
''The most interesting thing here is the green pottery, the pineapples,'' Jones says. ''That's what everybody's buying.''
''I bought about eight big pieces,'' says Baker.
The ''pineapples'' are the exquisite glazed pineapple pottery created by the artisans of San Jose de Gracia. One of the practitioners of this technique are the Madrigals, whom I first met in 2005 at the Day of the Dead crafts fair and competition in Patzcuaro. The Madrigals have won many awards for their work, but they aren't entering anything in the Domingo de Ramos competition this year.
''I didn't bring anything special,'' says the elder Madrigal.
He could have fooled me. He, his wife, and their 18-year-old son Jose, have a whole section of the curved steps filled with glistening pots in shades of a deep earth green, metallic blue and sunset orange. A solid green pot rises from one step, the narrow ribbed leaves flipping out to the side while bigger leaves spew from the top. There are small hand-sized pots with delicate florets or tight starbursts, large round pots with nervous scalloped edges jutting out, candelabras with birds and callie lilies and sunflowers.
Nothing special? I'd like to see one of their contest entries!
A small group stops and one of them asks about some small glazed pumpkins on the ground. The pumpkins each have a slit, presumably for coins.
''That costs 25 pesos,'' said the young Jose as the man picked up one of the pumpkins. He picked up another and Jose said, ''20 pesos.''
They finally leave without making a purchase, but there will be plenty of buyers for the Madrigals.
A family of artisans from Santa Fe de la Laguna have also set up separate areas in close proximity to each other. A woman brings a styrofoam plate of roasted fish to one stall where her husband, Jose Ezekiel Mendez Gaspar, arranges black glazed cups, pink clay pigs with fuzzy green or orange spots and droopy eyes, and small cups decorated with sunflowers. He takes his seat with his meal behind the stall where sacks and crates are filled with balls of newspaper wrapped around still more items.
''These are poncheritas,'' says his wife Maria Carmen, as she takes over for him. She's referring to a clay jar with bronze hooks for several smaller cups.
Later, he explains something about the process.
''This is esmalte sin plomo,'' he says, picking up a black cup. ''I fire it in a gas kiln at over 1,000 degrees for 4 1/2 hours. Those-'' He points to the pigs ''puro barro'' and says, ''I fire for 3 1/2 hours at about 700 or 800 degrees.'' Those he fires in an horno de linea. I need to find out what that is.
He and his brothers and his sister all work together in a workshop behind the temple in Santa Fe de la Laguna. I'm looking forward to visiting them there.
Tomorrow is the first day of the Purhepecha Food Show and there will also be two parades. It promises to be a grand day.

The Day's Arrived!!!

2008-03-13T18:15:00.000-07:00

Hello, all you Michoacan lovers! The day has finally arrived!!! The Travels with Travis project is now officially launched, March 13, 2008.
I arrived in Uruapan today to cover the Domingo de Ramos Tianguis y Concurso (crafts fair and competition) for my first book, ''Michoacan - Land of the Artisan.'' I'm really excited to be here.
The artisans haven't started setting up their stalls in the Plaza Morelos yet, but the tarps are up and they'll be here soon.
In the next few days we'll meet the artisans from throughout the state selling their wares, and we'll take a look at this year's entries in the contest at Telares Uruapan, a textile factory owned by the Illsleys, two New Yorkers who moved to Mexico in the 1950s. Saturday there will be a big parade through town, in which people from villages throughout the state will wear their colorful traditional costumes. I'll be there with my camera.
Sunday's a big day; contest entries will be judged, and there will also be the annual Purhepecha Food Show where I plan to enjoy some goooooood eatin'! I'll tell you all about it later.
Meanwhile, I'm just getting settled in. I'm glad I made reservations at the Hotel Regis right on the plaza, because they didn't have any more rooms left, and I think it's the same at all the other hotels. I made it in about 10 a.m. but couldn't check in to my room until 1 p.m., which contributed to kind of a yucky situation as I was in the same clothes I'd been in since yesterday morning.
I went over to Cupatitzio park where I hiked around the trails and worked up a sweat (double yuck! - I tried not to get too close to anybody) and took some great pictures. Take a look below. I made it back to my hotel and took a long overdue hot shower, and then when I got out I discovered the whole floor was flooded. I thought something was wrong with the shower stall and that I might have to move to another room until I noticed the plug was lying snugly over the drain.
I got dressed and stepped out into the hallway and told the maid what happened and gave her a big tip to mop it up for me, apologizing profusely. She didn't seem overly distressed by the situation. I think she's seen it all.
Anyway, that's all for tonight folks, and I'll try to check back in with you on Saturday after the parade.

Until then,

Travieso!!!

MICHOACAN - URUAPAN CRAFTS COMPETITION - Photos

2007-07-10T05:00:00.000-07:00

Abdon Punzo Angel works on his copper dragon in his shop in Santa Clara del Cobre. He had planned to enter this and another dragon in teh 46th annual Domingo de Ramos crafts contest in Uruapan, but later decided they were not ready. April 2006.

Abdon Punzo Chavez, 20, above and below, works in the shop of his father, Abdon Punzo Angel, in Santa Clara del Cobre. Chavez is working on the details of butterflies in a silver pot he plans to enter in the 46th annual Domingo de Ramos crafts contest in Uruapan, April 2006.

Hey, everybody!
How do you like these photos? Please post your comments below.

Thanks,

Travieso

MICHOACAN - URUAPAN CRAFTS FAIR - Photos

2007-07-10T04:51:00.000-07:00

Norberta Perez Zirango, 75, uses a backstrap loom to weave material for morraleses - cloth bags - at Casa de Artesanias (not to be confused with the state agency of the same name) in Cuanajo, Michoacan, Mexico, in the days leading up to the Domingo de Ramos crafts fair and competition in Uruapan, April 2006.

Juan Esteban Cuin Augustin, 13, traces desings into a panel of wood for a carved chest his father plans to enter in the 46th annual Domingo de Ramos crafts contest in Uruapan, Michoacan, Mexico. April 2006.

Angel Cuin Juarez, 50, at left, and his son Juan Esteban Cuin Augustin, 13, at right, with the chest that Juarez plans to enter in the 46th annual Domingo de Ramos crafts contest in Uruapan, Michoacan, Mexico, April 2006.

OK, my fellow Michoacan lovers!
How did you like this little photographic tour of Cuanajo?
Please post your comments below.

Travieso

MICHOACAN - URUAPAN CRAFTS COMPETITION - ARTISAN TOUR - Story

2007-07-08T17:51:00.000-07:00

Generations of Michoacán artisans engage in a variety of crafts
Story ran May 13, 2006 in The Monitor in McAllen, Texas.

URUAPAN, Mch., Mexico — Abdon Punzo Angel’s thick hands tapped minute details into the menacing snout of the copper dragon that sat immobilized in a vise, its body seeming to squirm.

Beside him, another shiny dragon writhed from its base, teeth bared, tongue flickering, the scales across its back bristling. A candle holder sat on its head, another on its tail.

Angel, one of the best coppersmiths in Santa Clara del Cobre, spent two months working on the copper dragons to enter in the 46th Annual Domingo de Ramos Tianguis y Concurso Artesania in Uruapan; he was one of many artisans throughout the state of Michoacán preparing for the event.

In Zinapecuaro, J. Ventura Hernandez Benitez, 47, had already sent his two ceramic entries to the contest. He planned to be in Patzcuaro for another show during the weekend of Domingo De Ramos. However, in the shop behind his house, he demonstrated how he has worked clay for forty years, a craft passed down to him through many generations.

The workshop’s rustic brick walls held up a corrugated metal roof beneath which his creations seemed to gestate in the heat. His homemade plaster molds and their offspring – pots, vases and pitchers which required weeks of labor – lay about the shop in the hypnotic chaos of a true artisan. Small ceramic pumpkins sat on the concrete floor in front of a shelf of cracked boards loaded with vases covered with images of skeletons dressed in fiesta garb, geometric patterns of terraces and triangles, stylized dogs and monkeys. Pots in subtle hues of dark red ochre, greenish umber and bluish gray sat nearby.

Benitez ran a wet rag over the bowl spinning on his potter’s wheel, slithering streams of water shooting away as he smoothed the piece into a finer shape. When it was almost dry, he said, he would dip it into a tub of barro y kaolin to give it a particular hue. Paints, brushes and a stool sat near the door where brief glimpses of his artist’s soul would manifest themselves in dynamic shapes and colors in his work.

The collection of pumpkins on the floor reflected a relatively recent innovation. Zinapecuaro´s artisans have been making ceramic pumpkins for about 30 years; they used to make them from lead-based materials.

However, Trinidad Martinez Garcia, director of commercial development at the Casa de las Artesanias in Morelia, said the local crafts people began making the newer versions without lead-based materials about 10 to 15 years ago after learning about the harmful effects of lead.

Benitez said that the newer pumpkins, in softer earth tones of roasted coffee and autumn leaves and earth greens, are actually more attractive than the old ones. “They sell better than the glazed ones,” he said.

Angel Cuin Juarez, 50, from the village of Cuanajo, said people prefer the natural look of carved furniture to the brightly painted version. That’s why he decided not to paint his contest entry, an intricately-carved wooden chest. Just a few days before the event, he was putting the finishing touches on the piece in the shop behind his house. His 13-year-old son, Juan Esteban Cuin Augustin, had just gotten home from school and now went to work tracing designs into a panel of wood and then carving them.

The boy’s father began working in carpentry himself at age 13; he didn’t start doing the elaborate woodcarving for which Cuanajo is famous until about 20 years ago. That’s when a man in Erongaricuaro, near Lake Patzcuaro, asked him to do some work and, out of necessity, he learned the craft.

Elsewhere in Cuanajo, at a store called Casa de Artesanías (not the state agency of the same name) Elodia Garcia Romero and her friend, Norberta Perez Zirango, sat at their backstrap looms weaving material which would later be used for morrales — colorful cloth purses — just like the ones that hung on racks for purchase. Romero had already sent her two morrales to the contest; Zirango had entered two caminos de mesa, elaboratelywoven bands of cloth placed on dinner tables.

Zirango, 75, has been weaving since age 15, and she sat before the loom now as though she had always been there; the thick braids of her hair were tied together at the ends, her pleated blue skirt draped over folded legs. Her ancient hands fit the wooden rods through long strands of vertical thread, gingerly pressed them down and raised them up as the decades of artistry now interwoven into the fabric of her spirit manifested themselves in the cloth.

That manifestation continues to express itself in younger generations. Her friend, Romero, shows no signs of quitting; Romero’s daughter, Maria Concepción Guadalupe Garcia, 18, sat nearby weaving a scarf. She said she wanted to commit to the craft for the rest of her life.

