The Casa de la Cuesta folk art gallery and mask museum, The Other Face of Mexico, is a showplace for Mexican artists and craftpersons. Owners, Heidi and Bill LeVasseur, represent an exclusive group of Mexican artists and artisans and Bill is a long-time collector of Mexican ceremonial dance masks which are displayed in their own separate showroom. The Casa de la Cuesta gallery offers a truly unique look at Mexican culture through its craft. Items for sale include paintings, indigenous textiles, hand made paper, masks, handcrafted toys, milagros and more.
The Other Face of Mexico Gallery
By appointment only
Call 154-4324
Milagros: These artfully crafted items are fashioned out of charms known as Milagros or miracles. The individual Milagro is a symbolic object used to petition for a miracle. Someone who has broken an arm will offer a milagro arm. Someone who has been unlucky in love offers a heart. Someone who has lost a cow will offer a cow. Milagros are spiritual, magical and full of powerful energy.
In the Mexican Catholic church, one will often see statues of saints with their robes covered with the tiny offerings placed on the saint to ask for help or to express gratitude for a miracle. The Milagro objects offered at Casa de la Cuesta are the finest available. They are designed and crafted by Estela Ogazon of Mexico City. Estela has taken the individual charms and incorporated them into boxes, hearts, crosses, frames, and jewelry so that the spirit of the Milagro may be enjoyed by a broad audience.
Natividad Armador: Comes from the town of Juchitan in the state of Oaxaca. Natividad, whose native language is Zapoteco, learned the craft of Tehuan silk stitchery as a young girl. After receiving her degree in fine art from the Autonomous University of Bellas Artes in Oaxaca City, she discovered a unique method of combining this traditional stitching technique with modern design.
The result is silk embroidered art inspired by nature and native Oaxacan ritual. She has exhibited in several galleries in Oaxaca, Mexico City, Tucson, Arizona, Austin, Texas and Paris, France. Natividad is represented in San Miguel de Allende by Casa de la Cuesta.
Ceremonial Masks: Perhaps no other object reflects the true nature of Mexican indigenous culture, ceremony and spiritual complexity like the dance mask. Masked festivals dating back to pre-Hispanic times play an important role in the social and religious life of the Mexican people to this day.
Masks and the different dances that they are used for vary from honoring pre-Hispanic gods that would provide successful harvests, to satirizing the Spanish conquistadores, to celebrating the Easter (Semana Santa) Pageant, to commemorating the dead. Dancing with masks was also a popular way to conduct instructional morality plays among the Indian population such as the Christian Pastorela drama performed during the Christmas season. The collection of Mexican ceremonial dance masks on display in The Other Face of Mexico museum number over 400. Masks for sale number about 200.
Gumercindo Espaņa Oliveres began making toys over forty years ago. His family; wife, children and grandchildren work with Gumercindo, or "Chinda" as his friends call him, to make some of the most colorful, humorous and clever creations imaginable. His ingenuity in creating new toy designs has earned him recognition from the Fomento Cultural Banamex in 1996, and he recently has been featured in the book, Great Masters of Mexican Folk Art.
Gumercindo lives in the village of Santa Cruz de Juventino Rosas, about two hours from San Miguel de Allende. He visits Casa de la Cuesta about once a month to deliver his latest creations.
Humberto Trejo Gonzalez comes from the Otomi village of San Pablito, high in the mountains of Puebla where the populace still speaks a dialect of Otomi. He and his family are recognized for their creative designs in papel amate, handmade hammered paper. The paper is made from the bark of the Jonote tree by soaking the bark in a hot bath, using dyes that are natural; flowers, ash, bark, etc.
The pulp strips are then laid out on a board in a grid fashion and hammered with a flat stone until the grids merge creating sheets of paper. Humberto has developed several very interesting methods of decorating the paper with beads, with hand stitched fabric and with elaborate cut out designs that depict the various Gods of the Otomi. Casa de la Cuesta is very proud to represent and promote this Otomi tradition and the Trejo Gonzalez family of artisans.
My name is Blanca Estela Gomez Santiago. I was born on the 7 of July 1978 in the town of San Antonio Arrazola Xoxocotlan Oaxaca. When I was 11 years old I began helping a senora with her children. I really wanted to paint. The senora had an artisania store and she agreed to teach me to paint. In the beginning it was very difficult but little by little I learned and the years passed.
When I was 21 a friend invited me to come to San Miguel de Allende to paint tin boxes. I painted the boxes in the same style I learned in Oaxaca. Then I got married and had two children. I began painting for Sra Heidi and I hope to continue for a long time.
|
