A belated Happy New Year to you all! We hope you have enjoyed restful and relaxing festive periods and that the new decade has wonderful things in store.

2019 was an important year for us. We marked thirty years since Tom’s first trip to Mexico and the inception of the Milagros adventure. In January of that year, our collaboration with the Victoria & Albert Museum came to an end, for their exhibition Friday Kahlo: Making Her Self Up (we helped supply the exhibition giftshop; you might recognise some of our tinwork).

We continued to sell our range of Philippe Starck-designed baskets, commissioned for Mama Shelter hotels, and welcomed the newest Mama Shelter (on Hackney Road) to the neighbourhood. We also collaborated with Kew Gardens, providing them with recycled glassware for their Dave Chihuly exhibition.

In the autumn, we celebrated Shoreditch Design Triangle by showcasing the work of La Muerte Tiene Permiso, a modern design studio based in Mexico and Europe, and we welcomed them with a pop-up mezcaleria organised in partnership with the delectable Sin Gusano. Later months brought the cold, and of course, The Day of the Dead, which we marked with the help of our neighbours and friends on Columbia Rd and Ezra Street. When the time came to try and best each other on our Christmas windows, we handed ours over to the mother-daughter duo of Chulita Design so they could make a winter wonderland of Harlequin taxidermy, dotted about with the odd alebrije. Then we rounded everything off with the most well-attended run of Christmas Wednesdays we’ve ever had in our twelve years on Columbia Road. Thank you for coming to fill the street with your song and good cheer, and thank for always for stopping by to say hello.

Our hopes for this year are to increase the number of collaborations we have between Mexican and UK artists, especially ceramicists, with a particular focus on our glassware, tiles, and baskets. So if you have any tips for who you’d like to see us working with, please send them our way! We’re also pleased to say we can now offer custom tinwork.

We leave you with all our best wishes for the coming year, and these words of wisdom from Howard Zinn:

“To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasise in this complex history will determine our lives… The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvellous victory.”

Tinwork is one of the most popular products we sell at Milagros, and it comes in a variety of shapes and sizes. Now, in the times of coronavirus, many of our tin workshops have been forced to close, with no government support. Bulk orders like our own have really helped them to stay afloat in these times, and we all really appreciate each and every one of your purchases. Our aim has always been to support small businesses in Mexico, but at no other time in our thirty years of work has that mission felt more pressing. So thank you all so much! Plus, because tin is light and most of our tinwork is flat, it’s perfectly suited to being shipped and online orders

Tinwork has a proud history in Mexico. In the 1930s, it formed a big part of the craze for Mexicanidad, which we’ve mentioned before in previous newsletters. Tinwork inspired by folk art became a collector’s item, and was avidly sought out by intellectuals and artists alike. It became the preserve of artisans wanting to make more affordable versions of silver or other expensive items, and this is the case with our larger tin mirrors, which copy colonial-era Spanish designs, but in the lighter, cheerier material of tin (this is the case with our El Nido mirrors, which feature two birds in a nest at the top of the frame: a good gift for lovebirds making a home together!).

Most Mexican tinwork is now made in the Mexican states of Guanajuato, Jalisco and Oaxaca in small family-run workshops. We currently buy and commission work from  such workshops in the states of Guanajuato and Oaxaca. This tinwork is initially cut out of flat tin sheets with tin snips, using tin templates as a guide, and then shaped and  adorned by hammering with a range of shaped punches. They are then painted by hand.

The bulk of our tinwork is made in the workshop of Arturo Sosa Mendoza, who has been working with tin for over 50 years, in the city of Oaxaca. His career began when he was still a schoolboy: after school he went to art school and learnt to draw. He is adept at coming up with new designs and adapting existing ones; many of his designs have been widely copied by other tin workers in Oaxaca.

Our unpainted tin hearts are from the workshop of Miguel Angel Aguero Pacheco, also in the city of Oaxaca, with whom Milagros has worked for over 25 years. The ornate tin mirrors are from the workshop of Tomas Ricardo Santiago Pacheco, whose family have become famous for working in this complex decorative (and very Oaxacan) style.

The nido (nest), fan, and knot mirrors are all made in the workshop of the Trejo family in San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato. The father of the family (now deceased) began as a silversmith in the 1940s and gradually started making more work in tin. Two of his sons have continued his work.

