I Brake For Folk Art

I am addicted to collecting folk art. I try to fight it. Whenever a new home or room comes within my purview, I do try to preserve some zen-like simplicity. Then I think, "Just one special piece, one spot of color and all the rest taupe or oatmeal or white." But soon it’s, "If one ceramic devil in a car looks good, perhaps six devils in vans, helicopters, and buses would be even better." Mexico doesn’t do zen and neither do I.

Ah, the siren call of the great art towns and villages—Tonala, Tzintzuntzan, Ocumicho, Teotihuacan del Valle, Capula… I get the itch at least once a year to make the rounds of my favorites and look for new villages where, one has heard, trees of life, embroidered blouses, ceramic pineapples or corn husk flowers can be found. My folk art collection is packed on every flat surface, and clusters on the verticals as well. Nor can I resist duplicating the wild colors on walls, columns, cushions and painted furniture.
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Now I have a new house to decorate. San Pancho, on the coast, is hot in the summer, but very close by, the mountains beckon. My husband and I are finishing a house in mile-high San Sebastian where summers sometimes involve a fire in the fireplace. The house has a colonial look and the riotous color of the coast won’t do. The living room is plastered with adobe—a Ralph Laurenesque grey-brown. It has dark wood bookshelves and shutters and the ceiling has wooden beams. This time would be different, I told myself. Folk art, of course, but subdued. A darkish painting of the Virgin of Guadalupe with a bemused smile and a copper shrine with heavy patina filled with dried brown roses. I ordered sofas in “moleskin.” The sample looked almost identical to the walls. They would be ready in six weeks and I went looking for my accent pieces. Just a touch of red.

I found an old wedding chest from Guerrero painted a dull cherry, and embroidered pillows for the sofas in reds, oranges and greens. I considered a rug with lots of red from Oaxaca, from the weaving village that sent rugs as tribute to the Aztec emperors, but I held off. This time I wasn’t getting carried away, remember?

Six weeks passed and passed again, and the sofas were not ready. Guests came and went, and there were no sofas to sit on. Finally the call came just before we were to leave on a trip. Two quick runs from Puerto Vallarta to San Sebastian were needed to transport the furniture on top of our car. Fortunately the pieces were well wrapped and protected and we left them that way to keep them clean.

When we returned three weeks later, I tore the first hole in the wrapping. The fabric was bright cranberry red. Oh, I knew it. Consider that the sales slip had said: Modela Sala Rojo—Color Moleskin. Yes, we’d worried but had been breezily assured several times that Rojo(Red) was just the model name. I called the store to complain.
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“Moleskin? Isn’t that a reddish color?” the sales girl said.

I contemplated how much longer I’d have to live without sofas to get the color right. Eventually, I unwrapped them and brought out the pillows. The combination was intense. It was Mexican. Might as well go with that Oaxacan rug. Maybe a devil in a red truck, too.