This gang answers the question often asked in Mexico “Who would buy that?”
Everyone who comes to Mexico started off as a Tourist and Tourists make mistakes. The most common mistake is buying something in Mexico, taking it home, sobering up, realizing it looked quite different in Mexico and unloading it at a garage sale. When they return to Mexico and in particular to San Miguel and the AWAKENING occurs they know they will never make that mistake again or ever become “The Person who Bought That”.
But the AWAKENING is not the same for all who come to San Miguel. For some strange reason, it is not Guidebooks nor Lost and Found in San Miguel that causes the AWAKENING but the Power Parrot
For some, once they purchase this cute little parrot and give it cute little Mexican name the AWAKENING occurs. They realize not only can they own a house, but they can now decorate their complete house for under 200 pesos. This Power Parrot will lead them to discover others. This Gang forms not in El Jardin but in the Tourist Shops of San Miguel. They know when they see a Tourist holding the POWER PARROT, and not snickering, then this Tourist is theirs. They start a conversation and suggest the Tourist buy this
Who can resist another set of Wind Chimes with a sun, moon and stars theme? There can never be enough clanging in the backyard. With purchase two, this Gang will soon have a new member.
This Gang is unlike all the other Gangs. It is completely unaware of the existence of other gangs in San Miguel. Collecting what they call Mexican Folk Art occupies their whole day. They have no time for the Jardin. They don’t read Atención because it never showcases their Art Form. One look at the prices in an Art Gallery and they know one purchase would shoot their decorating budget for ten years. They can tell at a glance the kind of person who would buy those items which no else would ever buy.
However this Gang, is known to all the other Gangs and really has two names. They call themselves the Mexican Folk Art Gang while the rest of San Miguel call them the Who’d Buy That Gang. It is considered the lowest level Gang. A favorite expression in San Miguel is “You know who would buy that?” followed by gales of laughter.
To avoid making purchases that would get you cast into the Who’d Buy That Gang, members of every other gang are given the Top Ten No Buy List. The purchase and display of any item on the list would lead to expulsion from your gang, banishment to the Mexican Folk Art Gang, and years and years of shame.
Top Ten No Buy List
So here is what must avoided.
1. Onyx Bookends in any form. These are dangerous and several have been featured as weapons on Law and Order. In fact one single, lonely male resident in San Miguel met his untimely end when the bookcase over his bed collapsed and an Aztec God Onyx bookened landed on his head. Well that is what his executrix said before she sold his art collection.
2. Aztec Calendars. Few, who display these in their house, refer to any day as the Fourth of Hueytozoztli or the Ninth of Quecholli. But turn a Mayan Calendar into a clock and you are on the list of those to shun.
3. Pre Columbian Art Reproduction. Put the words Pre and Reproduction together and this gang is on it. Pre means old and Reproduction means cheap.
4. Sequined Mexican Sombreros. Art is great art when it can serve two functions – Wall Filler and Party Clothes. Imagine being able to take something off the wall, put it on your head and go to a Fiesta. This gang calls this Functional Art. The rest of San Miguel calls it Avoidance Art.
5. Talavera Everything. The source of Talavera Pottery is Dolores Hildago. Its proximity to San Miguel means the ability to fill a house at discount prices. But Talavera is addictive. It starts with a small serving dish, then larger bowls, then a complete dinner serrvice, and then the Talavera Sink. Several gang members have been forced by their spouses to join the Talavera Recovery Group following the purchase of the following item and spousal refusal to do any business in it.
6. The Problematic Frida Kahlo. There is a fine line between Frida the Icon of Feminists and Frida the Elvis of Mexico. Drawing that line is impossible for this gang. Anything with Frida on it is golden. But be warned if you see this bamboo curtain covering a door. Open the curtain and you know that you will soon be entering Decorating Hell.
7. Sun, Moon and Eclipse These Gangs live in a land of many moons and suns.
8. The Circle of Friends. The concept is good but when you see it holding a channel changer you know whose house you are in.
9 . Rustic, rustic, rustic. It’s a look…if you own a ranch numbering more that 40 hectares, you cannot call yourself both cosmopolitan and describe every piece of furniture in your casa as “rustic”. If the majority of your furniture is worm eaten, the doors won’t shut, and wobbles, some editing is required. Sure, it is (VERY) exciting buying a 12 drawer dresser for $299 US, but will the drawers shut? Ever?
10. Corn Husk and Paper Flowers in every available vase. Real flowers are expensive and die. But these are cheap and last forever. Imagine the joy of finding some, discarded after a party among the empty wine bottles and half eaten canapes.
