Huichol Bead work

With the patience that characterizes Huichol People they create incredible pieces of art with nothing more than a needle, colourful beads and beeswax. As main bases they use wood, clay, natural bone, ceramic or papier mache. Wood is more common for them to create their Traditional Art. There is a variety of wood to create their pieces. Most of the time they use "Parota", Primavera and Huanacaxtle". Pine wood is considered cheap and low quality. Pine wood may last for about 10 years while "Parota" and Huanacaxtle last for many more years.

The colorful "Kuka" as they call the "beads was introduced to America by the Spanish people, before They "Discovered" America" (which is not the truth according to different books). Huichol Natives were able to made their beads with natural materials: coral, different kinds of stones, wood, hard seeds, clay and so on. Those beads were not that colorful or that small. The beads are imported from the Czeck Republic and is sold to the public in big stores in México City, Guadalajara, Tepic and Puerto Vallarta.

Even with the technology available in close cities like Guadalajara and Tepic, the Huichol Tribe still prefers to use the beeswax as glue. Why change what their ancestors have been using for centuries?. Why fix what is working perfectly?. The adhesive beeswax has the property to keep itself fresh, it can be hot, humid or cold and the wax keeps each individual bead or the Yarn on its place.

Huichol Yarn Paintings Process

As base for the yarn paints, Huichol People use pine flat bases, the process is just the same as when they create art work with beads, each yarn paint may have at least 20 color and most of the time over 60. Provably one of the main features of Huichol Art is the fact that there are no paterns to follow, not in the bead work nor in the yarn paints, the same Huichol artists is not able to create one piece even if was created by himself, that means each piece is one of a kind!