More young people were committed to their copper work a few miles away in Santa Clara del Cobre, where the ringing and pounding of hammers filled the air in Angel’s shop. Punzo, who has won many national and international awards and has even made two presentations in Albuquerque, N.M., has 12 employees in his shop; all were busy at work this particular day.

Smoke bit nostrils and untrained palates, thunderous whops of hammers pounded objects into shape and disrupted the loud music crashing into the sunny yard, balanced simultaneously by the “ting-ting-ting” of tiny hammers tapping fine delicate details into copper pieces.

Hammers and tongs hung on the walls; sparks writhed in furious circles from a charcoal fire where a worker heated a copper piece before pounding it into shape over a long metal bar. Nearby, thick fire stroked the sides of a huge pot of boiling water where workers periodically placed copper pieces to give them their distinctive color.

All 12 of Angel’s employees are relatives — sons, nephews and other family members. Many of them have the name Punzo, a Purhepecha name passed down from his great-grandfather.

On this particular day, some of them were finishing up their contest entries. Son Carlos Punzo Chavez, 23, crafted the final accents of the flutes in a shiny vase. Another employee, Abdon Punzo Chavez, 20, tapped the details of butterflies into a silver pot. The 20-year-old artisan had already pressed the shape of the butterflies into the pot from the inside out, and then filled it with a substance called chapopote to keep the butterfly images intact while he put more defined details.

“When it hardened,” he said through an interpreter, “that’s when I began hammering little indentations into the butterflies from the outside.”

Once he tapped in the minute lines that would reveal the insect’s body and antennae, he would melt the chapopote.

Abdon Punzo Chavez had high hopes for this entry which he had worked on for a month.

“This is different, it’s unique,” he said. “It will probably win something.”

Why did he decide to make a silver piece instead of copper?

“It’s prettier, it’s easier, more smooth,” he said.

His father had also been working on an entirely new design, two dragons, one with two candleholders, and the other strictly decorative.

“It will have an impact in the contest,” he said with eager enthusiasm. “I had thought of making a candle holder, and I thought of making a dragon.”

However, Angel later decided not to enter his dragons in the contest.

“I couldn’t finish them in time,” he said. “I need to put the finishing touches on them, on the whole thing. I need about 22 more days. I’ll probably enter them in the Patzcuaro contest or the next Uruapan contest.”

Hey, everybody!
Did you like this story? I sure enjoyed writing it! Why don't you click on the comments link and tell me what you think of the article?

Until later,

Travieso!

MICHOACAN - URUAPAN CRAFTS COMPETITION - Photo

2007-07-08T17:42:00.000-07:00

Luis Felipe Punzo Chavez, 15, with his diploma for first place in the 46th annual Domingo de Ramos crafts contest. He's standing in front of a stall of other copper items at the crafts fair in Uruapan, April 2006.

MICHOACAN - URUAPAN CRAFTS COMPETITION - Story

2007-07-08T17:32:00.001-07:00

Mexican artisans compete with dazzling craftsmanship
Story ran May 13, 2006

By TRAVIS M. WHITEHEAD
Monitor Staff Writer travis@themonitor.com

URUAPAN , Mch., Mex. — Luis Felipe Punzo Chavez worked for two months on his decorative copper pot, and his work paid off at a crafts competition.

The 15-year-old coppersmith took first place in his category in the 46th Annual Domingo de Ramos Concurso y Tianguis Artesania in Uruapan , organized by the Casa de las Artesanías, a state agency based in Morelia. The contest in the second largest city in the Mexican state of Michoacán (the biggest is Morelia, the state capital), took place April 9 at the San Pedro Textile Factory where more than 1,000 artisans presented their crafts for the annual competition.

An especially intriguing category in the contest — feather art — showed a great deal of refined technique and talent in which artisans used bird feathers to create beautiful images. One piece depicted a monarch butterfly; the delicate feathery filaments used to create the butterfly’s wings accentuated the poetic power of the monarch.

More of these unusual crafts sat on the floor against a solid wooden beam, portraying such various subjects as the Virgen de la Luz, owls and a horse trotting across a meadow beneath swirling clouds. These pieces were priced in the hundreds of dollars.

Visitors didn’t need much knowledge to appreciate the work that had gone into the pieces set up around the room.

Sondra Zell stopped to admire some prize-winning copper pieces that ranged from under $80 to more than $130; “I love it,” said Zell, originally of New York City. She now calls San Miguel de Allende, Mex., home and would only describe her age as “over 60.”

“I’ve been here several days,” Zell said. “I was looking forward to this aspect of it so I could see the top quality.”

“It’s been lovely,” said her friend, Clare Piaget, 60. ”It’s quite an eye opener to see the event.”

Piaget, who spends half the year in New York City and the other half in San Miguel De Allende, admired one of the prize-winning copper pots.

“It’s in a clay shape, for a clay pot, but they made it in copper,” she said.

“I think that’s true of this bowl, too,” added Zell, closely inspecting another piece.

She bent down to examine a curious mound of thatched leaves and commented, “I don’t suppose you know why this got a prize. I don’t know what it is.”

“I think it’s a costume,” answered Piaget.

The “costume”, explained another visitor a few minutes later, was actually a raincoat. Von Peacock, originally of Indiana, now lives in Colima City, Mex. The 70-year-old has been in Mexico for 48 years. He lifted the thatched leaf item to reveal very fine stitch work underneath.

Peacock comes to the Domingo de Ramos event every year.

“I think it’s a good incentive for the artisans in the villages,” he said. “It’s a chance to compare their work with others and a chance to see what they have to do to refine it.”

Pieces were judged April 8 at the factory, and winners were awarded in a ceremony the following day at the Huatapera where they shook hands with Michoacán Governor Lazaro Cardenas Batel.

Chavez, the son of awardwinning coppersmith Abdon Punzo Angel, put his award winning “cazo” or pot, up for sale for $300 in a stall at the crafts fair, along with numerous other copper pieces. The piece, which had already brought him first prize winnings of $320, had a continuous line of leaves overlapping each other across the rim, the delicate lines of the ribs and veins revealing the tedious hours of work Chavez put into the project.

“I feel very proud, since my father taught me the technique of copper work so I could obtain the prize,” said Luis Felipe Punzo Chavez. “He’s very proud of me.”

MICHOACAN - URUAPAN CRAFTS FAIR - Photos

2007-07-06T17:12:00.000-07:00

People dressed in the traditional clothing of their native villages parade through the streets of Uruapan during Domingo de Ramos festivities in April 2006.

Jan Honeycutt, Joan Kaulbach and her husband, Harry Kaulbach at the 46th annual Domingo de Ramos crafts fair in Uruapan, April 2006.

Laura de la Vega, 37, second from right, and her mother, far right, of Morelia, examine pottery from Patamban at the 46th annual Domingo de Ramos crafts fair in Uruapan, April 2006. Seller and Patamban artisan, Elodia Bernave, 40, is at far left.

Juana Cano, of Cocucho, makes a Huancipo at the 46th annual Domingo de Ramos crafts fair in Uruapan, April 2006. Huancipos are placed beneath hot pots before being set on hard surfaces.

2007-07-06T16:49:00.000-07:00

An artisan from Huancito decorates a pot at the 46th annual Domingo de Ramos crafts fair in Uruapan, April 2006.

Katie Cowger, center of Ashland, Oregon, and her boyfriend, Carlos Torres, right, from the Mexican state of Guanajuato, purchase some pottery from a Tzintzuntzan artisan at the 46th Domingo de Ramos crafts fair in Uruapan, Michoacan. April 2006

MICHOACAN - URUAPAN - CRAFTS FAIR - Story

2007-07-06T16:32:00.000-07:00

Shoppers at crafts fair find great bargains on pottery, copper and textiles
Ran May 13, 2006 in The Monitor.
By TRAVIS M. WHITEHEAD
Monitor Staff Writer
travis@themonitor.com
URUAPAN , Mch., Mex. — Katie Cowger and her boyfriend had just picked out some black pottery made in Tzintzuntzan.

“We’re just trying to find some stuff for my apartment,” said Cowger, 18, of Ashland, Oregon, who had been studying Spanish in Guanajuato for about 2 ½ months.

Cowger and her boyfriend, Guanajuato lawyer Carlos Torres, 24, were just two of the many people looking for bargains at the crafts fair in Plaza Morelos in Uruapan . The fair, larger than the similar one in Patzcuaro in late October and November, featured scores of artisans and their wares from across the state of Michoacán.

Customers browsed through stalls of copper and silver bracelets, pots, bowls and cups. A zoo of shiny copper elephants and horses paraded across a table while a single rank of disgruntled copper owls looked on. A woman with stern lines across her face and heavy earrings dangling near her cheeks waited passively for the next customer.

There were white cotton blouses and tunics with orange punto de cruz (needlepoint) stitching across the top from Tocuaro, guitars from Paracho and masks with twisted horns from Ocumicho. In the section set aside for artisans from Patamban, Elodia Bernave, 40, negotiated a sale with Laura Rodriguez, 60, and her daughter, Laura de la Vega, 37.

“In spite of it being very traditional, it has many modern forms,” De la Vega said.

Her mother said this was by far the best crafts fair in Michoacán. “We have all the regions, all the artesanos,” Rodriguez said. “I like the clay, the weaving, the embroidery. I like the figures from Ocumicho. It’s very traditional.”

The Patamban pottery, indeed, has a traditional terracotta look about it, with bands of blue and white flowers that seem to float around the hips of some jars; others have abstract blue and white shapes that shimmer in the shade of mid-afternoon. Bernave was selling glazed serving bowls, large mouth bowls, and pots and pitchers she’d spent the whole year making. She said she typically begins working at about noon and continues until 6 p.m. or 7 p.m. She was charging between $1 and $4 for her wares but said the weeklong event was definitely worth the effort.

Cowger and Torres had only been at the fair for about 15 minutes when they found the black pitcher and four mugs, all for only $9.

“So far it’s really pretty good,” Cowger said.

“This is like ancient crafts made in the state of Oaxaca,” Torres said, before the artisan cut in and said, firmly, “Tzintzuntzan.”

Joan Kaulbach, originally of Canada, liked the distinctive “pineapple” pottery from San Jose de Gracia, with its glistening bursts of leaves, buttons, flowers and tiny cups. She and her husband, Harry, hadn’t purchased anything yet. They wanted to wait until they had made a tour of the whole fair.

They previously lived in Queretaro for 3 ½ years before recently moving to Uruapan , where it’s a little warmer.

“It feels better here,” said Joan Kaulbach, 71.

“As far as we have traveled in Mexico,” added her husband, “this area is very green, very tropical, lots of mountains and extinct volcanoes.”

“There’s lots more crafts,” Joan Kaulbach continued. “Our friends like it. I have a son who lives in Europe. We give it to him and he gives it to his friends. They like the mariachi figurines made of pottery.”

