Mexican yarn paintings

I am posting this message for the Art Gallery at Haifa University.

The Gallery has about 20 Mexican yarn paintings: colorful pictures made of wool strands glued to a plywood backing. They depict stylised symbolic and mythological figures and motifs in many colors. On the reverse of some of the works are poems handwritten in what seems to be a Spanish-Mexican dialect containing many non-Spanish words. Some of these texts are followed by names (signatures?): J. Jose Benite Sanchez and Reimundo de la Rosas. The Gallery also has 10 'god's eyes': wooden dowels tied together crosswise, wound with colored wool, to which are bound colored diagonal squares of wool.

We think these may be Huichol works. Can anyone give more information or suggest other sources? Did other Mexican peoples besides the Huichol produce this type of work?

Thank you.

Margaret Hayon

They are definitely Huichol. I don't know the sources to refer you to, but I know that the National Museum of American Indian Art (formerly the Heye Foundation) has a large collection of Huichol work (collected by my Uncle) and someone there would be able to suggest sources.

Sara

The Huichol do indeed produce the kitsuri (white folk call em God's Eyes) and yarn paintings you describe. See The Art of the Huichol by Peter Furst or Peyote Hunt by Peter Furst and Barbara Myerhoff. The yarn paintings were brought to UCLA by Ramon Medina who was working as a consultant for Furst and Myerhoff. Ramon and his wife Lupe were the subjects of the Peyote Hunt book (Cornell U. Press) and Ramon's paintings are still at UCLA. The popularization of the art has made an industry for the Huichol but Ramon was shot by members of the tribe for having picked up too much taint of the outside world. Pete Lee, Director of the Los Angeles Maritime Museum, made a film about the Huichol which I believe is titled 'The Life We Live' which is also at UCLA. Much of the writing of Carlos Castaneda in his first book concerning a fictional figure he called 'Don Juan' was actually based on the work found in Peyote Hunt including whole chapters which are inspired by the photos and text in the Furst and Myerhoff book. Contact the Museo de Los Artes Popular in Tijuana.

Paul Apodaca