November 18, 2002
Section: Front Page

Getting in touch with your inner armadillo

Amelia Hansen HALF MOON BAY -- These animals may be the creatures of your nightmares -- and your dreams. A turquoise lizard crouches, tail curved up, patterned feet splayed on the ground. A rounded lavender rabbit snarls in fear. Small, blue coyotes po
and basket making. Jacobo and Maria Angeles, a husband and wife carving team from Tilcajete, Oaxaca, learned wood carving as children. Both are descendants in a long line of carvers. Jacobo was taught by his father and grandfather, and Maria says her artistic lineage goes back as far as anyone in her family can remember. Now, the two, bolstered by a growing reputation at home and abroad, have taken their art and skills on the road to sell their work and educate people about the art of wood carving and Zapotecan culture. , STAFF WRITER Last week the couple drove for five days, all the way from Oaxaca to Half Moon Bay, where their work is being shown at the Nuestra Tierra gallery on Main Street. In addition to selling their original pieces, they are are also giving demonstrations and lectures in the shop and at local schools. Jacobo, 30, says his favorite animal to carve is the coyote, which he believes is his "nagual," or kindred animal spirit. Maria, 26, likes the coyote and the armadillo. For both Jacobo and Maria, sharing their art is also about sharing their history.

"We are very concerned about losing our Zapotec culture," Jacobo said in Spanish while gallery owner Charles Nelson translated. "We want other Oaxacans, like those living here in Half Moon Bay, to feel proud of who they are."

At a woodcarving demonstration at Hatch Elementary School on Friday, Jacobo and Maria visited a bilingual Spanish immersion class where several of the students were from neighboring villages in Oaxaca.

"I was overjoyed to see the Zapotecan faces," said Jacobo. "You could see on their faces they were proud to be from our area. You could see it was easy for them, for once, to say they're from Oaxaca."

Mexican nationals are not the only ones fascinated by Zapotecan culture and art.

Louise Jeffredo-Warden, a Moss Beach resident who purchased two small rabbit sculptures Sunday, said she is grateful to the gallery for bringing Indian artists to the area and highlighting their work.

"I'm a California Indian and I can say the art world is often devoid of attention to the native and indigenous arts," she said. "There is a large Latino population in this area. Shows like this do a lot to educate people, help them develop a greater respect for how difficult and ancient these art forms are."

Judging by the reaction of many gallery patrons, education is a natural result of the initial response to the sculptures: delight.

"The colors are amazing," said one visitor who brought her own camera to photograph the sculptures.

Marty Renault and her husband, Dennis, purchased a large rabbit sculpture from the gallery a couple months ago and brought it back to have Jacobo and Maria fix a small crack. Renault, an artist and folk art collector, says the expression on the rabbit's face is what grabbed her right away.

"It's snarling, but it looks kind of scared," said Renault. "It's beautiful, but you also get the feel of the body language, that it's a threatened rabbit."

Depending on its size, each animal can take anywhere from a few days to a few months to complete. The artist first selects a piece of copal, the soft and much-coveted wood found in the Oaxacan Valley, then visualizes what kind of animal best suits the wood. After the animal has been carved, it is allowed to dry and finally is painted.

Larger animals, like the armadillo Maria labored over on Sunday, take two to three weeks to paint.

Their efforts seem to be paying off. Jacobo has been invited to give a carving demonstration at the Smithsonian Museum in December and will most likely also do a show in New York.

While Maria and Jacobo come from farming families and still grow corn and and beans when they're not carving, most of their time is now spent on their art.

"Now we want to promote our artistry," said Jacobo, as he continued to turn a pale piece of wood into a ram. "What we want is for other artists from Oaxaca to also be able to prosper."

(c) 2002 San Mateo County Times. All rights reserved. Reproduced with the permission of Media NewsGroup, Inc. by NewsBank, Inc.