Jan Honeycutt, a friend of the Kaulbachs, was impressed by the resourcefulness of some artisans she had seen painting with brushes they had made of cat hair.

“He was doing very fine line work,” said Honeycutt. 63. “I love it, the industriousness of the people. It’s wonderful to see, always amazing, the artistic ability.”

She and her husband, Pat, moved to Mexico last August from Albuquerque, N.M. Before that, they lived in Teague, between Houston and Dallas.

“We just vacationed in Mexico several times,” she said. “We liked the people, liked the culture, so when my husband retired, this is where we wanted to be. I think there’s so much here. … We have bought all that store stuff. We appreciate having something that someone has made.”

MICHOACAN - CITY OF URUAPAN - Photos

2007-07-04T08:03:00.000-07:00

MICHOACAN - CITY PROFILE - URUAPAN - Story

2007-07-04T07:38:00.000-07:00

Michoacán city offers interesting tourist sites
Ran May 13, 2006 in The Monitor in McAllen, Texas

Story and Photos By TRAVIS M. WHITEHEAD
Monitor Staff Writer
travis@themonitor.com

URUAPAN , Mch., Mex. — The excitement of the coming Holy Week swept quickly through Plaza Morelos in the center of Uruapan , the second largest city in the state of Michoacán.

The plaza was soon filled with crafts from throughout the state as artisans descended on the community for the 46th annual Domingo de Ramos Tianguis y Concurso de Artesania. While the crafts competition was a few blocks away at the San Pedro Textile Factory, artisans crowded the walkways with hysterical ceramic devils on horseback from Ocumicho, handmade dresses and tunics from Tocuaro, copper from Santa Clara del Cobre and an endless variety of other items.

Several days before Palm Sunday, artisans had already set up red ceramic pitchers and bobble-head armadillos on the steps to the Templo de San Francisco and the adjacent nursery. In the patio of the Huatapera, next to Templo de la Immaculada, they sold handmade dresses with colorful stitching, woven palm-leaf items and other crafts.

Uruapan was founded in 1533 by the Rev. Juan de San Miguel, a Franciscan friar, according to an article by Jennifer Rose in Mexico Connect, an online magazine. Rutas Turisticas Michoacán, a magazine printed by Guia Mexico Desconocido, states the friar also established the Huatapera as a hospital. Its name translates to hospital in the language of the Purhepecha Indians, who heavily populate the area to this day. The Huatapera now houses the Museum of Popular Art, and its patio served as the location of the awards ceremony April 9 for the artisan and traditional costume contests.

Until a few years ago, Uruapan ’s major crop was coffee. While coffee still has a strong presence, in recent years avocados have become a strong force in the local economy. Macadamia nuts are also popular. You’ll find them for sale along the street corners around Plaza Morelos, along with cups of nance fruit, powdery pinole and garbanzos. Although the afternoon sun heats up the city to a tropical steaminess, things cool down after nightfall.

A visit to the old San Pedro Textile Factory building, owned by Rewi Illsley and four other business partners, is a must. Illsley’s American-born parents, Walter and Bundy Illsley, own the business housed there: Telares Uruapan . Shoppers will find some great bargains here for handmade textiles and, if they aren’t too busy, the Illsleys have some wonderful stories to tell.

The Parque Nacional Barranca del Cupatitzio also draws both locals and tourists who enjoy strolling along broad cobblestone walkways that wind through towering rainforests, past cold springs splashing their way over rocks into the swift clear Cupatitzio River.

THINGS TO SEE
With the exception of the park and the textile factory, most of the other sights in Uruapan are located around Plaza Morelos, also called Plaza de los Martires.

The Templo de San Francisco, located on the north side of the plaza, has a commanding façade, featuring an entrance bordered with large floral motifs; images of saints stand in niches between two sets of columns on either side of the entrance.

East of the church you’ll find the Casa de la Cultura, where numerous cultural events are presented throughout the year. During Domingo de Ramos festivities, there was a native costume show and a presentation of regional Michoacán music.

Farther east, but still facing the plaza, stands the Templo de la Immaculada, a pretty chapel with paintings of saints and the Holy Family journeying by donkey. Tall, simple yellow pilasters bear images of the Stations of the Cross; ornate, sixpronged candle holders jut from the walls.
It’s hard to separate Domingo de Ramos from a general survey of Uruapan . Bundy Illsley and her son, Rewi, 44, (who was born and raised here) explained that, traditionally, locals had been weaving objects from palm fronds and presenting them in the plaza on Palm Sunday for years before someone decided to have a contest. Soon, the contest evolved into a competition for artisans of a variety of trades throughout Michoacán and moved to the San Pedro Textile Factory. To get there, head west on Calle Emilio Carranza for several blocks to Calle Miguel Treviño, then turn left. Continue down this street until you come to the factory, an impressive structure made of dark red stone.

“My son and a group of people own the building,” said Bundy Illsley, a New York native who came to Uruapan in the 1950s with her husband, Walter. They took part in a number of ventures in the early years but, finding a large number of weavers in the area, they became heavily involved in that industry and have made a successful business.

“We have tablecloths, handmade bedspreads, cushions,” she said.

The little store was alive with color; lime green and pink table napkins in burnt orange and rich purple; viridian green tablecloths; woolen wall hangings with poinsettias, flowering trees and village scenes of children walking through streets; donkeys, cats and orange cows. A sailboat traveled across one wall-hanging while a crane soared overhead. There were straw tortilla warmers on shelves, old clay pots and wooden utensils — plates, knives, forks and spoons — along with colorful pillows, bedspreads and blankets.

Sets of four place mats and place napkins sold for $11 or $12. “It’s all hand-woven,” she said.

SHOPPING
While the textile factory has some great shopping, that’s not the only place to find good deals. The shopping around the perimeter of the plaza is also robust. You can get Taxco silver rings, necklaces and hoop earrings for between $2 and $4; leather purses for $15 - $39; leather billfolds that run between $4 and $13; belts with nickel buckles ranging from $5 to $25.

Pass through the entryway beneath the “Mercado de Antojitos” sign on the north side of Plaza Morelos (just west of the Huatapera) and you’ll pass stalls loaded with copperware, leather sandals and belts, textiles decorated with punto de cruz (needlework) stitching and embroidery and more.

Soon, however, you pass dining areas that serve carne a la Tampiqueña, chilaquiles, albondigas, mole con pollo and other dishes. You then come to a large U-shaped area filled with open air cafes preparing sopa aguada, enchiladas con pollo, and local recipes such as morisqueta, a delicious meal of meat and beans over rice.

Leave the Mercado and cross Plaza Morelos to Calle Emilio Carranza. Head west and you’ll come to La Macadamia: Dulces Regionales, a sweet shop with bags of macadamia nuts (one kilo for about $3), bottles of “Licor de Café” “de changunga” or “de membrilla” (quince fruit) each for $6, all made locally. Small packets of macadamia candies process with sugar, garlic and salt, or chile sell for a little over $2. You can also get locally-made chocolate (for preparing hot chocolate) for a little over $3. For about $6, you can even buy a little gift basket of candied nuts, small bottles of liquor, cajeta and tamarind tamales.

MICHOACAN - ECOTOURISM - PARQUE NACIONAL BARRANCA DEL CUPATITZIO - Photos

2007-07-04T04:05:00.000-07:00

MICHOACAN - ECOTOURISM - PARQUE NACIONAL BARRANCA DEL CUPATITZIO - Story

2007-07-04T03:44:00.000-07:00

National park in Michoacan a must for travelers
Ran May 22, 2006 in The Monitor, McAllen, Texas

By TRAVIS M. WHITEHEAD
Monitor Staff Writer
travis@themonitor.com

URUAPAN — Broad cobblestone walkways meander through the rainforest, the sound of rushing water permeating the air as ribbons of sunlight flutter through the shade of trees towering more than 100 feet high.

Laughter and excitement skip along the trails as children discover the wonders of Parque Nacional Barranca del Cupatitzio, - Cupatitzio Gorge National Park, an 894-acre park whose entrance lies at the western end of Independence Street in Uruapan, the second-largest city in Michoacan. It's not something you'd expect to see right on the edge of town; natural wonders such as these are usually located far away from populated areas.

However, this park is populated - with tourists. For only about $1, visitors spread out along the many winding trails, rushing up to fountains of water bouncing over rocks like disoriented snakes, or dripping lazily from cold stone, or cutting across breaks in the trail.

They all have the same destination - the river, where the water in minute periods of wakefulness manifests itself in shreds of foam, twisting and turning before receding into its warped translucence.

People are everywhere, but it never seems crowded. Families make brisk climbs along steep hillsides; trails shoot off in different directions and lead them to new adventures, to quiet parks or playgrounds with slides and swing sets, past a fish farm, waterfalls, benches, gazebos and small vendors selling food and drinks.

At a stand selling cups of freshly-cut fruit, a woman slices a mango in slithers so it looks like a blossom, then sprinkles chili pepper on top and hands it to a customer.

Halls, clorets and candies crowd a small table nearby. Gorditas are transformed by heat and oil into a welcome meal, bubbling, sizzling and popping in the sun for hungry travelers. Bundles of pumpkin flowers — flor de calabacita — lay on a plate to be used in quesadillas, and dark red links of chorizo meat wait for the next round of gorditas. Boxes of Ramen noodles sit nearby.

Two little girls bounce eagerly down the walkway in front of their parents to a point where water explodes from the rocks to achieve a moment of timeless beauty before crashing into a foaming pool and then the river below, losing its identity forever.

It's a river with a powerful draw. While signs specifically forbid anyone from entering the river, some can't resist the temptation to experience its enchanting waters. A man in a uniform orders several boys out of the water, but elsewhere others have partaken of its dream, dipping hands or cups into streams of spring water spewing from holes in concrete steps.

They can savor this moment, or they can finish it off back at the entrance where a vendor provides you with a taste of Michoacan's coffee: a cup of straight mojo, a bag of fresh coffee, or a frozen cappuccino, a perfect way to cool down from a long and wondrous hike before returning to the playful energy of Uruapan .

MICHOACAN - MEDICINAL PLANTS THE PURHEPECHA WAY - Story

2007-07-04T03:34:00.000-07:00

Purhepecha Indian Medicinal Plants Good for a Variety of Ailments
Ran MAY 22, 2006 in The Monitor in McAllen, Texas

By TRAVIS M. WHITEHEAD
Monitor Staff Writer
travis@themonitor.com

URUAPAN, Mch., Mexico — Stomach ache? Drink some albahacar tea.

Got a bruise? How about a salve made of arnica flowers. The plant is also good for diabetes and ulcers.

