page_title: Huichol art
section_title: Yarn painting and beadwork
hierarchical_section_title: Huichol art / Yarn painting and beadwork
caption_attribution_description: English: Example of Huichol string art on display at the Museum de Artes Populares in Mexico City
context_page_description: Huichol art broadly groups the most traditional and most recent innovations in the folk art and handcrafts produced by the Huichol people, who live in the states of Jalisco, Durango, Zacatecas and Nayarit in Mexico. The unifying factor of the work is the colorful decoration using symbols and designs which date back centuries. The most common and commercially successful products are "yarn paintings" and objects decorated with small commercially produced beads. Yarn paintings consist of commercial yarn pressed into boards coated with wax and resin and are derived from a ceremonial tablet called a neirika. The Huichol have a long history of beading, making the beads from clay, shells, corals, seeds and more and using them to make jewelry and to decorate bowls and other items. The "modern" beadwork usually consists of masks and wood sculptures covered in small, brightly colored commercial beads fastened with wax and resin.
  While the materials have changed and the purpose of many of the items have changed from religious to commercial purposes, the designs have changed little, and many retain their religious and symbolic significance.
context_section_description: The best known Huichol art is made with modern, commercially produced items such as yarn and small beads. The Tepehuánes of Durango adapted the yarn paintings. These have replaced many of the traditional materials such as clay, stone and vegetable dyes.  Making and decorating items with beads did not begin with importation of European glass beads, as it did with a number of indigenous cultures to the far north.  Techniques for making and using beads have been in place long before that with beads made from bone, clay, stone, coral, turquoise, pyrite, jade and seeds.  Huichol art was first documented in the very late 19th century by Carl Lumholtz. This includes the making of beaded earrings, necklaces, anklets and more.
  What mostly links the yarn paintings and beaded objects made today is the continuance of the traditional patterns used for centuries to represent and communicate with the gods.  The use of commercial materials has allowed for the production of more elaborate designs and brighter colors, as well as more flexibility in how traditional concepts are rendered.  It has also allowed that the production of commercialized folk art along with the production of strictly religious items.
  The commercialization of Huichol art began when a Franciscan priest by the name of Ernesto Loera Ochoa began a Huichol museum at the Basilica of Our Lady of Zapopan just north of Guadalajara. One of the artists exhibited here was Ramón Medina Silver, whose work was exhibited and sold at the museum. Medina's work came to the attention of American Peter Furst, who suggested that Ramón represent the traditions and beliefs of his people by pressing colored yarn into a wax and resin-covered baseboard. These yarn paintings first appeared in 1962 in Guadalajara and were derived from "nierikas" a small board or disc with a hole or mirror in the center. Nierikas were initially produced by shamans to represent visions they experienced while consuming peyote, then left as offerings to the gods in places such as caves, temples and streams.
  These modern yarn paintings quickly proved popular and were imitated. They have also developed into complex designs which can take weeks to complete. The yarn paintings led to experimentation with other commercially produced materials such as beads, which have taken the place of yarn for many Huichol artisans. This beading has been expanded to include the decoration of jaguar heads, masks of the sun and moon and various animal forms.
  This art produced for commercial purposes has provided an important, sustainable source of income for the Huichols. Even though new materials are being used, traditional symbols are maintained and transmitted to younger generations.  However, the production of goods for commercial markets has caused a certain amount of controversy. One question concerns the "authenticity" of the yarn and bead art given the current forms’ modern origins. One person to do this was Fernando Benítez, who was particularly disturbed by the depiction of the dead as floating heads in yarn paintings; something he said was not traditionally Huichol. (origensbarnett) Much of the "authenticity" of the modern works has to do with the continued use of traditional symbols and designs. However, some items of Huichol items can be deemed non-traditional or borderline traditional, such as the production of Christmas tree decorations, masks of the sun and moon, the use of the jaguar (a Mesoamerican symbol) and the incorporation of modern images such as airplanes and modern buildings into designs. Selling of the items has not been easy for the Huichol either, with limited outlets such as tourist venues, especially Puerto Vallarta, Guadalajara and San Miguel de Allende as well as sales to middlemen who can earn much more from the works than they can.(CRUruibe)
caption: Yarn painting at the Museo de Arte Popular in Mexico City
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