Ed Jordan:

    Ed Jordan, an Austin collector of Mexican folk art, first discovered Martinez's  work at Tesoros Trading Company in the 1990s and immediately fell under the spell of his magic with clay.  His first acquisitions were four decorative and imaginative clay ollas (pots) which Tesoros owner, Jonathan Williams, said had been found in a storeroom in Mexico City and sent to the Austin store in a shipment of other Mexican folk art.  These four pieces were the start of his collection which now amounts to more than 50 items, ranging from a large four foot high birds and curlicues piece to fanciful candlesticks and simple, but beautiful and useful small pots.  Several iguanas, lizards and whimsical creatures adorned with candle holders playfully stalk among the larger clay designs.  Jordan said that he takes the greatest pleasure in just sitting and studying these pieces as he admires the wit, playfulness, simplicity, complexity, beauty and humor inherent in each design.

    Jordan has also managed to acquire at least seven of Martinez' earlier painted pieces.  Some are trees of life, and one, purchased with the help of Jordan's friend and fellow collector, Ron Slaughter, is a bull with three trapeze artists astride.  These are painted white and colored with designs in reds, greens, blues, and yellows.

    The first tree of life by Martinez to join Jordan's collection was found in a tourist shop on the highway out of Acatlan when Jordan visited Mexico in 2001.  He was wandering around the open air upper-story of the building and spotted a dusty, dirty tree of life on a shelf almost out of reach in what he calls a "Eureka" moment.  On tip-toes and with his long arms, he managed to grab the piece and quickly purchased it, dirt, cobwebs and all.  Cleaned up, the piece was completely intact:  highly colored with a center man on a horse and other men with spread arms holding birds and several angels keeping an eye on it all.  "Serendipity" says Jordan, "who knows how long that piece had been hiding there until I spotted it?"

    As Jordan continued to explore the town of Acatlan, he came upon a municipal building where he saw some more of Martinez's artistic endeavors.  In the foyer of the building were two large intricate tree of life creations, both broken and crumbling with pieces on the floor with no one interested enough to pick them up.  The three young women who worked in the building had no idea ofwho  Martinez was and no knowledge of his reputation and fame world-wide.  In an adjoining room, Jordan found more of Martinez's work, mostly all broken up and some thrown into cardboard boxes shoved up against a wall.  The girls refused to allow Jordan buy anything, and there was a lot of giggling at the strange "gringo" who wanted to buy what was to them trash.  Thus, at that time, it was clear that what had been major works of art were not admired or held in esteem by the local populace perhaps bearing  out Martinez's own feeling that he was more appreciated abroad than in his own town and country.

    Jordan then moved on to Oaxaca, where strolling down a street near the Zocalo, his eye was caught by a glimpse of pottery on the floor of a jewelry store he was passing.  Inside, he found a dozen old Martinez pieces, and he purchased a small mask, a figure of animals stacked one on the other, and a fine bird candlestick, all in the indomitable style of the potter he admires so much.

    Back in Austin and over the years, Jordan has continued to add to his collection  by finding pieces at folk art stores, garage sales, auctions and even in a Good Will store.  It is as though he has antennae for spotting Martinez pieces in odd places, and his collection is something to behold.

         


     


Ron Slaughter:

Another avid admirer of Martinez was Ron Slaughter, who had one of the most impressive collections of Mexican folk art in the country.  Slaughter called Martinez "his favorite artist, one of the few in Mexico who followed the beat of his own drum--a leader in the world of Mexican ceramics who worked with originality and had great taste."  Slaughter's tale of how he became a collector of folk art is fascinating and is a good example of the uniqueness of the ways in which people fall into this "addiction."

"On a fateful visit to Mexico, the Slaughters bought a house on the spur of the moment.  It was not just an old house--it was an 18th century home in a beautiful, small mining village.  It was huge and required five years of work to become a thing of beauty.  The very last room to be redone was the kitchen, a small dingy place with almost no windows.  Old tiles were added, and niches were put in the thick adobe walls for display.  It was the niches that started it all:  what to put in them?  The answer turned out to be old Mexican pottery in keeping with the age and "bones" of the place--and that is what started the Slaughters' journey into collecting vintage pottery and folk art.

"In a very short time, they were on their way.  Pieces came slowly at first, but as the Slaughters learned more and more, the niches started filling up.  It was not long until one name jumped out of the pack, and it was,  of course, Heron Marintez.  Slaughter fell into love with his work--it was his "eye candy" for the soul.  In his collection were fabulous pieces from all the periods of Martinez' career, including the harder to find "white period." 

