Converse shoes hand-painted by indigenous artisans from the mountains of the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca are on display at a Mexican City museum.
Converse shoes hand-painted by indigenous artisans from the mountains of the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca are on display at a Mexican City museum. Traditionally, the Mixtecs idigneous artisans paint drinking bowls but this time decided to fuse tradition with modernity by choosing these popular canvases which are being exhibited at the National Anthropology and History Museum in Mexico City. Ten designs are shown inside glass cabinets in a room titled: "Indigenous people from the south" which have been seen by some 20,000 people daily since the exhibition opened last week. The works of art captured on the shoes, which are unique and unrepeatable, were made by 10 artists from the town of Pinotepa de Don Luis, and reflect legends and myths about ancestors retold by generations. The shoes are decorated with drawings of animals such as rabbits, birds, serpents or bulls and are accompanied by tales written in Spanish and Mixtec. Converse launched a global limited edition range of shoes with colorful designs in 2007 inspired by artistic sketches of textiles from Pinotepa de Don Luis. (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) MUSEUM DIRECTOR, ARCHEOLOGIST FELIPE SOLIS: "They have taken the trainers as a canvas where each one of them (artisans) have captured their own thought, the thought of ancestral Mixtecs based on myths and legends. Each one (trainers) are exhibited in this area of the museum which is called the Mixtec room where the public can enjoy these works of art which are exceptionally original and have left their picturesque testimony." "This art has been called popular art, traditional art or ethnographic art because it does not only exist in craft objects but can also be transferred and in an exceptional way to contemporary objects of expression and identity such as trainers." (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) MUSEUM VISITOR, LUIS RODRIGUEZ,: "I think it's very original but it also has a bit of our culture because it's a very strange mix of Anglo-Saxon and Mexican cultures. It also makes me feel proud to say we have very good material in Mexico, to be able to express ourselves in this way."
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Vallarta Living | Art Talk | April 2009 
Reuters
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