Of course, arnica isn’t the only medicinal plant the Purepecha Indians use for a broad range of ailments. They also use sosa for rheumatism, romero for muscle pain and gordolobo for cough, plus a host of other plants. Many of these plants are found at the Parque Nacional Barranca del Cupatitzio on the western edge of Uruapan , Michoacan, Mexico, west of Mexico City.

On a recent morning, Marta Leticia Roman Mares had set up a table with medicines made from those plants, preparations created by the Unidad Regional Michoacán de Culturas Populares e Indigenas. The air was alive with the intoxicating murmur of rushing water, the musty scent of old forest and damp earth, permeated by a gentle coolness. Water rose from the floor of a man-made stony alcove nearby, the crests capturing bits of sunlight bouncing through the trees.

Around the walls of the alcove were pictures of native plants and their uses. There was the chicalote, a spiny, treacherous-looking plant whose white blooms, stems, leaves and fruits are used in a salve for rheumatism. There was the juicy blackberry (situni in the Purepecha language) whose leaves are good for headaches. The stems and leaves of the cedro are good for stomach ache.

Mares, a special researcher with Culturas Populares e Indigenas, said she and other representatives of that organization have done thorough investigations of medicinal plants used for centuries by the Purepecha Indians. The tribe has a strong presence in this part of Mexico.

Her organization did manage to isolate the active ingredients and develop combinations of various plants to treat nerves, diabetes, cough, allergies, acne and other health problems. Many of those remedies are now found in a book called Medicina Tradicional, created by Unidad Regional Michoacan de Culturas Populares e Indigenas.

“This is a lot of traditional information from investigations with the curanderas,” she said. “The recipes from the grandmothers have been passed down from generation to generation. They want to give the information. Before they had doctors, they would go to get cured with a curandera.”

Mares knows the park, and its plants, very well; she grew up just a few blocks away and has visited here often throughout her life. Walking along a trail, she stopped at a coffee plant and pinched off a ripened bean. The fruit was soft and sweet, the bean hard as a pebble. The fruit, she said, is good for stomach ache.

“You put the flowers of the coffee in a tea and it’s good for the headache, for a very strong headache,” she said.

Look up Mares’s organization at www.culturaspopulareseindigenas.gob. mx/unidades.estatales.htm.

MICHOACAN - PURHEPECHA FOOD SHOW - Photos

2007-07-04T03:25:00.000-07:00

MICHOACAN - PURHEPECHA FOOD SHOW - Story

2007-07-04T02:55:00.000-07:00

PURHEPECHA FOOD SHOW
Ran May 10, 2006 in The Monitor, McAllen, Texas.

Purhepecha Indians prepare indigenous foods at cooking show

Story and Photos By TRAVIS M. WHITEHEAD
Monitor Staff Writer travis@themonitor.com

URUAPAN — Elisa Charicata Olivares leaned into the stone metate, pressing the long, squared mano over the cream-colored masa, shifting it back and forth, breaking off a portion to mold into a tortilla.

She was one of many culinary artisans at the 38th Annual Muestra Gastronomia Purhepecha, the Purhepecha Food Show, April 8 and 9 in Uruapan , the second largest city in the Mexican state of Michoacán. The event was presented by Unidad Regional Michoacán de Culturas Populares e Indígenas in the Plaza de la Ranita, just a block away from the crafts fair on Plaza Morelos. The crafts fair was part of the 46th Annual Domingo de Ramos Concurso y Tianguis Artesania in Uruapán, coordinated by the Casa De Las Artesanias, a state agency based in Morelia.

Purhepecha Indians, who heavily populate this area of Mexico, came from miles around — from Cheran, Tzintzuntzan, San Lorenzo and other locales — to demonstrate native cooking. Tall clay pots filled with native foods sat steaming over open wood fires amid the sounds of “clap-clap-clap” from women slapping rolls of yellow or blue corn masa into tortillas. There were bowls of atapakua de calabacitas, a green soup of chopped squash; pots of atole, a corn gruel; and charales, minnow-sized fish fried in a large skillet.

Customers peeled corn husks from corundas, a local variation of the tamale, or dove into hot bowls of churipu, a delicious and spicy stew.

“We’re trying to rescue all the indigenous food in this show,” said Marta Leticia Roman Mares, investigator for Unidad Regional Michoacan de Culturas Populares e Indigenas del Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes.

“We want to know the food that is consumed in the Purhepecha daily life,” Roman said.

A few feet behind Olivares, Cleofas Dolores Cira, 30, of Tzintzuntzan, and her family engaged in constant conversation as they maintained their work area while cooking up pots of mojarra dorado (another type of fish) and charales.

“We live on a little ranch along Lake Patzcuaro, we catch the fish ourselves,” said Cira’s father, Mauricio Dolores Ponciano, 62, who proudly added that he was “100 percent Purhepecha.”

He kept close watch on a batch of charales sizzling in a large skillet.

“I add salt but that’s all it needs,” he said. He stirred them a bit, then placed a large portion on a plate and added more from a plastic bucket.

A plate of this crispy dish of fish may at first seem intimidating. If you can get past the heads (and eyes) staring up at you, they are actually quite tasty.

Across the plaza, Petra Sanchez de Rhodes got herself a quesadilla with a filling of coriander, mint, onion, amaranta and guajillo chili seeds.

“This is for tomorrow, Palm Sunday,” said Rhodes, a local woman who runs a language school in Uruapan with her American husband.

“Then next week is Holy Week,” she said. She then wrapped a tortilla made of blue corn around her quesadilla, saying it was healthier.

A bowl of dark green gorditas sat nearby. “Those are made of corn and brown sugar,” Rhodes said. “Gorditas dulces. It’s all pre-Hispanic origin.”

Another basket contained small bundles of corn husks with a sweet paste inside. Those were called chapata, which also contained amaranta and sugar.

“It’s very nutritious,” she said. “This is Purhepecha culture.”

Back across the plaza, Charicata, 52, of Cheran turned tortillas on a hot plate next to her metate. A pot of atapakua de queso (with green tomatoes, cebolla, chile, cilantro and tomato) and a small plate of nopales sat nearby. A girl stirred a pot of carne de res on the hot plate as a wood fire flickered below. Charicata dipped her hands in some water before bouncing a thick pad of masa back and forth to spread it into a tortilla.

She appreciated the opportunity to show her native culture at an event such as this.

“I feel very proud,” said Olivares. “I’ve been making white and blue corn tortillas my whole life. The blue tortillas taste better.”

“It’s all natural,” said her helper, Maria de Jesus Rafael Gembe.

MICHOACAN - PLAYA AZUL - Photos

2007-06-21T07:52:00.000-07:00

MICHOACAN - PLAYA AZUL - Story

2007-06-20T06:23:00.000-07:00

PLAYA AZUL
Summer 2002

Playa Azul on Mexico's Pacific Coast in the state of Michoacan is a flirtation with surrender; you can become quickly lost in the hypnotic rhythm, the dance, the flavor and the aroma of this dreamy place.

There are no taxis or schedules here, only the wind right off the beach as I dine on shrimp with garlic and water it down with a cold pina colada. There are no walls to this cafe, just rough posts holding up the thatched roof while the wind teases the mind; the floor of the dining area is just the bare sand beneath a shelter of palm fronds. The cool wet sand and absence of walls provide a welcome reprieve from my other life within the confines of concrete and sheet rock.

A guitar player performs for diners sitting farther out on the beach under a small umbrella-shaped bohio shelter, and older men sell colorful hammocks. Their days seem simple and unwavering, filled with the struggles of living and the laughter of friends and family.

Pelicans glide just above the waves, one of them making a hard dive into the water and immediately resurfacing with a fish. The comical but ravenous bird struggles with its prey flopping frantically in its enormous beak, then the bird devours it whole.

I'm glad I can take my dinner at leisure, thanks to the fishermen like the one nearby who throws his shirt over his shoulder and rolls up his nets after a long day at work. The ocean, such an intoxicating presence for me, is his workplace; I wonder if his life is any less stressful than mine. He may not think so.

I arrived at Playa Azul after first traveling by bus 145 miles from Morelia to Lazaro Cardenas. This steamy port city, just a few miles up the coast from Playa Azul, was once called Melchor Ocampo; it was changed to Lazaro Cardenas after a steel mill was built here in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

The city of Lazaro Cardenas, named after a popular Mexican president who served during the 1930s, is a hot, wet, busy place, with humidity so thick you almost feel like you're drowning. There was no central bus station there; instead, many small bus stations moved people about like ants going about their own daily grind. I imagined them heading off to some hidden gem I had yet to discover, another piece of reality I needed to explore.

The streets were crowded with vans bearing names like La Mira, Guacamayas, and Truchas on their windshields. I caught a blue van to Playa Azul; the vehicle's bare metal floor, wooden foot rest and torn plastic upholstery released me from the isolation of movement; they bore, instead, the stories of the generations that had passed through the van, a mobile crossroads of intersecting lifelines. The distance was short, but the trip took awhile as the driver made frequent stops for other passengers. The trip took me past homes nestled amongst stands of feathery coconut palms, banana trees, mango groves and dwarf Poincianas covered with a confetti a bright orange blossoms.

The van slowed as we entered an area where the ocean seemed to permeate; there was a stillness and a silence that bore the ocean's kiss, and I could feel the tensions of urban life releasing their grip.

This was Playa Azul. Little did I know of the hidden jewel I would find on this routine side trip. Coconut and almond trees lined the streets. Teenagers swung in hammocks, and children played in the air spiced with the sound of crashing waves and the smell of salt as I neared the ocean.

I liked this feeling of surrender. I had made no plans, I had no idea what I would find here and didn't know if I would find any hotel rooms available. It was a feeling of infinity, the possibilities boundless both for spiritual escape and practical necessity, and I found the timeless quality invigorating.

I checked into the Hotel Del Pacifico on the road running parallel to the ocean. The hotel provided me with a good firm bed, hot water and a ceiling fan, with a window facing the Pacific; paradise for only $15. The view was blocked only by the line of thatch-roofed cafes along the beach.

What else could I possibly ask for? This simplicity is the dream that lingers in my mind in my other life back home where I face the daily battles of traffic, cranky city officials and high blood pressure; they do nothing for me except remind me how beautiful life can be elsewhere.

I walked about town visiting some of the many markets that sold a menagerie of beach items. Onyx wind chimes carved in the shapes of seahorses and birds made music in the summer breeze while shoppers browsed through stalls of orange-flowered dresses with tassels that sold for about $11. Shirts with mantras like "Frogs, Beer and Fun-Playa Azul" and "Dolphin Paradise" sold for varied prices.

Those foolish enough to forget their swimsuits could buy swimming trunks for $10 and bikinis for $15. Tables along the streets sold a menagerie of reminders of this idyllic place, including conch shells and mounted coral priced at $6.

