Artful sculptors of whimsy.

• Author: Masuoka, Susan
• Position: Mexico's Linares family of papier-mache artisans - Includes related articles

FOR NEARLY HALF A CENTURY, THE LINARES FAMILY OF MEXICO HAS SHAPED A LIVING TRADITION IN PAPIER-MACHE

On the morning of March 27, 1957, a fiery explosion changed Mexican folk art forever. On that day, an illegal cache of dynamite exploded on the outskirts of Mexico City, killing eleven persons, injuring over a hundred, and leaving many more homeless. At the same time, the incident led to an official ban of any explosive whatsoever, including the simple firecrackers tied to papier-mache Judases that Mexicans traditionally burned the day before Easter.

For the artisans who created these papier-mache figures, or cartoneria, it was the Judases that comprised the bulk of their yearly production, and now many such workers were out of business for good. One group of artisans, however, the Linares family of Mexico City, had already begun diversifying the types of figures they made and now turned their full attention to such production. They created wild, whimsical, baroque animals--with composite parts of horns, talons, and wings, for which they coined the term alebrije. And, they found, these figures were more profitable than the Judases had been. "We were so surprised that we could actually get four pesos for a small alebrije, when a larger Judas only sold for two pesos," recalls Enrique Linares. The Linares family fine art of papier-mache was on its way.

For more than four decades, the Linares family has been creating bizarrely imaginative composite animals and animated skeletons that dance, ride skateboards, and drive street trolleys. These individual creations hail from a folk art tradition of seasonal fiesta fare of papier-mache, but the Linareses have exceeded the confines of the craft through personal inventiveness and expression in each individual piece. The six Linares artists who now practice the art follow the tradition developed by their wry, lively family patriarch, Don Pedro, who died in 1992 at age eighty-five. Leaving behind a legacy not only of the art but also of playful humor that infused his creations and everyone around him, Don Pedro has been the model for successive generations of family artists.

The second generation of Linares artists who now devote themselves full-time to the craft--Pedro's three sons, Enrique (sixty-one), Felipe (fifty-eight), and Miguel (forty-eight)--are well established, with orders from numerous clients that keep them busy and on a demanding schedule. As anthropologist Victor Inzua Canales completed a study of the Linares family in 1978, he questioned whether members of the younger generation would "lose the ability, and perhaps the artisan tradition," since several of them had expressed aspirations for "a professional career." Three grandsons, however, have since taken up the trade: Felipe's sons, Leonardo (thirty-one) and David (twenty-seven), and Miguel's son, Ricardo (twenty-eight), add a fresh...