News from Ridge Art

NEW SHIPMENT OF FOLK ART FROM PUEBLA, MEXICO

We have just received a shipment of folk
art from our spring trip to Puebla, Mexico.
The shipment includes masks (all danced),

totomoxtle (corn husk) Cristos, antique

nichos, amate paper (bark paper) and more.

While we were in the State of Puebla we

took the long bus ride to San Pablito, an
Otomi village in the Northern Sierra

Mountains, where most of the villagers

are engaged in making amate paper from

tree bark. In fact, all of the amate used throughout Mexico comes

from San Pablito. You've probably seen paintings on amate sold by

street vendors in most of the tourist areas. Amate used to be made

throughout Mexico, but today the craft only survives in San Pablito.

The paper we brought back is unlike that sold to tourists. Same

innovative artists have started producing interesting woven amate

and amate with traditional Otomi embroidery incorporated into it.

The gallery has amate suitable for framing as art and some beautiful

amate sheets suitable for scrap booking and other projects.

A few years ago we made our first foray into the labyrinth created by some enterprising artists on the Grand Rue in Port-au-Prince. During that visit we met the sculptor who calls himself Guyodo. We bought a number of the whimsical figures he carves out of automobile tires. Since that time the security issues in Haiti prevented us from returning. But security is beginning to improve in the city, so we went back in June with a couple of our friends who were visiting Haiti for the first time.

The scene is pretty amazing with a 12' tall assemblage piece of Guede with a 5' penis dominating the open area. We couldn't bring back that piece, but we did find some wonderful small Guede pieces by an artist named Jean Claude Saintilus. (Click on the photo to the left to see more work.) The Grand Rue artists are rapidly developing an international reputation. Their work was included in a group show of Haitian sculptors at Florida International's Frost Art Museum and in February they were invited to exhibit and create work in Britain by the Museum of Liverpool.

In August through mid October the Glass Curtain Gallery at ColumbiaCollege in Chicago will host Guyodo and Andre Eugene of the Grand Rue sculptors during its show of contemporary Vodou art from Haiti entitled "Vodou Riche." Curator Neysa Page-Leiberman says she chose the title "Vodou Riche" to counter the common description of Haiti as "the poorest nation in the western hemisphere." On the contrary, Haiti's culture and artistic achievements are incredibly rich and varied. No where is this more evident than in the domain of the Grand Rue artists who are creating brilliant pieces out of the detritus found in Haiti's streets and alleys.