Oaxaca handicrafts - Alebrijes

From Oaxaca, Mexico, Earth Alley brings you Alebrijes - wonderful and whimsical carved animal figures. Oaxaca is known as one of the cultural centers of Mexico and Alebrijes are some of their most famous handicrafts. The first alebrijes, along with use of the term, originated in the 1930s. The Oaxaca valley area already had a history of carving animal and other types of figures from wood, and the original alebrijes were adapted to the carving of a local wood called copal. This version of the craft has since spread to a number of other towns, most notably San Martin Tilcajete and La Union Tejalapan.

Earth Alley found these beautifully hand-crafted wooden figures at the family studio of Joaquin Hernandez Vasquez in San Martin Tilcajete, Mexico. Located about 20 kilometres from the capital city of Oaxaca, San Martin Tilcajete is home to many families of wood carvers who have developed this unique carving tradition during the past two generations. Each alebrijes or animalitos, is hand carved and hand painted from the local copal wood and at times also from a local citrus tree.

In true handicraft tradition, creating these figures is truly a family affair with everyone helping out in all aspects of production. Often you will find the men carving the figures from visions that the wood is telling them to make, and their wives or other female family members help to paint the intricate details on each piece. No two alebrijes are the same and each stroke is made by hand.

We visited San Martin again this past January and have a great new collection of these animals in all shapes and sizes. Walking into Joaquin’s studio is truly a memorable experience. From wall to wall, on floor-to-ceiling shelves and crowding long work benches, his studio overflows with these colorful, magical animalitos. Animals real and imagined are depicted and painted in bright, flowery designs. It is a feast for the eyes and for the imagination.

Other Oaxacan handicrafts we discovered are hand-made purses from a women’s co-op just outside of Oaxaca. Weaving on a loom is also a deeply help tradition where grand-mothers, daughters, cousins and grand-daughters come together to keep the art of weaving alive. All the hand bags are sewn by hand or on the communal sewing machines. Hand-carved gourds, some leather work, hammocks are seen sporadically here and there as well as the popular hand-painted tin - but the hand-bags are what really caught our eyes. Oaxaca is not traditionally known for silver jewelry making. Mexico leaves that larger task up to Taxco and other cities; however, when we find a few jewelry makers in the mix it truly is a treasure. Seashells from neighboring vicinities are imported then dyed and worked in Oaxaca into colorful shell necklaces.