Alebrijes: The most colorful creatures from the Mexican imagination.
Have you ever seen colorful fantastical creatures in the streets of Mexico but you weren’t sure what they were? In this article, we’ll tell you all about the magical handicraft of the alebrijes.
Alebrijes are fantastic creatures created by Pedro Linares López, a cartonero (Mexican traditional artisan who works sculpting figures, toys and masks with cardboard and paper mache) from Mexico City. He became unconscious due to an illness and it was in his deep sleep that the hallucinatory beings that would later be reincarnated in cardboard figures and vibrant colors emerged. He received the National Prize of Sciences and Arts in the category of Popular Arts and Traditions in 1990.
Alebrijes are usually a mix of several animals: the head of a lion and the body of a crocodile or the body of a fish with dragon wings, for example. They are originally made of cardboard, although in Oaxaca they are carved from copal wood. In addition, they are painted with bright colors and various floral and plant motifs are added all over the body.
In the artisan towns of San Martín Tilcajete (an hour and a half from the capital of Oaxaca) and San Antonio Arrazola (half an hour away) the townspeople are dedicated to the elaboration of alebrijes.
Many master artisans still extract the attractive colors from natural pigments, such as lime, honey, wood from the copal tree itself, ground copal, cochineal, indigo and lemon juice. However, many others use acrylic paint for its durability.
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