Mexico: Day 4

by Kathy 8. May 2009 14:40

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Oaxaca; San Martin Tilcajete

The Oaxaca valley is scattered with small villages (pueblos) that specialize in various types of art. This morning we traveled to the small town of San Martin Tilcajete, which is famous for its colorful wood carvings (sometimes called "alebrijes"). The drive took about 40 minutes. Here is a view of the countryside we passed along the way:

I had read some articles about the beautiful wood carvings of Jacobo Angeles, who has exhibited his work all over the world, and who lives in San Martin Tilcajete. One of the articles mentioned that his studio was "at one end" of the town. I thought that perhaps there might be a sign in town, indicating where to go (silly me!). When we reached the town, we discovered that there were very few street signs or street names:

Although we didn’t find the Angeles studio, the main plaza contained a small market with other work carvers and craftspeople displaying their creations.

I saw this beautiful paper mache figure (shown below with the artist, Xochitl Fuente):

Normally, we do not buy many things on our journeys—we travel light, with only two small suitcases for the four of us, and we don’t have much room for souvenirs. Although I walked away, the figure kept calling me back. I tried to talk myself out of making the purchase; logistically, the figure would not fit in our luggage (and would be squashed even if it did fit), so I would have to carry her around for the rest of the journey—and since the figure was made from paper mache, I would have to be careful that she didn’t get crushed or broken along the way. The many reasons why not to make the purchase, however, were completely outweighed by the heart connection that I had made with the artwork. (Despite the inconvenience of schlepping this figure through the rest of Mexico—making sure that she didn’t get damaged in our teeny tiny rental car or in the overhead bins of two airplanes—she arrived home safely, and I now get great pleasure from viewing her every day in my home!)

We had lunch at Azucena Zapoteca, a restaurant that was located just outside of San Martin Tilcajete.

The restaurant had a small playground for the children, and Genevieve made friends with a girl on the swings.

Genevieve can speak a handful of Spanish sentences, so she was able to find out that the girl was six years old and that her mother worked in the adjacent store. And, as usual, Genevieve and Sebastian enjoyed playing together:

Back in Oaxaca, we discovered that the Museum of Contemporary Art had finally opened—it had been closed for the installation of a new show. What a fabulous collection of art—we wandered through all of the gallery rooms, saying "Wow!" over and over. This piece was really intriguing, with its folds of clay creating patterns and shadows (sorry, I didn’t write down the artist’s name):

The deconstructed chair (by Dámian Ortega) was a big hit with all of us:

While I was admiring one of the sculptures in the museum, I noticed that across the room was a man with a very large, professional-looking video camera aimed at me--my first instinct was to step back to get out of the camera's range. (I don't even want to start psychoanalyzing what that instinct means about my personality--ha!) When we had completed viewing all of the artwork, the man approached us, accompanied by a very beautiful, polished woman holding a microphone. They wanted to interview us, in Spanish, about our experience at the museum. After a brief hesitation, we decided, "Why not?!" The woman asked us questions about how we liked the museum's artwork, where we lived, what was our impression of Oaxaca, how long we would be here, what else have we seen, and other related topics. Ben did most of the talking--while I probably have a better "technical" grasp of the Spanish language and can read and write it on a decent level, Ben has much more bravado than I do when it comes to speaking (although I did overcome my shyness quite a bit during this trip!). It was only after the interview was over, and we had said our farewells and were laughing with relief and a bit of wonder over the experience, that we realized we had forgotten to ask the woman what the interview would be used for. We can only imagine . . . .

We ate at a restaurant right on the Zócalo; there was a large band playing on a stage near the restaurant, so we were serenaded with classical and jazz music while we dined. Afterwards, Sebastian finally got to indulge in some cotton candy (he had kept his eye on the cotton candy vendors during dinner).

Walking back to the hotel, we saw some street entertainers . . . very similar to those that we have in San Francisco (and many other parts of the world).