Shopping: Oaxaca and Michoacan : Hearts & Crafts : Finding folk art treasures and their creators on a tour through one expert’sfavorite artisan villages

For me, Mexico’s biggest lure is the ingenuity and inventiveness of its people, particularly its artisans.

Over more than a quarter century of travels south of the border, I’ve amassed a large personal and professional collection of Mexican folk art. Most of my five or six visits a year have centered around small villages, some a quick detour from established tourist towns and others accessible only by long drives on unmarked, unpaved roads. There, drawing from craft traditions centuries old, multiple generations of carvers, weavers and potters create a wide variety of decorative and practical objects.

Mexican folk-art centers are found throughout the country, from the Chiapas area of San Cristobal near the Guatemalan border to the Sierra Tarahumara in western Chihuahua. I return often to the central state of Michoacan, particularly the scenic region near Lake Patzcuaro. But the richest concentration of crafts villages--including several of my favorites--are near Oaxaca, a Spanish colonial capital surrounded by a rural, largely Indian population.

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One of the easiest ways to get an overview of Mexican folk art at the source is to tour a local crafts cooperative or time your visit during a festival or weekly market day, when families from the surrounding area display their wares. In Michoacan’s ( meesh-wa-KAHN’s ) 16th-Century colonial capital of Patzcuaro, for example, hundreds of folk artists from throughout the country jam the Plaza Vasco de Quiroga during the Day of the Dead festival, which starts the week before Nov. 2. There, pottery, carvings, jewelry and other crafts compete for attention with the traditional Day of the Dead offerings: altars draped with marigolds, skeletons made of papier-mache and sugar, and skull-shaped bread called pan de muerto .

But establishing your own personal contacts can be even more rewarding. As a rule, I’ve found Mexico’s artisans to be very accessible. Don’t be intimidated by the idea of entering someone’s home: With smiles, at least a rudimentary command of Spanish and perhaps a balloon or a simple toy to give to the children of the family, you’ll find that most artisans are happy to show off and sell their work.

Bargaining in markets is both accepted and expected. But if you think the stated price is fair (and costs are almost always lower than what you’d pay at a retail store or crafts market), don’t haggle with an artist in his or her home unless you’re buying a very expensive item or in significant quantities.

A few retail stores, particularly in such major tourist centers as Oaxaca, can pack and ship your purchases. But it’s safer, faster and cheaper to bring an ample supply of packing tape and plastic bubble wrap, buy an egg crate or bamboo basket, and cart them back yourself.

The following are a few of my favorite Mexican crafts villages and some of the finest artists working in them.

The first four villages are located within a 20-mile radius of Oaxaca, which makes an excellent base of operations. Patamban, Santa Clara del Cobre and Tzintzuntzan are in Michoacan, within a half-day’s drive of Patzcuaro, a charming colonial town.

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My advice about driving: Don’t. Hire a taxi in Patzcuaro or Oaxaca (about $10-$15 an hour), or check at the local tourist office in either city for hotels and/or tour companies that offer crafts tours of the local area.

* Arrosala: Manuel Jimenez is Mexico’s most famous carver. Working with acrylic paints in bold, primary colors and an indigenous, rough-barked soft wood called copal , Jimenez’s sophisticated animals and human figures (often grouped in Nativity scenes) are found in museum collections throughout the American Southwest. Jimenez is the only Mexican artisan I know who charges in U.S. dollars: His work ranges from perhaps $150 for a three-inch-tall frog to about $1,000 for a three-piece, 12- to 14-inch-tall Nativity group.

Jimenez isn’t the only talented carver in Arrosala, which is located a few miles west of Oaxaca at the foot of Monte Alban, the Zapotec-Mixtec fortress-city built in 600 BC. Manuel’s grandsons, Moises and Armando Jimenez, make fine large animals, reminiscent of their grandfather’s work, but half the cost or less.