And with that, adios and hasta luego!

Buena salud,

Milagros

Wooden figures form a less prominent part of what we sell at Milagros, but they embody one of our core beliefs, which is that craft can help to sustain communities and keep them together. One of our most core values at Milagros is to try and support people to stay in their  communities so that they don’t have to succumb to the pressures to separate their families by moving to cities and possibly even migrating – sometimes under dangerous circumstances.

The wooden figures that we sell in the shop are mostly sourced from one village outside the city of Oaxaca, Mexico,  San Martin Tilcajete. It is a small settlement, with a population of about two thousand people, but they’ve been a hive of wood-carving activity for decades.

Interestingly enough, wood-carving is new craft tradition, which first emerged in its current form in the Oaxaca of the 1970s, when an increase in tourism and cruises from the United States brought foreign buyers in search of souvenirs. Mexico has a long and laudable tradition of supporting and championing its craft traditions. This has roots in the post-revolutionary push for “Mexicanidad” in the 1930s: the quest to develop a post-imperial, independent Mexican identity. As part of that tradition, each state has its own Casa de Artisanias (a gallery showcasing the work of local artisans and the area’s specialties), and there is a national association, Fonart (Fondo Nacional para el Fomento de las Artesanías ) dedicated to promoting and protecting craft traditions all over Mexico.

Historically, San Martin is a community of  subsistence farmers who own small plots of land, tending goats and cows and growing maize. Wood-carving was largely a pastime activity, done to while away the hours when tending grazing livestock, or used in the production of ceremonial masks. More recently, it has become  an activity which has enabled families to earn an income on the side of farming. Today, this remains by and large the case, but with tangible effects: such is the popularity of wood-carving that the villagers are able to build new and better houses, and paved roads!  Families in San Martin have intermarried and often collaborate, sometimes sharing gallery spaces (sheds on the road into town, to pick up tourist custom off the highway), and ideas for designs get shared between generations and in-laws.

Interestingly enough, wood-carving is new craft tradition, which first emerged in its current form in the Oaxaca of the 1970s, when an increase in tourism and cruises from the United States brought foreign buyers in search of souvenirs. Mexico has a long and laudable tradition of supporting and championing its craft traditions. This has roots in the post-revolutionary push for “Mexicanidad” in the 1930s: the quest to develop a post-imperial, independent Mexican identity. As part of that tradition, each state has its own Casa de Artisanias (a gallery showcasing the work of local artisans and the area’s specialties), and there is a national association, Fonart (Fondo Nacional para el Fomento de las Artesanías ) dedicated to promoting and protecting craft traditions all over Mexico.

Historically, San Martin is a community of  subsistence farmers who own small plots of land, tending goats and cows and growing maize. Wood-carving was largely a pastime activity, done to while away the hours when tending grazing livestock, or used in the production of ceremonial masks. More recently, it has become  an activity which has enabled families to earn an income on the side of farming. Today, this remains by and large the case, but with tangible effects: such is the popularity of wood-carving that the villagers are able to build new and better houses, and paved roads!  Families in San Martin have intermarried and often collaborate, sometimes sharing gallery spaces (sheds on the road into town, to pick up tourist custom off the highway), and ideas for designs get shared between generations and in-laws.

As with all things, the aesthetics of the woodcarvings go in trends, and Tom has now been working with the artisans long enough to spot when a design has made its way back around from thirty years ago, most likely seen in a family album from a parent or grandparent. The villagers’ lives and schedules are still governed by the land, with them scheduling their  wood-carving around the growing season. One famous decorator of woodcarvings, Maria Jimenez, stops production entirely to tend to her maize crop, and makes famous tamales from her maize every Sunday.

Inspiration for the wooden figures themselves comes from many sources, including folk and fairy tales from all over the world,  and Tom prefers the designs which depart from familiar animals and add a whimsical twist, which is where you might see some animal musicians made by Juventino Melchior, the dancing chickens by the late Ventura Fabian, or a cat-owl by the Xuana family. Tom tends to look for pieces that are beautiful examples of craftsmanship without being overwrought, still possessing, in his words, ‘spirit’. All the pieces that we sell are signed by the person who made them.

