New York, NY- Mexican Folk Art from Oaxacan Artist Families (www.oaxacanfolkart.com), an extraordinary reference and guide with 500 color photos, has just been published by Schiffer Publishing (www.schifferbooks.com). In this work, New York authors Arden Rothstein (mother) and Anya Rothstein (15 year-old daughter) carefully introduce Mexican folk art by featuring prominent artists from Oaxaca in southeastern Mexico.
This handsome book also serves as a powerful force in local economic development by exquisitely illustrating the artisans’ unique works along with current market values, a practice unusual for most folk art books. This sampler, featuring 87 artists from 44 Oaxacan families, includes many useful maps as well as a resource section of shops and markets in Oaxaca City and in 12 of its surrounding pueblos. The book is both an armchair guide forlearning about and enjoying the lore of Oaxaca’s folk art as well as a hands-on guide for those who plan to visit the region and develop their own folk art itinerary-- the perfect tool for creating a one-of-a-kind vacation.
Crafted from natural materials, the artisans’ works range from ceramics, weaving, woodcarving, embroidery, tin work, toys, jewelry, and candles to dried flower crafts, basketry and handcrafts celebrating the Day of the Dead. Incorporating striking blends of indigenous myths with ancient patterns from Mixtec and Zapotec ruins, many of these folk art traditions have been preserved for hundreds of years.
When Anya was only thirteen Arden (who had been considering the book project), asked her daughter if she would join her as co-author. Daughter Anya remarked: "At first, I was overwhelmed. The project seemed huge, but I had come to love Oaxaca and the artisans during my family’s vacation there the year before. Having become interested at the time in photography, I thought the book was an opportunity to sharpen those skills and to help those whom I had grown to care about so in Oaxaca. I confess that once we started, there were several times I wanted to tell my mother I was quitting…that I could not go down one more bumpy road to track down another artist. But I stayed with the project…and now I’m so proud of all that we have accomplished for the craftspeople of Oaxaca."
The Rothstein mother-daughter team has both collected and studied Oaxacan culture during the course of many trips from their home in New York City. Arden Rothstein developed a love for Oaxaca and its indigenous folk culture when first she spent three summers in Oaxaca as a teenage student. Visiting only once since then during her college years, she returned over thirty years later with her husband and daughters in 1998. In the book’s acknowledgment, Arden pays great homage to her own parents who first gave her the freedom to travel…and who now bask with pride about their daughter’s and granddaughter’s accomplishment!
Both Rothsteins are very committed to fostering the economic livelihood of the artisans featured in the book. During the coming fall and winter seasons, they are helping to bring several of the book’s artists to New York where they will demonstrate their artistic techniques and speak about the culture of their pueblos at the Poly-Prep Country Day School in Brooklyn where Anya is a student. They will also make appearances at several other private schools in the metropolitan area and at the National Museum of the American Indian (a Smithsonian museum in lower Manhattan) where a major exhibit of Mexican folk art is mounted from July 2002 to March 2003. The Rothsteins are collaborating with the museum’s education department, as well as with New York’s Mexican Cultural Institute, both of which are helping to underwrite the transportation and related expenses of these artists.
"Anya and I view this book as a treasured source of reference and inspiration for all who love folk art. We want others to experience the connection of these particular artisans to his/her craft and to their culture by actually being able to see them at work here in the New York area," remarked Arden Rothstein, a psychoanalyst and clinical psychologist in private practice and faculty member of the NYU Psychoanalytic Institute, NYU Medical Center. She continues, "It’s thrilling and moving to celebrate this folk art, in which I have had a keen interest since my teenage years, by working in collaboration with my own daughter who provided many of the photographs for this book."
The Rothsteins' home is also a showcase of Oaxacan folk art. Myriad pieces grace their living room and dining room a veritable repository of color and craft from Oaxaca that strikingly drives the interior of both rooms overlooking Central Park.
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