Miguel Santiago, whose prices are equivalent to those of the elder Jimenez, is wonderful. I recently commissioned him to do a carving of me, complete with my typical garb of T-shirt and Birkenstocks. Pedro Ramirez and his family, meanwhile, are noted for their brightly hued armadillos and other reptiles (about $15-$200 each), painted in a careful pointillist manner reminiscent of Georges Seurat.

* Ocotlan de Morelos: Friday is the best day to be in Ocotlan (about a half-hour south of Oaxaca), when its local market draws craftspeople from across the state. Get to the market before 9 a.m. for the best selection. While you’re in town, stop at the home of figural potter Josefina Aguilar; as you enter town, you’ll be able to pick out her home on the right side of the road by the large clay figures perched on the wall.

Watching Aguilar is a joy as she kneels on the patio of her adobe home and quickly molds her animated characters out of supple gray clay. Aguilar creates the figures, and her children and grandchildren paint them with bright, multicolored acrylics. Aguilar’s recent work--priced from about $3 to $100--has included images based on Frida Kahlo’s surrealistic paintings, bathers in showers and tubs, even scuba divers.

Also worth a stop is the town jail, where you can bargain directly with the inmates for fine, wide-handled baskets woven of split bamboo for $2-$25. * San Bartolo Coyotepec: Just a 10-minute drive south of Oaxaca, this village is famous for its highly polished, reduction-fired black pottery. Prices range from the equivalent of a few cents to about $50 for an oversized pot.

I’m partial to the large ollas (egg-shaped vases) of husband and wife Ernesto Meteos and Petrona Perez. By local tradition, pieces are built by hand using two inverted plates as a primitive form of wheel.

The most innovative--and beautifully made--figures come from the Pedro family. Sister Adelina makes delicate angels and mermaids for about $1 to $10 each, while her brother Carlomagno has gained an international reputation for his fragile skeleton sculptures ($500-$1,000).

The Pedros’ family complex is the first house on your right, as you enter the town from Oaxaca. Be sure, too, to stop at the large indoor pottery market, open daily on the west side of the main highway, opposite the church.

* Teotitlan del Valle: Oaxaca’s Zapotec rugs are world famous, and it’s best to buy them here, where they are woven. Nestled in the Sierra Madre foothills about 13 miles northeast of Oaxaca, the village is home to about 5,000 weavers. Signs indicating weaving workshops are everywhere.

My favorite artisans include Zacarias Ruiz, Isaac Vasquez and the Mendoza family, particularly Abigail, Jacobo and Rosario.

The Mendozas’ rugs are on display in the family’s excellent Restaurant Tlamanalli, located on the main street of town. Their sopa de chipil, a soup made with fresh corn, is not to be missed.

The best rugs are woven with natural vegetable dyes in geometric designs influenced by pre-Columbian architectural decoration. The American Southwest craze with its pastel colors has come and gone among the weavers, but more recently I’ve noted Turkish and Middle-Eastern influences with the appearance of reds, golds and deep, vibrant blues.

Prices range from about $20 to several thousand dollars, depending on size, dyes, complexity of design and whether the yarn is hand or machine-spun.

* Patamban: If you’re in an adventurous frame of mind, this pottery village of Purepecha Indians is well worth the trouble of getting lost on unmarked dirt roads (a virtual certainty if you’re driving your own rental car). Count on a full day’s drive from Patzcuaro to Patamban and back again.

With its buildings of thatched roofs and hand-hewn wooden walls and its pine-forest setting, the mountain town is attractive any time of year. But it really comes alive during the festival of Cristo Rey (Christ the King) the last Sunday in October, when hundreds of people jam the cobblestone streets to admire a two-foot-wide, blocks-long swath of brightly dyed sawdust, adorned with wildflowers, leaves and ferns.

Patamban is most noted for its intricate, glazed green pineapple vases--most of them, alas, incredibly difficult to transport because of their size (some more than three feet tall) and fragility.

