OAXACAN WOODEN ANIMALITAS AT FISHER SCHOOL

 

 

 

 On Tuesday, March 12, the fourth grade students worked in the art room at Fisher School with two artists from South Shore Art Center in Cohasset, MA on a cultural enrichment project entitled "Animalitas". This program was coordinated by Mrs. Hirschfeld and sponsored by the Fisher School PAC to offer an opportunity for students to learn an art form from another culture.   Looking to Mexico, they learned about the centuries old tradition of carving from wood the spiritual figures for churches and temples, masks for festivals and carnivals and most recently, animalitas or alebrijes, "fantasy figures." 

     In the 1960s, Manuel Jimenez, a goat herder from Oaxaca, a small agrarian community in southeastern Mexico, began carving the soft copal wood into fantastical animals, animalitas, which consist of different parts of several animals, joined to make one imaginary, fantastic creature often viewed as possessing magical powers. Other members of Jimenez' family painted them with bright acrylic paints, covering them with intricate decorations of spots, stripes and other fascinating patterns. Animalitas became very popular in the American tourist market in Oaxaca at this time and are now in museum and private collections throughout the world.

     After creating sketches of their imaginary animals, the students worked with brightly colored modeling clay to create the bodies, necks, heads, tails, wings, scales, horns, tails, ears, etc. of their animals.  Using contrasting colored clay and popsicle sticks to create decorations and textures, the students used their imaginations to create their unique animalitas.  Some of the masterpieces they made were named: "Girafacorn;" "Deleagle;"

"Zeusafox;" "Snagon."A.  The students were very proud of their sculptures and look forward to seeing them on display in the Media Center in the near future.

 

Mrs. Hirschfeld

Elementary Art Teacher

 

 

 

 

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