The Portal Keeper / El Guardian del Portal

The Portal Keeper / El Guardian del Portal by Israel Alcala

 Alebrijes (Spanish pronunciation: [aleˈβɾixes]) are brightly colored Mexican folk art sculptures of fantastical creatures. The first alebrijes, along with use of the term, originated with Pedro Linares. After dreaming the creatures while sick in the 1930s, he began to create what he saw in cardboard and papier mache. His work caught the attention of a gallery owner in Cuernavaca and later, the artists Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. Linares was originally from México City (DF), he was born June 29, 1906 in México City and never moved out of México City, he died January 25, 1992. Then in the 1980s, British Filmmaker, Judith Bronowski, arranged an itinerant demonstration workshop in U.S.A. participating Pedro Linares, Manuel Jiménez and a textil artisan Maria Sabina from Oaxaca. Although the Oaxaca valley area already had a history of carving animal and other types of figures from wood, it was at this time, when Bronowski's workshop took place when artisans from Oaxaca knew the alebrijes paper mache sculptures. [Wiki]

“You use a glass mirror to see your face; you use works of art to see your soul”

~George Bernard Shaw 

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