But in recent years, Mexico City artist Ricardo Calderon and his French wife, Catalina Bony, have introduced high-fire ceramics to Patamban. At their workshop, you can find dishes painted with skeleton figures and Grandma Moses-like country scenes, costing a few dollars each.

* Santa Clara del Cobre: This colonial town of red-tile roofs and white painted adobe, located in the mountains a few miles south of Patzcuaro, is Mexico’s center for handwrought copper objects--everything from tiny toys costing a few cents to huge caldrons that run several hundred dollars.

Watching a group of five or six men rhythmically hammering the red-hot copper as if they were beating the drum for the “Anvil Chorus” is always a thrill. A wonderful place to observe this ritual is at the workshop of Abdon Punzo, who in recent years has been making huge vases of sterling silver as well as copper. The shop is on the east side of the main street, a block north of the town museum.

One of the best times to visit is mid-August, during the National Festival of Copper, but the museum features a year-round display of prize-winning pieces from the festival. Another worthwhile stop is Tiamari, a school founded by New York expatriate sculptor James Metcalf. Here, local boys and girls learn the copper craft and sell their wares at bargain prices. * Tzintzuntzan: Once the ancient capital of the Purepecha Indians, Tzintzuntzan ( sin-SOON-sahn ) perches above the eastern shore of Lake Patzcuaro, about a 15-minute drive north of Patzcuaro itself. Tzintzuntzan draws tourists who come to see the ruins of five 13th-Century Purepecha yacatas, a type of pyramid, and the tranquil, olive tree-laced grounds of its 16th-Century monastery. But it’s best known for moss green- or cream-colored pottery decorated with the fish and birds of the lake and scenes of village life.

Manuel Morales, whose workshop is on the grounds of the monastery and who I consider to be the best contemporary potter in Mexico, specializes in exquisite high-fired vases and bowls, with stylized sun, fish and geometric motifs, priced anywhere from $30 to $100 each.

The village is also famous for wheat-straw objects, from small Christmas ornaments (about 25 cents each) to baskets. The best place to see artisans at work is in the local crafts market, on the highway near the town’s southern entrance.

GUIDEBOOK

Getting the Goods

Getting there: The best way to reach Oaxaca is by air via Mexico City; round-trip fares from Los Angeles start at $384 on Aeromexico and Mexicana. To reach Patzcuaro, the easiest alternative is to fly to Morelia (round-trip fares from Los Angeles start at $326 on Mexicana) and take a bus or hire a taxi for the approximately one-hour drive from Morelia to Patzcuaro. First-class buses run daily and cost about $2.50 one way; a taxi ride between the two cities is $22-$30 one way.

Where to stay: In Oaxaca, I stay at the budget-priced, conveniently located Hotel Senorial, Plaza de Flores 6, about $50 per night, double; telephone 011-52-95163933. My favorite Patzcuaro hotel is right on the Plaza Vasco de Quiroga: the budget-priced Hotel Los Escudos (Portal Hidalgo 73; tel. 011-52-4-342-0138), where a double room costs about $33 per night.

Where to eat: For the best guacamole in Oaxaca, try Asador Vasco, a second-floor restaurant overlooking the zocalo (main square); meals are about $12-$15 per person. In Patzcuaro, try the Camino Real, which specializes in the pescado blanco (about $10 per person) for which Lake Patzcuaro is famous. It’s located next to a Pemex gas station, just outside the city limits on the road to Tzintzuntzan.

What to read: Two excellent resources on Mexican artisans are Chloe Sayer’s “Arts and Crafts of Mexico” and Shep Barbash and Vicki Regan’s “Oaxacan Woodcarving” both published by Chronicle Books. For more information: In Oaxaca, the Oaxacan state tourism office is at Morelos 200; tel. 516-4828.

In Patzcuaro, the Michoacan tourism office is at Calle Ibarra 2, Interior 4; tel. 342-1214.

* TAXCO: Mexico’s “Silver City” is famous for metal craft and jewelry. L18