Mexican Folk Art
Diablitos in the Details: The Curious Tale of Mexico's Most Peculiar Pottery
By Hunter Oatman-Stanford — In the rural Mexican state of Michoacán, devils, mermaids, saints, sun gods, and drunks can all be found mixing it up and having a great time. Each of these characters, and many more, inhabit the strange universe depicted in sculptures produced in the tiny town of Ocumicho. "Though sanitized into angels and last-supper scenes for tourist markets, authentic Marcelino figures are almost always obscene." These bizarre pottery tableaux feature hybrid scenes from everyday life, religious...
Homespun Beauty: Jim Linderman on Folk Art’s Authentic Appeal
By Maribeth Keane and Bonnie Monte — My interest in 20th-century American self-taught art came about after I had gone through a million other things—from stamps to bootleg records to books about who killed JFK. I had been at CBS News in New York City for about 8 or 10 years, and I was kind of burned out from working too hard and drinking too much. So I just stopped doing both for a while. It was 1981, and the art scene was exploding. The most entertaining thing to do in New York at the time was to go gallery hopping....