Credits:
Deb Hall of Zocalo Folk Art in San Miguel was kind enough to provide me all the ideas and sources for this post. She must be congratulated for creating this definitive list to help anyone in San Miguel avoid being considered part of the Mexican Folk Art Gang. As an exclusive, I was able to get a picture of her house and this comment
And here’s a photo of our house. I may be the WORST offender of all.
A member of the Spiritual Gang has been dispatched to Deb’s house.
Filed under: Theme Gangs | Tagged: Mexican Folk Art
Thank you for your site
I made with photoshop backgrounds for myspace and youtube and ect..
my backgrounds:http://tinyurl.com/6r7cav
all the best and thank you again!
The themes come and go. One year, everything’s angels, and, the next, it’s all about Catrinas. Frida Kahlo is already passé among the cognoscenti, and the Virgen de Guadalupe’s popularity rating is starting to slip. Sadly, none of these themes will ever endure like Dogs Playing Poker.
And now for the $64K question: how many renditions of something like the Three Billy Goats Gruff would it take for the goats to take off and become a must-have?
LMAO! Just the question I have asked myself over and over! Now I know! Oh, and #13 should be those broken eggs with stuff, like dinorsaurs!, crawling out of them. Grotesque!
Love the top 10. But I feel the need for #11….those paper mache clowns holding balloons. When we bought our house in Los Frailes four years ago they were hanging from every light fixture and ceiling beam. Due to the decorating of a Mexican man from Celaya, no less. Also adorning the house in five or six locations were those large punched tin images of a Mexican man sleeping while wearing a sombrero and leaning on a cactus. One of them was four feet tall….no joke. I hereby nominate them for #12.
I don’t know, I think the initial urge for the VG bamboo curtain has waned, or perhaps it is that I think it should cost $19.99 at the Dollar Store.
When I look at all those huge empty walls in our under renovation house in Merida, I start sweating just knowing that the urge to buy really large things is going to be overwhelming. So, where did you get the 6′ lounging devil??
Hysterically funny – Deb and I are equally “gifted” at covering evey single surface in our homes with “stuff”………..Gratefully NONE of the “No buy” items…………I gauge potential boyfriends or new friends by how they react to the six ft red devil lounging in the dining room. If they don’t get it…….too bad!
Oh, I love kitsch, Jonna. Did you see the photo of my house?—a complete Mexican decorating disaster—or folk art heaven, depending on one’s point of view. Viva La Virgin, in her many incarnations, bamboo curtains included!
You have solved a long-standing mystery in my household. I own a green stone elephant. Someone once told me it was jade from Thailand. But that did not make sense. I had no memory of buying a giant jade elephant in Asia. “Jade” was the red herring. It is onyx — just like those bookends. I must have bought it while I was in flight training at Laredo. That was about the same time a college friend decided to become a millionaire by importing onyx chess sets to the United States. Neither he nor the project came to a good end; no one bought the chess sets, and he is a political science professor in Arizona.
In Michoacán, we have the artsy-craftsy equivalent of the FAA-mandated airplane reading material, too: Huancitos, an artist’s proof of Zalce’s La Jaula, some other Zalce lithograph, the Patamban green pineapple, the Cheran half-moon earrings, pointelle Capulaware (a.k.a. Michoacán Melamine), plaid Patzcuaro tablecloths, chisel-carved chests from Cuanajo, something bright and shiny from mfa Eronga, a Cocucho or two, iridescent Santa Fe de la Laguna candelabra, Ocumicho figures, and a scattering of Santa Clara de Cobre copper. And enough crucifixes and images of the Virgen de Guadalupe to make visitors ask “When did you convert?”
I plead guilty on most of the counts.
You’ve convinced me that I need to kick up my décor a notch by adding some black velvet paintings of Elvis, unicorns and the Last Supper and pink flamingos.
http://www.casamexicanafolkart.com/Bamboo_Curtains_with_Mexican_S/bamboo_curtains_with_mexican_s.html
Has then for sale for $99 US or 1,022.75 Pesos… I would hate for the Virgen de Guadalupe not to be on your deck.
She is acceptable for bamboo curtains but not Frida.
Oh sorry, I hate anonymous comments. That was me above.
I love it except sometimes you see one of these items that is so, so over the top that it is instantly cooler than anything. I once saw one of those bamboo curtains that you show above but with the Virgen de Guadalupe on it and was so enthralled I thought I just had to have it. Yes, it was made in Taiwan, I could get over that. But, since I saw it in Tulum the price was something like $1500 pesos and that brought be back to earth. Sigh! I do not have a bamboo curtain with the VG hanging on my deck billowing in the breeze.
It was my guilty pleasure to co-author yet another chapter in the Gangs of San Miguel. To this entry I add these additional words of caution: Don’t Drink and Decorate, and Beware of HECHO IN CHINA. All in fun, all in good fun. Richard, you are brilliant!