Folk Art Fine Art
Sometimes the line blurs
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Catrinas
While their poses and outfits vary dramatically, these hand-sculpted clay or papier maché female skeletons are always grinning and garbed in finery from head to toe. Conceived by Mexican political satirist and engraver Jose Gualaupe Posada in the second half of the 19th century to illustrate the popular song “La Cucaracha,” he used La Catrina’s image to mock the social pretensions of Mexicans who were obsessed with all things French. Catrina is a Mexican term referring to someone dressed up in his very best.
Via the powerful media of newspaper cartoons, Posada was prolific in reporting on the Mexican mores of his time, the artist Diego Rivera calling him “the artist of the Mexican people, an interpreter of their joy and pain.”
Elaborately embellished with colorful, hand-painted clothing, sequins and lace, these whimsically elegant figures are reminders that regardless of how lavish our possessions, we’re all going to meet the same end where they won’t do us a bit of good.
Pointing out the futility of accumulating wealth, Catrinas became a popular symbol during the Mexican revolution. And they’re integral to the culturally important annual Day of the Dead celebrations, which have made lighthearted depictions of death a common motif in Mexican folk art. Today, throughout Mexico, artists continue creating an ever-expanding retinue of Catrinas and even Catrinos, so that none of us, rich or poor, forget our shared humanity.


Masks
Masks of the human face represent the three primary races that comprise the population of modern Mexico – Indian, Caucasian and Black – and to look at them is to recall Mexico’s history. The ancient Indians believed that covering one’s face with a mask removed the identity and soul of the wearer from the everyday world and they became someone or something else.
The mask-making tradition goes back long before the Spanish invaded, masked pageantry and dancing important aspects of ceremonial practices in Mexico to this day. Shamans wear transformation masks to contact the spirits, including those of animals – a frog if crops need rain or a jaguar when strength and agility are needed for a successful hunt and so on.
The Spanish introduced the concept of the devil, the two-horned demon that the Mexicans adopted as a kind of foil or jokester. Some diablo masks smile merrily and others are as varied as the roles they typify.
Most 20th-century Mexican masks are made of carved and painted wood with symbolic significance, but disguises portraying a combination of human and animal features are also made from leather, cloth, cardboard, wax, papier maché, rubber tires and metal cans.
The original pre-Hispanic lacquer technique is still used in some of the most prized masks, up to 20 coats of all-natural ingredients like seed oil and vegetable pigments rubbed in by hand, resulting in an exceptional patina.
Guerrero and Michoacan are leading mask-making states, artist Juan Horta making elaborate pieces carved from just one piece of wood.


Huichol Yarn and Bead Art
The Huichol Indians have rich ceremonial practices, but masking is not part of their tradition, with the exception of the First Fruits ceremony, when a simple wooden one is worn by a dancer who takes the role of a sacred clown. This style of mask is now being finely beaded and sold to tourists.
Living in secluded mountain villages in Jalisco and Nayarit, their lives are interwoven with sacred and magic mythology. Sustained by corn, peyote and deer, they use these symbols freely in their shamanic art, which originated with prayer bowls made of gourds and placed in caves as offerings.
Creating sacred objects of meticulous beauty as a way of honoring their relationship to the gods, today’s yarn painters use fine acrylic yarns in a rainbow of colors, the designs increasingly complex and time consuming. An ever-evolving art form, originally thick wool yarn was used in simplistic, traditional designs. Their intricate beadwork is also time intensive, tiny beads in precise patterns placed by hand on a sticky beeswax-pine resin mixture.
Called nierikas, or mirror images of God, the visionary peyote empowers their art, creative manifestations embodying the Huichol belief that we all make our own realities.