I was surprised to come across Hotel Playa Azul, an upscale place for those wishing to enjoy the solitude without giving up the creature comforts of an air conditioner and television. Single rooms cost $53. The hotel wrapped around a pool and a courtyard filled with coconut trees, crotons, hibiscus and Mexican Esperanza covered with yellow blossoms. Guests and visitors could dine at Las Gaviotas, a restaurant that served chicken fajitas, cognac, lobster and other dishes.

However, I preferred to take my dinner down on the beach, at a cafe called Enramada Yupancky (Enramada means woven branches, probably referring to the thatched roof), which is where I'm sitting now. I look over the intriguing menu which reveals some other tantalizing dishes, such as the mysterious octopus cocktail, ceviche, deviled red snapper and the ubiquitous but ever-popular pina colada.

Activity surrounds me. A woman sells shell necklaces, another colorful buckets. In the surf, pale green waves rise and fall as they did long before any of us arrived here. Occasionally, one rises as if in slow motion, starting off as a ripple, then rising, growing, heaving, higher and higher. Just when it seems it will never stop, it breaks, curls and crashes into white foam like the grand finale of some great symphony.There's a sense of freedom, being here at the edge of the Pacific, knowing there's nothing between me and the Polynesian Islands. I wonder how far the wind has traveled before it reaches me, whose dreams it has touched, whose sails it filled, what tastes, flavors and fragrances it has passed.

I wonder if perhaps, if I let go for just a moment, clear my head and cut the strings, the ocean's breath could pass on to me some of what it has seen, touched and learned in its many travels. Perhaps the breath of the ocean is like a pilgrim, a student, ateacher, always listening, always passing on what it knows. With the glow of the pina colada still lingering in my mouth and satiated by the shrimp and garlic, I explore the market places some more, then return to the cafe and lounge in a hammock until the sun goes down. I take a walk on the beach under a quarter moon until some dogs run me off, then return to my hotel where I sleep better than I have in a long, long, long time.

GETTING THERE
Posted May 2007
Quoted prices are not exact. Because the exchange rate as of this posting is just above $10 pesos to the dollar, I'm rounding it off to that amount.

From Morelia to Lazaro Cardenas: (Last updated May 2007)
Take the Purhepecha Bus Line at 7:20 a.m., 11:20 a.m. and 2:20 p.m. The ticket is about $23. From Lazaro Cardenas, you can take smaller vans up the coast to Playa Azul and other locations.

Bus Schedules

2007-05-17T14:28:00.000-07:00

McAllen Bus Station (Last updated May 27, 2007)

To Morelia 3:40 p.m. Everyday $66.50
To Morelia 4:20 p.m. Everyday $79.00 Executive
To Morelia 5:30 p.m. Everyday $66.50

To Linares: (Last updated May 28, 2007)
6:15 a.m., 8:20 a.m., 10 a.m., 12:25 p.m., 2:30 p.m., 3:40 p.m., 5:20 p.m., 7 p.m.

To Monterrey: (Last updated May 28, 2007)
6:15 a.m., 7 a.m., 8:40 a.m., 9:30 a.m., 10:15 a.m., 11:10 a.m., 12:20 p.m., 1:10 p.m., 2:10 p.m., 3:30 p.m., 4:20 p.m., 5 p.m., 5:30 p.m., 6:20 p.m., 7:10 p.m., 7:20 p.m., 8 p.m., 9:45 p.m.

To Mexico City (Last updated May 28, 2007)
6 p.m., 7 p.m.

Morelia Bus Station (Last updated May 2007)
Quoted prices are not exact. Because the exchange rate as of this posting is just above $10 pesos to the dollar, I'm rounding it off to that amount. For example, the bus fare from Morelia to Reynosa on Transportes del Norte bus lines is actually 802 pesos. I have rounded this off to $80.

From Morelia to Reynosa (Last updated May 2007)
Transportes del Norte $80
4:45 p.m. Everyday
7 p.m Everyday
9 p.m. Everyday

Omnibus de Mexico $70 (Last updated May 2007)
5:50 p.m. Everyday

From Morelia to Patzcuaro (Last updated May 2007)
ETN bus line $4.20
1 p.m.
7 p.m.

Primera Plus bus line $3.50
5:45 a.m.
7:30 a.m.
3 p.m.

From Morelia to Uruapan (Last updated May 2007)
ETN bus line $12
4:45 a.m.
5 a.m.
8:30 a.m.
12:15 p.m.
5 p.m.
6:15 p.m.
7:55 p.m.

Primera Plus bus line $9.90 (Last updated May 2007)
1 a.m.
2:30 a.m.
5:45 a.m.
12:30 p.m.
2:45 p.m.
3:45 p.m.
4:25 p.m.
9:30 p.m.

From Morelia to Zamora: (Last updated May 2007)
Autovias bus line $10
6 a.m.
8 a.m.
10 a.m.
Noon
3 p.m.
4 p.m.
5 p.m.
7:15 p.m.

Primera Plus $10
1:30 a.m.
5 a.m.
7 a.m.
11 a.m.
2 p.m.
6 p.m.
10 p.m.

(Last updated May 2007)
To visit the smaller communities of Cocucho, Ocumicho and Patamban, travel first from Morelia to Zamora. From Zamora, take a bus to Tangancicuaro for about $1. In Tangancicuaro, stop at the corner of Avenida Madero and Avenida General Carlos Salazar. Go south and take the fork to the left on Calle Simon Bolivar. Go two blocks to a small plaza where you can take a Combi van to Patamban for $1.20. This is also the place where you can take a Combi van to Ocumicho for about $1.20.
To get to Cocucho, you have to stop first in Ocumicho. From there, you just have to kind of hitch a ride. I got a free ride with someone who was on his way there, but I had to pay a man about $8 to get back from Cocucho to Ocumicho.

(Last updated May 2007)
To get from the Morelia Bus Station to the historical center, you can either pay a taxi three dollars or pay a Combi van 50 cents.
To catch the Combi van, stand on the expressway that runs past the bus station. You will see a number of the Combi vans that are color-coded grey, brown and red. The Combi van you are looking for is Rojo #1.

From Morelia to Lazaro Cardenas: (Last updated May 2007)
Take the Purhepecha Bus Line at 7:20 a.m., 11:20 a.m. and 2:20 p.m. The ticket is about $23. From Lazaro Cardenas, you can take smaller vans up the coast to Playa Azul and other locations.

MORELIA - Plaza Valladolid

2007-03-25T08:46:00.000-07:00

CITY OF MORELIA

2007-03-25T08:39:00.000-07:00

Deep golden light glides up tall buildings of cantera stone that line the streets of Morelia, the capital city of the state of Michoacan, 135 miles west of Mexico City. Groups of troubadours dressed in puffed sleeves and black capes perform for diners in the wide arched breezeways surrounding the busy historical center. Children in gray school uniforms walk briskly past Indian women with textured faces strolling through a plaza next to the Cathedral of Morelia beneath tall trees with lavender blossoms, while on the other side of the centuries-old structure a crowd gathers around two clowns.

The city of Morelia was founded in 1541 as Valladolid, and its name was changed much later in honor of Jose Maria Morelos y Pavon, a hero of the War of Independence who was born here in 1765. Independence leader Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla served as rector of the Colegio de San Nicolas seminary here in the late 18th century at the same time Morelos attended there. Morelos, a priest, took up the cause of independence after Hidalgo was executed in 1811. In a little while, we will visit the home where Morelos was born.

This is a city of culture, of friendship, of perpetually good weather -- a place of wide-ranging experiences to tantalize the imagination. However, the allure doesn't stop in the city; the entire state of Michoacan beckons adventurous spirits to explore.

Morelia has retained much of its Spanish colonial charm, thanks to the industrious nature of city and state leaders who have also endeavoured to bring more cultural events.

Their efforts have paid off. Every time I visit this fine city I find impromptu musical performances, theatrical presentations, dancing exhibitions of all kinds. Corral de la Comedia always has some new program to generate laughs from its audience, Teatro Ocampo has some great symphony performances, and local nightclubs offer live music late into the night. Local transit buses have the words Paradas Continuas - Continuous stops. They have a lot to stop for.

Numerous tourism booths make this a visitor-friendly city; you can choose from one of the numerous guided tours available, or you can explore the city on your own. Signs throughout the historical center explain in English and Spanish the story of the old buildings such as the Cathedral of Morelia, the Colegio de San Nicolas, the Casa Natal de Morelos and other structures.

Museo Regional Michoacana, or Michoacan Regional Museum, explains well the diversity of this state. Models of ring-tailed cats, armadillos and shore birds stand beneath a huge mural of Michoacan's numerous ecological zones.

The state's broad environmental range has given birth to a varied culture where people have developed long traditions of craftsmanship, making fine copper ware, leather goods and ceramics unique to the area.

Examples of Michoacan's fine craftsmanship can be seen at Casa de las Artesanias, where visitors can browse through room after room of fascinating works of art and purchase them at reasonable prices.

This area's cultural flavor finds great balance in its rich culinary tradition; visitors can explore the region's candy-making legacy at Museo De Las Dulces de Morelia; the museum doubles as a sweet shop, and I enjoy roaming through the rooms learning about the nuns who started the city's practice of making ate, a process in which sweets are made of fruit pectin cooked with sugar.

However, this isn't the only place to sample the delicacies of the region. Morelia's fine restaurants offer an endless variety of regional foods found nowhere else in Mexico, or the world even, housed in old picturesque stone buildings in the shadow of history.

Upscale restaurants as well as out-of-the-way places offer a rich collage of foods passed down by the Purepecha Indians, as well as both contemporary and traditional foods from the rest of the state.

While the city sports an eclectic cultural and culinary life, the centerpiece of any visit here is the Cathedral of Morelia, which maintains an authoritative presence in the city's historical center.

MORELIA - Things To Do - Info Box

2007-03-25T08:36:00.000-07:00

Museo Regional Michoacana
Hours of Operation:Tues - Sat.9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Sundays 9 a.m. - 4 p.m.
Location: Calle Allende, west of Plaza Benito Juarez
Entrance fee: $30 pesos. Entrance is free to students, teachers, children 13 and under, a senior citizens over age 60.

Casa Natal de Morelos
Hours of operation:Mon. - Fri.9 a.m. - 8 p.m.
Sat. - Sun.9 a.m. - 7 p.m.
Location: Calle La Corregidora
Admission: Free.

Casa de la Artesanias
Hours of Operation: Mon. - Sat. 10 a.m. - 8 p.m.
Sun. 10 a.m. - 3 p.m.
Location: Plaza Valladolid in the Church of St. Francis at the convergence of Calle Juan de San Manuel and Bartolome de las Casas. You can reach the Plaza Valladolid and Casa de las Artesanias by turning south off Avenida Madero onto either Calles de San Manuel or Calle Vasco de Quiroga.

