Salinas will soon have 20-foot carved wooden sculptures placed throughout the city as it’s set to host Alebrijes and Nahuales Fantastic Animals from Mexico.
The art exhibition will consist of eight monumental pieces, reproductions of pieces created by master artisans from Oaxaca. They will be placed in key open spaces throughout the city, with a miniature version exhibit with original pieces featuring 30 animal sculptures at One Main Street from Aug. 7-Sept. 4. A grand opening for the larger pieces takes place on Friday, July 31 at Northridge Mall.
The brightly colored animal carvings are set to be in several different places including two at Northridge Mall, one at the Star Market parking lot and one at Sherwood Hall, to name a few. The tall sculptures include The CatBird, The Coyote, The LionBull, The Happy Alien, The Dog, The Armadillo, The Rabbit and The Cat Nahual.
The exhibit will also include educational programming, interactive activities for all ages, and community engagement where people can scan a QR code to take a selfie with each sculpture and post on the Salinas Valley Chamber of Commerce website, according to Chamber President and CEO Colleen Bailey.
The nahuales are colorful wooden sculptures that blend traditional Zapotec woodcarving with the artistic influence of late Pedro Linares from Mexico City. The art form flourished in the 1960s in Oaxaca, where strong indigenous traditions helped preserve and pass down carving techniques. (The pieces to be shown in Salinas are not the originals, fabricated for travel so that they can withstand transport and outdoor display.) The alebrijes are paper mache pieces made in Mexico City.
Although animal carvings existed since pre-Hispanic Zapotec times, modern alebrijes were popularized by master carvers Manuel Jiménez and Isidro Cruz. They preferred the term nahuales, referring to mythical spirit beings from Zapotec culture, according to the exhibition's website.
Esmeralda Montenegro, public relations consultant for this project, says this exhibition “is a sense of pride for the local community, because a lot of the community comes from Oaxaca.”
This summer, the exhibit is on a tour that includes Salinas as well as Albuquerque, Houston and Henderson, Nevada.
Editor's note: This story has been updated to reflect the following corrections. There are two separate components to Alebrijes and Nahuales, the former based on paper mache works from Mexico City and the latter large wooden carvings from Oaxaca; the original story did not differentiate between the two. Each component has a separate opening date: The larger pieces on July 31, the smaller ones on Aug. 7. In addition, an outdated title for Esmeralda Montenegro was used; she is a media consultant for this project (among others), not currently for the National Steinbeck Center.