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 News from Around Banderas Bay | December 2005 
Tacos, Horses and Huicholes, Oh My!
 Sue Fornoff & Harold Sokolove - PVNN
| | The Hikuri Gallery in La Cruz de Huanacaxtle. | 
| | The Hikuri Gallery woodshop. | 
| | Wayland Combe-Wright and his t-shirt crew. |
La Cruz - After a few days of relaxing on the beach, many Puerto Vallarta vacationers are looking for something different to do. Hikuri Gallery in La Cruz de Huanacaxtle is a short bus ride away and will give travelers a glimpse of a different world.
The gallery features art of the Huichol Indians. There is a wealth of religious and ceremonial objects, crafted in weaving, embroidery, pottery and carving. Huichols are well known for their vividly colored and patterned yarn work and beaded pieces.
As with many businesses, the story behind the gallery is quite intriguing. Gallery owners Wayland Combe-Wright, his wife Aruna Piroshki and their daughter Kaerolik have experienced adventure most of us can only dream of.
Wayland, Aruna and Kaerolik have been in Mexico for 15 years and in La Cruz for 12. The story of how they arrived in La Cruz began in London, England many years ago.
Their varied business careers began with selling tacos in London. With the money saved from the taco business, Aruna and Wayland began a traveling horse show performing in the parks of London. Appropriate enough, their first horse was a paint named Taco.
They continued the horse show business, performing tricks, giving wagon rides and selling tacos and ice cream.
Wayland was considering buying additional horses, but the type of horses best suited for the tricks were hard to locate in England. The couple began considering ways to go to the United States where paint horses were more common.
They began building a boat, a process that ended up taking 2 ½ years. Pictures of the boat-building process are available for viewing at Hikuri Gallery. The idea was to sail to the US and possibly buy horse or maybe stay there.
During the process of building the boat, Wayland discovered a book in the library called Unexplored Mexico. Inspired by the book, Wayland, Aruna and baby Kaerolik sold everything in London and sailed toward Central America. Stops in the Canary Islands and Barbados were made and Aruna and Wayland worked doing boat repairs to help finance the journey.
They sailed through the Panama Canal, lived and worked in Costa Rica and Nicaragua and after several years ended up in southern Mexico. While there, the family traveled to Guatemala and spent time with the indigenous people learning about weaving. They returned to southern Mexico and repaired sails until the weather was good enough to sail north.
Arriving in Nuevo Vallarta, Aruna and Wayland traveled to the Sierra Mountains and first met the Huichol Indians. Running the business from their boat, Aruna and Wayland made and sold spinning wheels. Through their work they met artists and began printing and selling Huichol art T-shirts, a business that continues today.
As business grew, they settled in La Cruz. Workers were hired and the business grew. The gallery was started, featuring art of the Huichols. A drop in tourist business in the early 2000's caused a reduction in the workforce down to 5 people.
Wayland has expanded his business into woodworking and teaching woodworking to natives of Chiapas. The workers then return to Chiapas with a marketable skill. The T-shirt business continues to flourish with sales at the gallery as well as a few retail locations. Custom printing is also done to order.
Within the gallery, Aruna and Wayland started a small restaurant. They have since decided to stick to their known business and have recently partnered with David and Kate Cope to start a restaurant there in the gallery. See story about Viajeros Café.
What does Wayland see in his future? Right now he seems content to run his small business and maintain his relationship with the Huichol artists.
Hikuri Gallery
Calle Coral #66
La Cruz de Huanacaxtle
329 295-5071
www.hikuri.com
M-F 9-6, Sat 9-2 |
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