Jacobo Angeles Oaxaca Woodcarvings
Jacobo Angeles is the name of a man who is currently one of the most recognized names in Oaxaca woodcarvings. A man whose works can now be seen on display in major galleries the world over. Including the Smithsonian institute. A man who first began learning the craft at the age of twelve, from his father.
His Sculpture is Referred to as Alebrijes
Today he still lives with his two children and his wife where his family has roots that go back several generations, in a Zapotec village in the Oaxaca Valley of Southern Mexico. He works as he has always done, with the wood of the copal tree to produce sculpture that's commonly referred to as "alebrijes".
Its Origins Date Back Hundreds of Years
The origins of what he does date back to the time before the Spanish arrived in the 1500s. Back to a time when the indigenous people used coloured carvings from wood to depict and symbolize local mythology and the characters that played their parts in it.
Jacobo Angeles Ancestral Roots
Jacobo Angeles likes to explain to his visitors that his ancestors used a 20-day calendar and each day in that calendar was represented by a different animal. What animal a person was represented by, depended on which day they were born. He explains that much of the carving of that time revolved around those animals.
Oaxaca Woodcarvings of Today
Of course, along with so many other changes that have taken place since those very early times, Oaxaca woodcarvings now go off on any tangent or whim that each artist might choose. The end result is incredibly colourful and characterized works, often depicting images that are visualized during dreams.
Still a Tedious & Time Consuming Process
One thing that hasn't changed with Jacobo Angeles's work, however, is the level of meticulous detail that goes into his Oaxaca woodcarvings that are still handcrafted using traditional carving and finishing tools. A tedious and time-consuming process that can have him working on a single piece for up to a week.
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