Oaxacan Alebrijes: History, Craft, and Artisans

Explore the history of Oaxacan alebrijes, from Pedro Linares López's inspiration to Isidoro Cruz's influence. Discover the craft, copal wood carving, & the artistry in San Martín Tilcajete.

Many of the alebrijes and similar jobs seen for the first time outside of Oaxaca, were carved by Isidoro Cruz, increasing recognition of the craft and developing the imagery of Oaxacan “artesanías” (handmades). Following his passing away in 2015, Casa Cruz is his tradition in Tilcajete, one of the many alebrije workshops trading in the town and embellished with a striking mural of the guy himself on its outer wall surface. Casa Cruz is discovered straight throughout from the Ángeles workshop, showing just how the male’s influence proceeds to shape the alebrijes craft.

Origins of Alebrijes

Pedro Linares López, a craft musician living in Mexico City in the 1930s, first came up with the term, offering it to his papier-mache fantastical figures. Manuel Jiménez Ramírez, another artist from Oaxaca, met Linares and took the alebrijes principle to his home state, where the medium changed to copal wood. Jiménez was from the community of San Antonio Arrazola, which shares the craft of wooden alebrijes with an additional town called San Martín Tilcajete.

Tilcajete’s Alebrije Tradition

The historic string obtains vague here, as it is not particular when Tilcajete took on the alebrijes custom. Isidoro Cruz Hernández is typically taken into consideration to have actually been one of this community’s pioneers in the late 1960s. In both towns, alebrijes are generally sculpted out of wood from the copal tree, valued not only for its convenience of usage yet also for the symbolic significance to the Zapotec people, to whom lots of carvers belong or trace their heritage.

Many of the alebrijes and comparable jobs seen for the first time outside of Oaxaca, were carved by Isidoro Cruz, increasing recognition of the craft and developing the images of Oaxacan “artesanías” (handmades). Following his passing away in 2015, Casa Cruz is his tradition in Tilcajete, one of the lots of alebrije workshops trading in the community and enhanced with a striking mural of the guy himself on its external wall. Casa Cruz is located directly throughout from the Ángeles workshop, revealing exactly how the man’s influence proceeds to form the alebrijes craft.

Unlike others of the art develops commonly understood in Mexico as artesanías (or “inventions” in English), the sculpted wooden animals often called alebrijes have a background recent enough to be mostly traceable.