“Alebrije” is a catch-all term applied to these fantastical pieces, but it actually originates in Mexico City, with papier-mâché figures made by Pedro Linares, who once had a childhood fever so extreme, he hallucinated all kinds of fantastical creatures, and these fevered dreams provided him with enough inspiration to for a lifetime of work.  Tom’s taste is not for the most outlandish multiheaded-headed extravaganzas that the term “alebrije” tends to denote, however, nor for the products of the more industrial workshop set-ups in Oaxaca. Instead, he has built up his base of artisans in this slightly remote village, making multiple trips over decades, gradually getting to know many of the more talented families of wood carvers. It is only in the last decade or so that he has really been accepted as a serious buyer of this work. He buys from individuals or families working in their homes, where the men typically do the carving and the women the painting, and has had the good fortune of working over time with multiple generations of some families.

Muchos gracias, as ever, and buena salud,

Milagros

Good morning and we hope you are enjoying a good start to the week! Tumbleweeds blow down Columbia Road and we miss you!

And just a reminder: you can still order on our website and have things shipped from our warehouse in Bristol.

In the meantime, we thought you might be interested in learning a little more about our coloured baskets.

We originally began selling baskets in 2006, when Tom saw some he liked in a gallery in San Miguel de Allende, in the central Mexican state of Guanajuato. They were made of polythene and galvanised  wire, in bright colours and stripes, and came in a range of shapes and sizes: wide, handled ironing baskets, lidded laundry baskets, or very modern, tapered wastepaper baskets. He’d never seen anything like them before in Mexico. Tracing them back to source, he discovered that they were made in the workshop of San Miguel’s prison.

In Mexico, basket-making has been a  prison industry for some time, undertaken by male prisoners to give give themselves a better quality of life while imprisoned, and to help support the families that they have left behind. Often, the families of incarcerated men buy the materials for the baskets, take them into the prisons, and then pick up the finished baskets to then sell back to the people who supplied the materials! (This is how Milagros acquires the somewhat more traditional, woven plastic shopping baskets (“canastas de abuelas”) in Oaxaca.) All the baskets are completely handmade, adapting the traditional techniques of split cane weaving to the more modern materials of polythene fibre and galvanised wire. To make these baskets well – with a tight, even weave and a regular shape – requires a great deal of skill. Many prisoners learn how to make baskets while in prison and find it is a useful skill to have upon their release, when their criminal record might otherwise inhibit them finding new employment. The best basket-makers are often long-term prisoners who have had time to learn the craft.

This system of prison workshops is distinct from the prison labour of the United States’ private prisons. The Mexican prison workshop system is set up to assist the incarcerated with learning new skills and having an income over the course of their sentence.

Originally, Tom was  introduced to Nivardo Rocha by the prison workshop manager. For 10 years, until Nivardo was released in 2016,  Tom worked directly with him in the prison, driving the materials in himself and picking up the finished baskets. These days this is managed on our behalf by the family-run packing/shipping business we work with in San Miguel, La Union.

Following Nivardo’s release, Milagros continued to work with him. When the orders were too large for him to handle in his workshop, he collaborated with  prison inmates to make them.  Sadly, Nivardo had a severe stroke at the beginning of this year, and died just over a month ago. Alvaro Patiño has now taken over the basket-making operation: Alvaro was Nivardo’s star apprentice in the prison and they worked together on Milagros orders for many years. Alvaro was released at the end of last year and Milagros is now helping him set up a workshop in the community where his family live.

And, in an unexpected and rather happy turn of events, our baskets caught the eye of Philippe Starck, French architect and lead designer of Mama Shelter hotels. Working with Mama Shelter , Milagros has made basket  trays for a number of their hotels, including those in Istanbul, Belgrade, Los Angeles and most recently Luxembourg (the Luxembourg hotel having just opened at the beginning of 2020 –  we wish them luck in these tough times!). Milagros has also worked for many years with Wahaca producing bespoke oval taco baskets for their restaurants (one to bear in mind when we’re all allowed out again!).

We hope you are all safe and well.

Buena Salud,

Milagros

Good morning!

Given that shops will be allowed to open as of June 15th, we’re thinking hard about how we can best open in a safe and responsible manner. Please watch this space, and our Instagram, for more information in the days to come!

