Reposted with Permission - A FaceBook Entry from Ann Updegraff Spleth
Oaxaca, day 4. If you’re not interested in folk art or archeological stuff, just scroll on by.
This has been an outstanding day. We had another day planned with our amazing guide Benito from Sunday’s adventures. One of the things we wanted to accomplish was to find the Blanco family to see if one of them would be willing to restore several pieces of a nativity made by the famous Teodora Blanco. https://www.fofa.us/ceramics/terracotta
We received the nativity as a gift from the Geist church staff several years ago. It’s an extraordinarily rare treasure, but several pieces had been damaged over the years, before we received it.
It took meeting with multiple family members, but we finally connected with Teodora’s son Luis. He was reluctant at first but he did confirm that the piece we brought with us (bambino Jesus) was definitely his mother’s work. This was a HUGEly important moment. We have an additional six pieces at home which need repair.
The more we talked (through Benito interpreting), Luis became more and more interested in our project. I showed him photos of the other pieces we have which need restoration. Once he realized we did not need this work done immediately, and (I believe) felt our passion for the incredible work his mother pioneered, he agreed to take on the restoration. He requested that we have a special crate built, strong enough to protect the fragile objects for transport. Benito offered to be a go-between, to have the items shipped to him and he would take them to Luis.
(Part of his reluctance, we learned, was that the Mexico City archeological museum is doing a huge exhibition soon of Teodora’s work and the various ways her descendants have carried out the tradition. So everyone in the family is busy preparing for the event.)
So grateful and humbled by being entrusted with this rare treasure, and for having been in the presence of Mexican arts royalty today.
By the time we finished all the discussion and were preparing to leave, Luis took my arm to make sure I navigated the rocky terrain to Benito’s van safely. I guess he decided we were ok people after all.
The rest of the day included a trip to the incredible ruins of Monte Alban, where a whole Zapotec city was created on the top of a mountain. Stone hand tools leveled the mountain into a mesa and a vast city was built. It was abandoned 1000 years before the arrival of Columbus! We also visited a community famous for black pottery, and the home of a man harvesting ancestral agave (wild, not cultivated) to make some amazing mescal. Also a great lunch near Ocotlan.
So. Very. Grateful.