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Journal North: Home | Sports | Opinion | Obits | Entertainment
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Colonial Touch
By Kathaleen Roberts
Journal Staff Writer
Blue, orange and lavender ribbons fluttered like flags from the four corners of the glass case protecting Ramon José Lopez's prize-winning book.
The 80-page book of hours inscribed with paintings of the saints and prayers consumed much of his life as he combined hide painting, calligraphy and metalworking skills to produce his personal version of the medieval illuminated manuscripts. He conceived the idea after seeing European versions in New York, Mexico and Peru.
Lopez will be one of 400 local Hispanic artists displaying their work on the Plaza at the 57th Traditional Spanish Market this weekend. He was one of many honored with awards by the Museum of Spanish Colonial Art on Friday.
Martha Varoz Ewing began working on her straw applique sewing box after seeing the "Needles and Pins" exhibit at the Museum of International Folk Art.
She wanted to create a piece that honored traditional colcha embroidery. Inlaid with delicate flowers pieced with wheat, oats and barley from her brother's southern Colorado fields, the piece opens to reveal a divided compartment filled with an appliquéed thimble, needle case and pincushion. Laurel leaves placed in the corner symbolize the Holy Trinity, she said.
The Santa Fe native learned straw applique from Paula Rodriguez, whom she credits with reviving the art. Varoz Ewing had been working in tin when Rodriguez asked her to frame her straw work.
"After I did those, I was hooked," she said. "This is known as poor man's gold. Tin is known as poor man's silver."
She incorporated some tin in the hinges. The piece took her a month and a half to make; it won this year's Purchase Award.
Albuquerque's Federico Prudencio created his first-place-winning "Trastero San Jose" or bookcase from pine using traditional methods.
"There isn't a single nail in this," he said. "It's all wood, except the 17th- to 18th-century wrought-iron hinges."
Prudencio has been working in the traditional design, crowned by a rosette, for several years. To create its burnished sheen, he finished the wood stain with four coats of wax.
Bound in buffalo hide with sterling silver hardware, Lopez's mammoth book incorporates 24-karat gilt and natural pigments adorning hand-formed pages of vellum. Lopez used 40 goat hides to create the individual sheets.
"I did all the preparation," he said. Lopez finished the skins with pumice stone, then scraped them until they thinned into leaves as fine as paper.
"To erase a mistake, you have to scrape it off with a knife," Lopez said.
Inside, the paintings depict traditional scenes such as the nativity, the annunciation and critical moments in the lives of the saints. Lopez's efforts earned him the Masters Award for Lifetime Achievement and the Hispanic Heritage Award, among others.
Lopez seemed dumbfounded as he glanced at the shiny ribbons.
"Everyone says I'm crazy," he said. "They say, ‘Enough. Don't do anything big anymore.'"