Dulces Morelianos De La Calle Real
Hours of Operation: Sun.-Thurs. 10 a.m. - 8 p.m.
Fri.-Sat. 10 a.m. - 9 p.m.
Location: Avenida Madero 440, between Calle De Juan Jose de Le Jarza and Calle Fr. Manuel de Navarrete. It's two doors west of the Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Corral de la ComediaLocation: 239 Calle Melchor Ocampo, east of Teatro Ocampo, between Calles Guillermo Prieto and Ignacio Zaragoza. They have some really enjoyable live comedies.

Teatro Ocampo
Location: On the northeast corner of Calles Melchor Ocampo and Guillermo Prieto. I have attended some wonderful symphonies here. This is also a good place to find out about other attractions in the area.

El Rincon de los Sentidos
Hours of Operation: Sun.-Wed. 8:30 a.m. - midnight
Thurs.-Sat. 8:30 a.m. - 2:30 a.m.
Location: 485 Avenida Madero. The tall stone walls with colored floodlights create a wonderful atmosphere as live music entertains guests sitting in reed-backed chairs at glass tables with flickering candles. .People of all ages congregate here, from young couples enjoying the romantic ambience to parents cuddling babies and teenagers tagging along with their mothers. El Rincon serves breakfast, dinner, drinks and coffee.

MORELIA - Shopping - Info Box

2007-03-25T08:34:00.000-07:00

A cluster of stores at the southwest corner of Calles Allende and Hidalgo offers some interesting shopping.
They are all open Mon.-Sat. 10 a.m. - 8:30 p.m.
Sun. 10 a.m. - 8 p.m.
Amara Luna: 199 Allende
A small shop with fashionable clothing.
Luna Oro Soy: 209 Allende
This shop has some really nice women's wear, plus scented candles, incense, aromatic oils, and some arts and crafts from around the state. You can also sit on benches around a flowing fountain surrounded by peaceful synthesized music.
Luna Mandala: 213 Allende
Has great books on a variety of subjects, including Feng Shui, Yoga and Tarot Cards.

La Casa de Portal
Hours of Operation: Sun.-Sat. 8:30 a.m. to 10 p.m.
Location: Calle Guillermo Prieto 30, right around the corner fromBurger King on Avenida Madero. Visit La Casa de Portal and shop for fruit liquor, jewelry, T-shirts in a nostalgic atmosphere filled with old nostalgic furniture: an old barber's chair, an upright piano, wooden rocking chairs with woven seats, an iron peacock, old coca cola signs, a wood stove, old dishes and plates. There's a cafe with elegant, turn-of-the-century dining tables and waitresses in long black dresses and white aprons.

VIPS
This store is next to Woolworths on the south side of Avenida Madero between Calle Virrey de Mendoza and Avenida Morelos, east of the cathedral.
Hours of operation: Sun.-Thurs. 7 a.m. - 11 p.m.
Fri.-Sat. 7 a.m.- 11 p.m.
There's an American-style restaurant, but it also has a small shop with books, magazines, perfume, notebooks, glazed figurines, women´s billfolds, eyeglasses and candy. There's also an ATM machine.

Sanborns
This is an American-style restaurant and store on Avenida Madero between Calles Ignacio Zaragoza and Benito Juarez. The store also sells perfume, candy, stuffed animals, school supplies, books, cards and magazines.
Hours of Operation: 7:30 a.m. - midnight everyday. &

Oxxo
This store, Mexico's equivalent of 7-11, is located next door to Sanborns.
Hours of operation: Sun. - Sat. 7 a.m. - midnight.
Location: Avenida Madero between Calle Ignacio Zaragoza and Benito Juarez.

MORELIA - Restaurants - Info Box

2007-03-25T08:33:00.000-07:00

Super Tortas Homero
Hours of operation: Sun.-Sat. 9 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Location: Northwest corner of Calles Abasalo and Allende.

Cafe Europa
Hours of Operation: 7:30 a.m. to 11:30 p.m.
Location: Avenida Madera, across from the cathedral. They have good coffee and desserts. They also serve breakfast.

Torta La Cruz
Hours of Operation:8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mon. - Sat.
Location: Corner of Calle Vasco de Quiroga and Avenida Madero.
This quaint little cafe has a list of tortas with interesting names like the Morelia torta with salchicha (sausage), jamon (ham) ande queso blanco (white cheese), and the Acapulco torta with pineapple; mushroom and meat. You can also get some great molletes, which is toasted bread with refried beans. I get mine with mushrooms and it's always delicious.

VIPS
Hours of operation: Sun.-Thurs. 7 a.m. - 11 p.m.
Fri. &Sat.7 a.m. - 11 p.m.
Location: Avenida Madero between Calles Virrey de Mendoza and Morelos, just east of the cathedral. VIPS is an American-style restaurant with booths and tables and a menu that includes the familiar hotcakes and waffles, and then the more Mexican Desayuno Mexico (juice or fruit, carne asada con chilaquiles, refried beans and coffee or tea) at reasonable prices.They also have omelets, banana splits and hot fudge sundaes. Swiss enchiladas and chicken tacos both sell for just over $6.VIPS also has low calorie selections; I often order cold yogurt with fruit and honey, plus a cup of decaf coffee. The service is great. The waitresses were very helpful to me one morning when they learned I planned to visit Patzcuaro for the arts and crafts fair. They made suggestions about hotels and even brought me a phone book.

Trico Alejandria
Hours of Operation: Sun. - Sat. 8 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Location: Southeast corner of Allende and Morelos. They have good baked goods, liquor, chips and cereal, hot dogs, rotisserie chicken, cheese and yogurt. There's a restaurant upstairs.

MORELIA - Services - Info Box

2007-03-25T08:31:00.001-07:00

LAUNDRY
American Klean Lavanderia
Location: Calle Nicolas Bravo, just south of the intersection with Calle La Corregidora. When you are walking west on Calle La Corregidora, you will see a sign at the intersection with Nicolas Bravo directing you to American Klean. This laundromat has four double loader washers, three triple loaders washers and two washers for even bigger loads.
Hours of operation: Mon. - Fri.9 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Sat. 8 a.m. - 6 p.m.
Sun. 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.

INTERNET CAFES
Internet y Mas
Location: Calle Allende, just west of the Michoacan Regional Museum.
Admission: 8 pesos per hour, about 80 cents, pennies compared to Kinko's.
Hours of Operation: Sun.-Sat. 9 a.m. - 9:30 p.m.

Chat Room Cybercafe
Location: El Nigromante 132 A.
Hours of Operation: Sun.-Sat. 9 a.m. to 10 p.m.
This chat room on Calle Nigromante has individual booths for about $1.80 an hour. You can also buy soft drinks and gaspachos and have them while
you are on the computer. Not a bad deal.

Centro Interactivo de Comunicacion
Location: 215 Melchor Ocampo, on the same block as Teatro Ocampo and Corral de la Comedia listed below.
Hours of Operation: Sun.-Sat. 8:30 a.m. -10 p.m.

BANKS
Banorte
Location: This bank is on Avenida Madero across from the cathedral.
Hours of Operation: Mon.-Fri. 9 a.m. - 4 p.m.
Sat. 10 a.m. - 2 p.m.
Sundays closed.
While I usually insist on cashing traveler's checks first thing in the morning (many banks stop cashing them in the early afternoon), I've been able to cash them at this bank as late as 2:30 p.m. with much greater ease than most banks I have worked with.

PHONE CALLS
Caseta Telefonica next to the Banorte on Avenida Madero charges six pesos per minute to call the U.S. That's about 60 cents a minute.
Hours of operation: Sun.-Sat. 7 a.m. to 10 p.m.

TOURISM OFFICE
Location: Corner of El Nigromante and Avenida Madero in the same building as the Biblioteca Publica Universidad.This is the main tourism office.
Hours of Operation: Sun.-Sat. 9 a.m. - 7 p.m.

CASA DE CAMBIO
Location: Next to the Secretary of Tourism on Calle Guillermo Prieto.
Hours of Operation: Mon.-Fri. 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Sat. 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Sun. Closed.

MORELIA - CATHEDRAL - Pictures

2007-03-24T15:38:00.001-07:00

MORELIA - CATHEDRAL - Story

2007-03-24T15:38:00.000-07:00

Sources give different dates for the beginning of construction on the Cathedral of Morelia. The sign in front says it began in 1600; others report the date around the mid-1600s. None of them have disputed that the baroque-style structure was designed by Vicente Barroso de la Escayola and that construction was completed in 1744.

The facade is a pleasant, not over-zealous, array of columns with scrolled capitals (tops of columns) and acanthus leaves. The sculpting of the Transfiguration of Christ shows an older, more solemn Christ than those I have seen in other Mexican cathedrals.
He opens his arms to the world as he ascends into the Heavens. The stone around him comes alive with tiny angels in flight. Sculptures of the Magi and the Shepherds stand in silent respect of the image.

A few parishioners move out of the carved wooden doors; smooth pink stone rushes up through the three levels of the facade past the weathered white images of Sts. Mark, Luke, Matthew and John that stare across Madero toward the Portales - arches that line the streets and broad walkways.

I cross busy Avenida Madero; just outside the cathedral's doors sits a woman holding a sweater over her face as she holds out a cup for change. I enter the cathedral where there are polished wooden benches filled with parishioners beneath a high ribbed ceiling with gold floral designs. They've come from throughout the city; men in plaid shirts, women in shawls with purses draped over shoulders.

There is a soft echo through the cavernous structure as the priest celebrates Mass. Vaults high above show panels of geometric designs and floral patterns in subtle colors of red and sky blue. Chandeliers help balance the overpowering height of the ceiling.

The central vault has a stained glass window with a picture of Christ ascending into the clouds, strong swirling lines creating a sense of movement.

There is movement down below, too. A young man with a daypack kneels and crosses himself, a cough breaks the stillness, a door booms as it closes. Mass is suddenly finished, and everyone pours into the streets.

I move forward, past chapels with gilded altars and deep red gladioluses and candles, painting of the Virgin, brass crucifixes. At the end of the aisle, there's an image of a dark-skinned Christ, arms stretched across a crucifix, wrapped in a purple loin cloth, and gold and brass stylized trees at the foot of the cross.Drawn in by the feeling of antiquity here, I think I'd like to know more about the history of Morelia; I leave the cathedral and head across Plaza Benito Juarez on the west side of the cathedral.

Plaza Presidente Juarez is a pleasant park with manicured ficus trees, towering feathery-leafed jacaranda trees and poinciana trees with bright orange blossoms. Couples stroll along broad walkways past sparkling fountains, a gazebo, a man in a wheelchair operating a newsstand. Others sit on stone benches. Trolley buses wait for their next load of tourists while teenagers in gray school uniforms and backpacks cross the plaza.

