Artes De Mexico: Bestiario Artesanal

By Margarita de Orellana, José Luis Trueba Lara, Marcelo Abramo, Antonio Cruz Coutiño, Andrés Henestrosa, Fabio Morábito, Roberto J. Witlaner, Macario Matus, Alberto Ruy Sánchez

A Zoo of Crafts. This issue spotlights handicrafts that feature in fascinating stories told about animals in indigenous communities around Mexico. Oral tradition is the most common source of these intriguing fables, which are often anonymous and tend to reveal aspects of a community’s culture, handed down from one generation to the next. All the stories compiled here share a unique wit in their unexpected details, taking the reader by surprise. In this zoo of crafts, folk art exhibiting a wide diversity of styles and materials shares the magazine’s pages with clever morality tales whose unusual crafting represents peculiar worldviews.