Milagros sells a wide range of handmade crafts from Mexico. Although the bulk of our business is tiles, we also sell a lot of mouth-blown recycled glassware, which we’ve been commissioning since we started the business.  Of late we’ve seen a renewed spike in interest in this. We know we’ve told you about it before in a previous issue of the newsletter, but below we’ve included a little more detail about how it gets made. Plus, we’re getting a  large shipment of it in July!

Milagros works with three glass-making workshops in Tonala and Tlaquepaque, near Guadalajara – an area which has a long-standing  glass-making tradition. We’ve been working with one of the workshops for thirty years: they’ve been a part of the business from the beginning! The workshops currently range in size from about twelve  to forty staff. Within the workshops, employees operate as teams, called chairs, with a master glassblower and apprentices running pieces to and from the kiln to their working chairs. The less experienced glassblowers start on the simpler pieces and it takes years to progress up through the ranks. And, as we’ll explain, the work requires a lot of physical strength and dexterity!

To begin with, the raw materials: as we’re very proud of saying, all our glassware is made from recycled glass. For a long time, one source was reusable Coca Cola and Pepsi bottles when they reached the end of their reusable lives, but now any clear glass – bottles, windows – as long as it has the right characteristics, can be used. These are delivered as washed shards, ready to be melted down in a large crucible inside a kiln. The molten glass needs to be in the furnace for about 12 hours before it should be worked.

To start any piece, a ball of molten glass is picked up with the end of a long hollow pole, (called a pontil pole) from the crucible, accessed through a hole in the side of the furnace. For the simpler pieces (like the straight and flared tumblers or vases), the glass is blown into a tubular mould. For the ribbed glassware, a bubble is initially blown into a mould made from steel rods. A hinged iron mould is used for many of the curved and more complex pieces, though sometimes these are made freehand.

The glassblower stands on a stool and blows down the pole, creating a bubble which  expands to fill  the muold. Once the basic shape is achieved, the holding point is shifted to what will become the bottom of the piece – this is why some of our pieces have a little belly button-like bump on their base.  The glassblower is usually seated for the next stage, which involves opening out the bubble from the end that had been the blowing point, initially using pincers and then doing so by hand. All the while, the glassblower will be rolling the pole up and down the arm of the work chair. It’s like turning clay on a wheel in pottery, but working horizontally, rather than vertically and in front of you as with a wheel. They must keep the glass constantly turning because it is semi-liquid and its shape will collapse if left still. Whilst turning the pole, they will also be using a damp mat (or, in some cases, a wad of damp newspaper) around the outside of the glass to ensure a smooth finish. With bigger pieces like jugs and vases, the process is the same, but the weight – and therefore the heat – is much greater. When a workshop is full, it’s positively balletic to watch: men dance around each other constantly with molten glass on the end of thin poles!

With pieces that require joining (like the feet and stems of wine glasses or the handles of jugs), there is an added complication, in that each piece of glass must be reintroduced to the kiln so as to match its temperature to that of the glass it is to be joined with, otherwise the shrinkage of the glass  as it cools (the rate of cooling is known as the coefficient of expansion) will be different and can create invisible tension in the glass, leading to later breakages or underlying fragilities.

Coloured glass is created when a small ball of pigment (which usually arrives at the workshops in the form of thin coloured rods or bags of chips), with a coefficient of expansion matching that of the clear body, is picked up with the pontil pole before being encapsulated in a larger ball of clear glass. When blown, this expands to form a coloured skin inside the clear glass bubble. Our confetti tumblers are made when a glassblower scatters a mix of  coloured chips onto a steel-top table, and then rolls a molten clear glass object over them, so that they fuse into the body of the glass. These tumblers are made in the same workshop that creates our highly popular coloured Virgin of Guadelupe glasses – but these are made from start to finish in a mould.

Many of the techniques used in the making and decoration of this Mexican glass were first developed in the making of Venetian glass in Murano. The two-tone glassware that we sell was introduced to Mexico about 25 years ago by one of our glassmakers looking to replicate the Italian architect Carlo Scarpa’s designs for Venini.

Our glassware is available to buy on our website, but if there’s something you don’t see, feel free to drop us an e-mail or give us a call, and we can have a look for you! We are also happy to take bespoke commissions for larger orders.

Buena Salud as ever,

Milagros