Two old Indian women with heavy square faces walk by, both carrying heavy loads wrapped in large dark blue rebozo shawls with yellow stripes. One stops while the other adjusts her load, then they both walk on. I continue toward the Museo Regional Michoacana.

MORELIA - MUSEO REGIONAL MICHOACANA - Pictures

2007-03-24T13:04:00.000-07:00

MORELIA - MUSEO REGIONAL MICHOACANA - Story

2007-03-24T12:54:00.000-07:00

I cross Plaza Presidente Juarez and turn right on Allende, past a small but popular cafe, Super Tortas Homero,which sells great tortas and quesadillas. I walk across the street to the Museo Regional Michoacana, which was originally a one-story home built in the 1600s; a second floor was added in the 1700s.

I check my backpack at the door where a man puts it on a shelf and hands me a number. I go up a winding staircase where various rooms take me through different periods in Michoacan history: the war for Independence, the French Intervention, the Porfiriato, the Mexican Revolution, the Lazaro Cardenas presidency (Cardenas was from Michoacan).

One room tells the story of Michoacan after the Spanish Conquest with old books, signs and huge paintings in earth colors. There's a glass case of Spanish armor, a sword, illustrations of Indian tribes trying to form alliances against the Spanish.

Other displays include a painting of Morelos in a blue uniform with red lapels and gold trim and a portrait of Hidalgo sitting in a chair. His studious eyes gaze out of the painting. He holds a piece of paper, and a white feathered pen rests in an inkwell.
Maps show the routes taken by Hidalgo as he excited the masses hungry for independence.

After Hidalgo died in July of 1811, the cause was taken up by Morelos, the most notable leader of the insurgency who had great charisma. He continued to lead the movement until December 1815 when he, too, was executed in San Cristobal Ecatepec.

Other rooms have old wooden chests, a flintlock rifle, and tack for mules used to transport corn and wheat. The room devoted to the Porfiriato has nice Victorian furniture with curved-back chairs, a carved wooden China cabinet, and a piano, paintings of Porfirio and other figures, old photos, ornate metal lamps with swirling lines, flowers and fish.

Light pours into one room through wooden shuttered windows, along with the rumbling of traffic and the splashing of water from the courtyard below. A model of a village in the Tierra Caliente - the hot country of Michoacan where Morelos preached after he was ordained as priest - reveals a community filled with activity.

A woman with a clay pot on her head stands outside stucco houses with terracotta roofs while a man with a serape slung over his shoulder walks by. Another man rides up the street on his horse, a church stands in the distance.

A mural on the north wall depicts men riding across a lake. One man with a long, flowing beard rides nude on his mount, a gray skeleton carries a lance, two others are clad in Spanish armor, one of them glaring at the naked man who reaches up to the sky.

The artist has managed to capture the frenetic energy of the moment, and I can hear the clattering of horses splashing through the lake, hooves and men flying in all directions with no discernible purpose.

To the right of this colorful mural is a black and white painting of Spanish soldiers firing cannons and blunderbusses. They appear to be firing at feathered Indians, all gray, in a painting on the left side of the mural, and the Indians are returning fire with arrows.

The first floor has rooms with explanations about local geology and displays of fossils, and then I find a huge mural with all the different ecological zones in Michoacan. Coastal regions, the Sierra Madres, La Tierra Caliente, mangrove swamps, pine woods, tropical forests and deserts, they're all here.

Below the mural, a glass case with stuffed animals shows the inhabitants of these different zones: shorebirds, a ring-tailed cat climbing up a branch, an armadillo rustling through leaves, a fawn looking for signs of danger, an anteater sneaking up on an anthill, a bat in flight, a crocodile, Gila monsters, chameleons, jaguars, ocelots, an iguana, grey foxes and salamanders, and so many more. The signs are a bit scattered about, but the meaning is clear: Michoacan is about diversity.

Michoacan's broad range of ecological systems, from coastal regions and mangrove swamps to tropical rainforests, pine woods and deserts is home to more than 100 species of fish, 200 species of reptiles and amphibians, about 500 species of birds, 130 species of mammals and several thousand species of insects and other invertebrates.

Michoacan's environmental diversity has also given birth to a varied human culture: the native people of this state have developed a rich artistic heritage, specializing in copperware, burnished clay, leatherwork, musical instruments; some of the state's native crafts originated here, but their reputation has reached throughout the world, thanks to the efforts of Casa de las Artesanias, - House of the Artisans. (See below).

MORELIA - MUSEO REGIONAL MICHOACANA - Info Box

2007-03-24T12:50:00.000-07:00

Museo Regional Michoacan
Hours of Operation:Tues-Sat.9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Sun.9 a.m.-4 p.m.
Location: Calle Allende, west of Plaza Benito Juarez
Entrance fee: $30 pesos. Entrance is free to students, teachers, children up to age 13, and people more than 60 years old.

MORELIA - Casa de las Artesanias - Pictures

2007-03-24T07:22:00.000-07:00

MORELIA - Casa de las Artesanias - Story

2007-03-24T07:07:00.000-07:00

If you want to get a feel for Michoacan's diversity, take a stroll through the Casa De Las Artesanias - House of the Artisans.

Walking in, you feel like you're shopping in a museum. Located in the Church of St. Francis on the Plaza Valladolid, its rooms are filled with copper ware from Santa Clara de Cobre, pottery from Ocumicho, guitars from Paracho, carved tables and chairs, dresses and wooden chests carved with flowers, all in bright shades of sea-green, ruby red and sky blue, a perfect reflection of Mexico's rich color. Obviously, some villages have defined themselves by developing their own particular technique.

When I first visited the Casa De Las Artesanias in October 2001, I was dazzled by rooms filled with silver bird jewelry from Lake Patzcuaro, red masks with snakes and horns from Uruapan, Tocuaro and other regions of Michoacan, and shiny black plates with leaves, flowers and birds in bold colors of red, green and blue.

Skeletons were dressed in vivid color, bringing life to the specter of death in recognition of Dia De Los Muertos, one of Mexico's most important holidays. Later visits to this marvelous place evealed numerous changes, indicating that it is a progressive enterprise, not stationary by any means.

To get to the Casa De Las Artesanias, I cross Plaza Valladolid, a spacious plaza of large rectangular blocks with rough steps and smooth stone benches. A large, three-tiered fountain with a cross at the top spews water into a large pool while children feed pigeons or snack on cotton candy from a vendor.

A young man squinting in the dim light carries an enormous stick with balloons shaped like Winnie-the-Pooh and other figures. A woman with the look of a young child in her eyes buys a green balloon; the vendor gets change from a nearby stand selling lottery tickets. "Gracias," says the woman with the green balloon as she takes her change and rushes to a waiting car.

The Church of St. Francis provides a soothing backdrop to the scene, providing a pastel of cast shadow that moves like the ripples of a quiet lake across the plaza.

The church was founded as a monastery in 1531 in the Valley of Guayangareo before Valladolid was founded 10 years later; the monastery covered several city blocks. The area of the plaza at the time was the churchyard and served as a cemetery until the late 1800s. The cemetery has since been moved.

On this particular trip in March 2005, I pass a woman selling Oaxacan tamales outside the door to the Casa; inside the store, surrounded by the distinctive craftsmanship from throughout the state, I become rather intrigued by their stories. Some of the glazed pottery has a peculiar beaded quality I can't recall seeing before, and the shop has plates with floral and animal designs made in the maque technique, a pre-Columbian craft which uses a mixture of oil from the axe insect and dolomia just spread over a wooden surface such as a bowl. Colored patterns are then placed on the surface in successive layers; each applied color takes a week to dry.

I'd like to know more about these crafts. Who made them? Where were they made? And how? After inquiring at the front desk of the visitors center, where they sell cassette tapes, videos and other items, I am directed upstairs where I meet Trinidad Martinez Garcia. Trinidad lived for several years in Sacramento, and I am thankful to meet someone who could explain, in English, the arts and crafts of Michoacan.

The pineapples, she says, referring to the strange beaded pots, are made in San Jose de Gracia. The artisans have a mold and they sort of pinch the pots to create the beaded pattern. It's a pre-Hispanic tradition.

Each of the towns have their own artisans. The Casa, she says, was founded about 36 years ago to support Michoacan's native craftsmanship; many of the villages around Lake Patzcuaro and other areas of this state were giving up their crafts because there was no money in it, and they were moving to the cities where many were forgetting their culture.

Casa de las Artesanias now promotes the survival of these ancient traditions by purchasing native crafts and selling them either here or in other shops in the United States, South America, and other parts of Mexico.

These are ancient Indian traditions, just a few of the many practices that define Michoacan's diversity, and that diversity is celebrated at Casa de las Artesanias. Numerous festivals are held throughout the year in numerous villages; the two main events are held in Patzcuaro for Day of the Dead in late October and early November, and on Palm Sunday in Uruapan.

MORELIA - Casa de las Artesanias - Info Box

2007-03-24T07:04:00.000-07:00

Casa de la Artesanias
Hours of Operation:Mon.-Sat.10 a.m. - 8 p.m.
Sun. 10 a.m. - 3 p.m.
Location: Plaza Valladolid in the Church of St. Francis at the convergence of Calle Juan de San Manuel and Bartolome de las Casas. You can reach the Plaza Valladolid and Casa de las Artesanias by turning south off Avenida Madero onto either Calles de San Manuel or Calle Vasco de Quiroga

MORELIA - Museo de las Dulces de Morelia - Pictures

2007-03-16T17:55:00.000-07:00

MORELIA - Museo de las Dulces de Morelia - Story

2007-03-16T17:51:00.000-07:00

As I walk into the Museo de las Dulces de Morelia on Avenida Morelia, the hot perfume of fresh candy hits me like a wave, mingled with the acrid smell of cooked fruit pulp.

This is another place where you can go shopping in a museum. Shelves of packaged or bottled sweets; obleas (wafers of goat milk candy); rompope, which is made of milk, cinnamon, egg and sugarcane liquor; candy-covered almonds, cookies, candy with strawberries, nuts, chocolate and coconut; fruit liquor made from figs, peaches, plums and apples.

And then there's the ate (ah-tay) made of a variety of fruits which is a trademark (one of several) that define this city. Myriad variations of this delicacy fill the shelves: laminillas, which are long strips of ate, and jalea, a type of ate made without fruit pectin, exude an intoxicating aroma that mixes with the smells of other candies and pastries, teasing the imagination, awakening the child in me.

Beyond the carnival of sweets, I step back in time, where museum employees dressed in 18th and 19th Century clothing demonstrate how people used to make ate. I enter an old kitchen with a round table and gourds, iron pots and ears of corn hanging from a wooden timber; clay pots sit atop a round stone kitchen island.

