Roses and Revelations: Homage to the Virgin by Mexican textile artists

by Joyce Wycoff 

Update: If you haven't had a chance to see this amazing show, the date has been extended to April 28. Here is a short video which will give you a sense of it. Linda Hanna, organizer of the show, reports that it will travel to Coyoacán in November, 2019. We will give you details of that show when available.

Click here to view video of the show

More about the show:

A unique, textile exhibit honoring the Virgin of Guadalupe and representing the work of textile artists from 52 Mexican communities will open at the State Museum of Oaxacan Folk Art (MEAPO) in San Bartolo Coyotepec, Oaxaca in December. The inauguration will be at 1:00 pm on Sunday, December 9. The show will be up until March 15, 2019. (Date extended to April 28.)

Artist: Pascuala Vásquez Hernández
Zinacantán, Chiapas.

The Virgin of Guadalupe is an omnipresent theme in the work of Mexican artisans and began to fascinate Linda Hanna, conceptualizer of this exhibit, at an early age on her first trip to Mexico.

Artist: Faustina Sumana García
San Juan Chilateca, Oaxaca.

Linda explains, "I first became aware of the Virgin of Guadalupe during a trip to Mexico that my family took in 1959. I watched as the devout approached the Basilica on their bandaged and sometimes bloody knees. This made a big impression on me at the age of thirteen, even though I was not Catholic."

The reverence for Guadalupe, fascinated Linda and she began to study the Virgin’s history starting with the miracle of her revelation on the cloak of Juan Diego, a local indigenous man, to the banner made in 1810 by the priest Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, featuring the Virgin in an effort to unite the people of Mexico in a struggle for independence, to her ever-present image throughout Mexico. 

Artist: Margarita Avendaño Luis
Pinotepa de Don Luis, Oaxaca.

After living in Oaxaca for a few years, Linda organized the first “Virgin Playday,” a festive gathering on December 12th (the Virgin’s saint day) in which women come together in her folk-art filled home to make their own sculptures of the Virgin. In 2017 there were almost forty participants and it triggered an idea.

Seeing women coming together to make art honoring the Virgin gave Linda the idea for creating a Virgin of Guadalupe exhibit featuring clothing made by individual, textile artists from various regions of Mexico and representing many different techniques. Because Linda knows so many textile artists she was able to pull together work from ten states of Mexico: Oaxaca, Chiapas, Colima, Guerrero, Jalisco, Mexico (State), Michoacán, Puebla, Tlaxcala and Yucatán. The exhibit includes not only clothing, but also accessories, such as bags, shawls and jewelry, items worn close to the heart.

Artist: Hever Martínez Velasco
San Pedro Cajonos, Oaxaca.

Linda describes how the artists have responded to being included in this project:

"In many conversations I had with the artists, I was moved by their sincere enthusiasm and the honor they felt at being given the opportunity to depict the Virgin. One artist even went to his church to have his thread blessed and to pray for guidance in capturing the beauty of his muse. 

Artist: Gildardo Hernández Quero
San Pablo Villa de Mitla, Oaxaca.

For most, this commission meant coming to terms with the limitations of an ancestral process and innovating in order to accomplish the desired result. For these reasons, there is a certain transcendent quality about these pieces that distinguishes this collection.”

In addition to recruiting the artists and planning the details of the show, she plans to make it a traveling exhibition and will talk more about that and the show at the Oaxaca Lending Library at 5pm on January 4 and February 1.

Artist: Enriqueta Cenobio Calixto
San Felipe Santiago, Estado de México.

-- Linda Hanna has been an avid supporter of local folk art since she first moved to Oaxaca in 1997. Prior to that, she spent fifteen years working as a fiber artist and therefore has profound appreciation for the textile traditions and talent found in many Oaxacan communities. For the past 14 years she has acted as coordinator for the Oaxacan artists who participate in the annual craft show Feria Maestros del Arte. She operates a Bed & Breakfast out of her home: www.folkartfantasy.com

Huichol Center Nominated for Nobel Peace Prize

by Marianne Carlson
(Excerpts taken from the actual nomination)

Feria Maestros del Arte is proud to announce that one group we have supported since the first Feria, the Huichol Center for Cultural Survival and the Traditional Arts, has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.

The Drugs Peace Institute (DPI) in the Netherlands is an organization that is qualified to nominate candidates for the Nobel Peace Prize.  Their sponsorship of the humanitarian foundation founded and directed by Susana Valadez highlights the contributions stemming from her anthropological background and the accomplishments of her life’s work with the Huichol (also known as the Wixárika) people.

Her representation of the Huichol people for their Nobel Peace Prize nomination attests to her steadfast commitment to mitigate the ominous threats that face the endangered Wixárika people and their enduring spiritual traditions. The DPI holds in high regard her 40-year commitment after marrying into the culture in 1977, to a problem-solving strategy that addresses the paramount importance of safeguarding the existence of the Wixárika First Nations people as a dynamic ancient Mexican tribe in the modern world.

Susanna’s dual existence as a U.S. born outsider who has lived for decades as a Wixárika insider, has placed her in a solid position of acceptance and strength to work on their behalf in the global arena, which she has done in good faith and to their satisfaction for decades.

Adriaan Bronkhorst of the Drugs Peace Institute, Nobel Peace Prize qualifier writes: "We are trying desperately to save the natural world, although we continue turning it into a garbage can. After all, what do our small efforts matter if governments and the captains of industry promote toxic waste on unimagined levels? 

The way out of the global ecological suicide and the economic model sustaining it seems almost impossible. Maybe it is, but as long as we believe in the possibility of a future for our descendants, we must look for alternative ways of development. The Huichol people do give us an example of a spiritually rewarding life coupled to a deep respect and devoted care for the natural environment, enabled by their wise and respectful use of the mind-altering peyote.



We are therefore happy to propose the Huichol people, represented by the Huichol Center for Cultural Survival and the Traditional Arts in the person of its director Susana Eger Valadez, for the nomination of the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize, in the hope that this candidacy will draw attention to the valuable example the Huichols offer the world.

Established nearly three decades ago within the rugged mountains of the Sierra Madre Occidental, The Huichol Center and its founder, anthropologist Susana Valadez, strive to empower both Huichol individuals and communities across the country to maintain their spiritual, artistic and cultural heritage by preparing them to coexist with the outside world on their own terms. With careful planning and education the Huichol people can thrive in today’s world without sacrificing their native traditions or language.

Despite very difficult present-day social conditions, as a first Nation, the Huichol people have preserved the spirituality of their pre-historic hunter past in an agricultural society. When focus is on the respect for the fundamental freedoms of religion and cognitive knowledge, the Wixárika ritual’s use of peyote can be appreciated as the rigorous ceremony of their most sacred quest for life on earth, and the road to return, enriched and empowered with spiritual knowledge and all the blessings of their Gods.

These people show us an exemplary way to use and preserve the mind-altering medicines of nature for the spiritual and physical benefit of its individual users and society at large. This nomination will hopefully obtain UNESCO protections of Wirikuta peyote lands and their other sacred locations of the Wixárika people.

Whether or not you agree with the Wixárika people’s use of peyote in their rituals is not what is of importance in this narrative. All of us who have participated in Feria Maestros del Arte and marveled and admired the incredible bead and string art of the Huichol, must agree that wherever they acquire their inspiration, the spirituality of these people is reflected in the love and detail they put into every piece of art they produce.

If you wish to read the entire Nobel Peace Prize nomination, please go to http://drugspeaceinstitute.org/pages/19_nobelcampaign_intro.html