Hispanic Heritage Month -Artist Highlight Pedro Linares

Every year, mid-September to mid-October marks Hispanic Heritage Month. This is an excellent opportunity to highlight influential artists and look at artwork born from tradition. Here at Rainbow Palette, we have been learning about Pedro Linares, which inspired us to create pattern-filled alebrijes art projects! The story surrounding the beginnings of alebrijes and what has become a traditional part of Mexican Folk Art is so interesting that we made a short video about it!  

What is an alebrije, you might ask? First, let’s work on pronouncing the word – ah-leh-bree-ay, or the plural would be ah-leh-bree-ays. Unbelievably, this is an entirely made-up word by Pedro Linares. It was a word that came to him in a dream. You see, Pedro was feverishly ill and in a coma. His family thought he was about to die. But Pedro was lost in a dream that took him to another world filled with fantastical creatures in a formidable forest. They were all exclaiming the same word over and over to Pedro. That word was alebrije!  

Pedro awoke from his coma, and once he recovered, he dedicated his life to creating alebrijes out of a durable form of papier mâché called cartonero. These sculptural creatures have since become a major part of Mexican Folk Art. In fact, you will see them in markets all over Mexico, but especially in Oaxaca where artisans carve alebrijes out of wood and paint them with bright beautiful colors and patterns. We invite you to check out our video to learn more, and please share it with your students too!