beautiful dresses

Taking a walk, a nocturnal little cat brings the magnificence of Mexican folk art to your home. Zeny and Reyna hand-carve this alebrije figurine of copal wood, hand-painting the black cat with vibrantly colored intricate motifs. Small parts are separated for shipping to protect from breakage.

Alebrijes are a fairly recent Mexican art form, attributed to Pedro Linares. Unconscious due to illness in 1936, he was presumed near death and yet his dreams were extremely vivid. He tells of a place where all was peaceful and quiet until all of a sudden there appeared a lion with an eagle's head, a rooster with bull's horns and a donkey with butterfly wings. They kept screeching "alebrije, alebrije!" and Pedro began running away. He encountered a man who told him it was not yet his time to be there are and he should continue running towards the exit. In this dream Pedro climbed out of a window and regained consciousness.

This beautiful retablo depicts a lively market scene exploding with color. Peruvian artisan Julio Gallardo handcrafts the retablo frame from tornillo wood and paints it a creamy pale yellow with bold orange and blue flowers and warm brown trim. Inside, ceramic figurines, meticulously painted, manage a market stall selling woven textiles. Miniature woven cloth in bright colors and bold patterns hang above the market sellers. The retablo can be displayed on a table or hung on a wall by the metal hanger on the back.

Working in papier mache, Marina Lozano of Mexico creates this beautiful catrina statuette. The skeletal sculpture is elegantly dressed, with flowers in her hair and a macaw at her bosom. Lozano designs the figurine after the original "La Calavera Catrina", a zinc etching created by the artist José Guadalupe Posada in Mexico around 1910. Posada created the character, a female skeleton with an elegant hat, as a satirical portrait of Mexican natives who aspired to European style and denied their own heritage. The catrina has since become an emblem of Mexico's Day of the Dead celebration and a popular folk art subject.