Saturday, February 8, 2014

Peyote Desert

Yarn fixed on resin applied to foot-square board
Showing off our recently hung print from a local artist made me think of the art we have acquired in Mexico. My favorite works are by Huichol Indian artists from mountainous areas of Jalisco and Nayarit. Their art has a profoundly religious base. 

Huichol return annually to central Mexico to collect peyote for their ceremonies. This yarn "painting" by Cecilio Canillo Bonilla likely represents that mountainous desert region of origin--peyote cactus in foreground. Above and in the background are two shaman’s healing wands, each hung with a pair of eagle feathers. Corn silk rises in the center, just below the sun, centered in what--incongruously--appears to be a night sky.

There is a holy trinity in the Huichol faith. Corn is sustenance, and represents “meaningful work or activity in the present”*. Peyote is revered as “a means of release or escape into a world beyond time and space”*The trio is complete with Deer, not only Lord of the Animals, but the one who brought farming to the people. Deer is shown in the middle of the gourd bowl, below. 

Nowadays, most Huichol art in Yelapa is sold at Cafe Bahia. The artist/vendor humps down every couple of weeks or so from his mountain village by bus to Puerto Vallarta, and then water taxi to Yelapa. He is a small golden-brown man, immaculately--strikingly--dressed in white cotton, camisa and pantalones both beautifully and amply embroidered. What is most notable, though, is a broad-brimmed hat adorned with hanging feathers, more embroidery, a woven beadwork band, red fabric puffballs. 
A sleeping deer with peyote buttons

To show this amazing finery, a few weeks ago I took a picture of the artist, Alesandro, from whom I had purchased this beaded calabasa bowl. Still in Yelapa, while editing on iPhoto, I noticed he was not looking into the lens. I thought of the allegedly primitive people who are said to believe that a camera will steal your soul. Back at my desk in the States, I can no longer find his three images. Now they're some pixel specks lost in an almost infinite digital abyss. 

Stay strong, Huichol man!

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