A woman in a gingham dress demonstrates how membrilla (quince fruit) pulp was once mixed with sugar and heated in a copper pot. She stirs the mixture with a wooden spoon, the propane fire (they do make some concessions to modernity) releasing the sweet, yet pungent, aroma into the air. The woman holds up the wooden spoon to show it doesn't drip.

The city's sweet tradition was started by a group of nuns of the Dominican Order of Santa Caterina de Sienna in 1595. The ate process originated in the Middle East, and Spain developed the technique further.
Here in Michoacan, the Indians already had a long tradition in pre-Columbian times of sweetening their foods with honey made of nectar from maguey, mesquite and prickly pear. As the nuns settled here, they began applying the ate process to local fruits, such as peaches, apples and guavas.

I walk farther back to a room where I watch a 10-minute film about the history of ate, and then a young man in puffed sleeves, tights and floppy cap explains a model of an 1840 factory with processing equipment and storage facilities where ate was made.

Raw paste is dried in tiny ovens, and figures of workers frozen for a moment of time roll out laminillas, and the finished product waits for pick up in storage facilities.

I leave the museum, passing through the old kitchen where the woman demonstrates for another group of visitors. The aroma of cooked pulp conjures images of old kitchens, strong hands rolling out strips of ate, unfettered heat peppering foreheads with eager perspiration, calloused wooden spoons stirring generations of fruit pulp over laboring ovens, loads of fruit being carried over strong shoulders to warehouses before their sweetness is liberated from their cloisters and reborn into a culinary magic; the cooks provide a doorway to that rebirth, like a caterpillar stepping through its chrysalis to become a butterfly.

I return to the present in the front part of the store; foot tall bottles of fruit Iiquor sell for about $17, smaller bottles sell for just under $3. Rolls of apple candy filled with cajeta and nuts go for about $2. Bars of ate in subdued colors of sea green or cinnamon run from less than $2 to just over $4.

I buy a package of ate and step outside to sample a thick, jelly-like dessert, sticky and joyously sweet, whose taste leaves a memory of its infectious delight.

MORELIA - INFO BOX - Dulces Morelianos de la Calle Real

2007-03-16T17:48:00.000-07:00

Dulces Morelianos De La Calle Real
Hours of Operation: Sun.-Thurs. 10 a.m. - 8 p.m.
Fri.-Sat. 10 a.m. - 9 p.m.
Location: Avenida Madero 440, between Calle De Juan Jose de Le Jarza and Calle Fr. Manuel de Navarrete.
It's two doors west of the Kentucky Fried Chicken.

MORELOS'S BIRTHPLACE - Info box

2007-03-16T17:40:00.000-07:00

Casa Natal de Morelos
Hours of operation:Mon. - Fri.9 a.m. - 8 p.m.
Sat. and Sun.9 a.m. - 7 p.m.
Location: Calle La Corregidora, east of Mercado Antojitos Mexicanos.
Entrance is free.

MORELIA - Morelos's Birthplace - Pictures

2007-03-16T17:35:00.000-07:00

MORELIA - Morelos's Birthplace - Story

2007-03-16T17:23:00.000-07:00

Morelos's birthplace - Casa Natal de Morelos - on Calle La Corregidora wraps around two small interior patios with potted plants. There's a stillness here, broken only by some popular music playing from a nearby room.

The house has several rooms, filled with old lithographs and drawings of the city, the cathedral, murals of Morelos and other independence fighters, maps of his military campaigns and his movements as a prisoner, coins minted by revolutionaries and insurgents, plus historical documents beneath glass cases.

There's a summary of his trial; most tragic is a lithograph of the 1815 execution of Morelos by firing squad. However, an inspiring letter written by the great leader says he will liberate America of slavery, and outside his memory remains free.

I step into the sunny courtyard with russet brick, rose bushes, purple Hawaiian ti, pink geraniums, Mexican heather and spreading orchid trees with violet blossoms. I pass a stone wall buttressed against the forces of nature and enter an enclosed area with a cantera floor and white stucco walls.

An image of Morelos with his hand over his heart faces a torch with a bright flickering fire. He's surrounded by flags from the Independence movement and the modern Mexican flag.

MORELIA - Casa de las Artesanias - Picture

2007-03-15T16:31:00.000-07:00

Morelia - Arched Portales Around Plaza - Photo

2007-03-15T16:27:00.000-07:00

MORELIA - Los Mirasoles - Photo

2007-03-15T16:22:00.000-07:00

Michoacan Still a Great And Safe Place To Visit

2007-01-25T14:46:00.000-08:00

EDITORIAL: MICHOACAN/Dec. 14, 2006
By Travis M. Whitehead

The drug-related violence in the Mexican state of Michoacan has plagued the newspapers and radio stations in recent days, creating a great deal of alarm and speculation among Americans. Mexican President Felipe Calderon has sent several thousand troops into the state in recent days to deal with a rash of executions and other violence stemming from the drug trade, giving rise to even more concern.
On Wednesday night I heard someone on the radio refer to Michoacan as a “cesspool” and as the “Al-Anbar” province of Mexico, in reference to a dangerous part of Iraq where many American service-members have died.
However, I was in Michoacan just a couple of weeks ago, and I didn’t track in any human sewage on my shoes, nor did anyone shoot me. In fact, I felt just as safe as I have on every other trip I’ve made to this marvelous state west of Mexico City during the last five years.
On my most recent visit to Michoacan, I went by the Casa de las Artesanias, a state agency which supports the artisans of Michoacan. The Casa, located in the Church of St. Francis in the state capital of Morelia, is filled with handmade guitars from Paracho, ceramic pumpkins from Zinapecuaro, and colorful handmade dresses from throughout the state. However, I couldn’t find a single drug runner, gunman or bandit anywhere, nor did I find any human sewage.
I walked a few blocks to the Museo de las Dulces de Morelia where the hot perfume of fresh candy hit me like a wave. Shelves of candy-covered almonds, fruit liquor, cookies and chocolate greeted me, along with packages of ate, the locally-made candy which is one of Morelia’s trademarks. There was also an area in the back with an old kitchen where a woman in period costume demonstrated how ate was made in the 1800s. But, still no gunmen.
I took a bus to see some friends in Paracho, but I stopped off in Uruapan on the way. Uruapan, the state’s second-largest city, is famous for its fine avocados and for several gunmen walking into a bar recently to throw some human heads onto the floor.
I had a breakfast of chilaquiles at Café Tradicional De Uruapan, an open-air restaurant with lively music and good coffee, then I walked a few blocks to the Parque Nacional Barranca del Cupatitzio. I took a walk through the tall jungle along broad walkways past playful fountains that fed into a rushing stream, relaxing in the tranquility of the late-morning sun. No drug traffickers were lurking in the shadows waiting to shoot me, and I didn't pass a single puddle of sewage.
I asked the taxi driver about the situation on my way back to the bus station, and he assured me he felt perfectly safe.
In Paracho, where I covered the guitar festival in August, I met a friend of mine, one of the local guitar makers. His main concern wasn’t drug runners, it was finding better ways to sell his guitars.
We did talk about the drug problem. Yes, it does exist, but it occurs more in other areas of the state where heavier rainfall produces better marijuana crops. Apatzingan, he said, has a lot of drug activity. If one person is doing it, he said, then everybody is involved.
I asked him if I would have any reason to feel in danger, and he said no. Most of the drug violence is between people involved in the drug trade.
It’s important to remain aware that there is danger in any part of the world at any time. You can get in trouble even in McAllen, if you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time. But the danger to American tourists in Michoacan, in my opinion, is no greater now than at any other time. All you have to do is be smart, avoid suspicious activity and travel in groups.

Sandra Juarez Cooks Corundas

2007-01-24T18:36:00.000-08:00

Corundas a Purhepecha alternative to tamales Oct./Nov. 2005
By TRAVIS M. WHITEHEAD
Monitor Staff Writer
travis @themonitor .com
MORELIA, Mch., Mexico — Sandra Guadalupe Ochoa Juarez expertly folded a long green carrizo leaf into a triangle, demonstrating how she prepares a local dish called corundas.
Juarez, 42, has rented her space in Mercado Antojitos Mexicanos next to Templo de San Agustin on Calle La Corregidor for 18 years, but her family has been in this same location much longer.
“I come from a long generation,” she said through interpreter Trinidad Martinez Garcia. “First it was my grandmother, and then my mother.”
It was just a few days before the Annual Day of the Dead Nov. 1 and 2, one of Mexico’s most important holidays.
Juarez opens everyday at 1 p.m. and closes at 11:30 p.m. While she usually takes a couple of days off each week, she didn’t expect to have any free time during the days before and after Day of the Dead.
On this particular afternoon, Juarez was speaking during a brief lull in her typically busy day at her cafe. Her café, Las Gueras, is one of many that occupy a space in the arcade. She estimated her family, beginning with her grandmother, has been in this location for at least 50 years. She herself began helping out before she was even a teenager.
“I like it,” she said. “I do enjoy cooking, meeting people, serving people.”
A warm breeze swept through the archway, carrying with it the sounds of traffic and music, mingling with the smells of enchiladas, grilling onions and sizzling dough. A pot of steaming atole (a corn meal drink that comes in different flavors, including cinnamon) sat on the stove next to pots of tamales and corundas.
Corundas are a regional recipe that originated with the local Purhepecha Indians. She makes them using corn masa, vegetable oil and baking soda.
“The masa is different from tamales,” she said. “The masa, the paste, is a medium grind for tamales, for corundas it’s a finer grind.”
Juarez explained that she adds vegetable lard to the masa for corundas “not pork lard, like tamales.”
“Add some baking soda, mix them all up,” she said. “When it’s all mixed up, you start putting it into a long leaf. You dish it with a spoon, wrap it, then leave it in boiling water.”
While many cooks use a corn leaf for the flavor, it’s difficult to bend so Juarez uses a carrizo leaf. During the busiest times of the year, when she expects large numbers of tourists, she makes up to 200 corundas at a time, putting them in layers in a big pot. This is a craft which she knows instinctively. When asked for a recipe, it was hard for her to explain the exact measurements. “If we make 200 corundas, 10 kilos of masa,” she said.
She estimated that much masa would require five teaspoons of baking soda and 10 teaspoons of oil. She said her busiest times of the year are around Christmas, Holy Week and, of course, the Day of the Dead.
“I’ll make about 200 corundas and 100 tamales,” she said, her eyes glimmering with anticipation.
Juarez doesn’t plan to change the menu anytime soon.
“Tacos al pastor, I don’t like them,” she said with a grimace. “Huchepos (another local Purhepecha dish) don’t sell. Corundas and tamales and atole sell very well.”
Juarez won’t be able to pass the tradition on the way it was to her; she has two sons, one of whom is studying economics and the other computer engineering. But all is not lost.
“I’m passing it on to my daughter-in-laws,” she said. “They are the next generation.”