Sadly, Slaughter died awhile back.  However, fortunately, he had forwarded photos of his collection to Ed Jordan.  Following are four interesting pieces:

   

   
                                                                                                                            

  Lee Price Arellano:

In the 1980s, I had the good fortune to be posted to the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City, and it was during those years that my interest in Mexican folk art was born.  I used to love to go to Bazaar Sabado in San Angel, and it was there that I saw my first pieces of Martinez's whimsey.  In one of the permanent display rooms upstairs, there was a huge jumble of ceramics, and even though many of the pieces were high quality, Martinez's work stood out.  However, none of the ceramic work was identified by artisan or town of origin so I was left in the dark as to whom was the creative genius behind the pieces I so admired.

On other Saturdays, I sometimes went down to the Zocalo and would always go to the Fonart store on Avenida Juarez.  There one day I found a display of work obviously done by the "nameless" artisan who had caught my attention at Bazaar Sabado -- but this time, the pieces were identified as being the work of Heron Martinez of Acatlan de Osorio.   Among Martinez's creations on display was a winged animal composed of the body parts of  several different animals.  It was truly special, and I knew I had to have it.  However, I did not want to buy it in the impersonal atmosphere of a store -- I wanted to meet the artisan and buy it directly from him.  It was at this point that I knew a trip to Acatlan -- wherever that was -- was in my future.

I went home and got out my map and realized that stops in Acatlan were natural if driving to Oaxaca from Mexico City.  Obviously, our next trip was "born."  We found Acatlan to be typical of many Mexican towns:  simple buildings set into a seasonally dry and dusty environment.  A distinguishing feature, however, is the domination of the landscape by San Juan Bautista, a baroque basilican church, which was completed in 1724.  Its dome is particularly beautiful with turquoise-glazed  ceramic tiles, which were probably produced in the capital city of Pubela which is well known for the also highly collectible maiolica called talavera (another one of my passions) it has produced for centuries.  Because of the prevalence of earthquakes in the region, the well designed and constructed  church is one of the few surviving remnants of the colonial period.

Martinez's workshop was not on the main thoroughfare and only occasionally mentioned in  guidebooks of the time, so,  we had to ask for directions.  Since many potters there bore the name Martinez, it took an effort to find Heron.  Upon finally reaching the workshop, we found a study in contrasts as the modest building gave no hint of the fantasy world which lay within.  Even entering the doorway, there was no showrom or articles marked for sale.  Instead, there was a wonderful chaos of completed pieces piled haphazardly and partially completed pieces ready for firing.  Some of these were piled on top of tightly made up beds in small bedrooms.  Martinez, himself, was usually on the site, and his normally reserved countenance would break into a wide grin as he watched our smiles of pleasure upon seeing the refreshing depictions of koala bears at play, kangaroos with their young, aquatic  creatures (like fish and frogs) piled upon one another, and serpents with long tails.  Besides the animales fantasticos, Martinez's studio also created magnificent baroque clay churches, wall plaques of animals and birds, vases, and even small depictions of roosters and chickens for use as salsa dishes. Of course, not to be forgotten, was a huge, unfinished tree of life which someday would reign supreme in a lucky collector's home.   We tried to buy as many pieces as we could fit into our car safely -- and on one trip, the winged animal I had fallen in love with at Fonart at Mexico City was waiting for me (the photo of which serves as the opening page to this website).

Sometimes, despite the fact that rooms would be full of appealing  pieces, nothing would be for sale as everything was destined to fulfill outstanding orders, many from abroad.  However, knowing that people had driven many miles to see his latest work and with typical Mexican graciousness and "buenas maneras," Martinez and his men would attempt to find pieces that they could sell on the spot so  we could carry home new examples of his imaginative designs and not be disappointed.   

            

 

           

 

 

How Chuck Snyder Met Heron Martinez and His Fascinating Critters

As a life-long Midwesterner at the time, my first encounter with Mexico was at a convention in El Paso in 1959 when a group of us crossed into Juarez to have dinner at a classy place called La Fiesta. The food and entertainment were excellent.

Later, I had occasion to visit San Antonio in 1962 as a meeting planner scouting a convention site, and I had my first TexMex meal on the River Walk.  It was love at first bite, and I began to appreciate the mystique of the Mexican flavor and decor.  The convention was in San Antonio in 1964, and I had the time and opportunity to absorb much more of the Mexican influence, making several trips to Nuevo Laredo to buy decorations for the event.  The River Walk was just beginning to come alive during this period, and one of its first commercial enterprises had opened, La Sirena, a high-toned shop with some of the best of Mexican folk art.  Bob Winn was the proprieter and buyer and helped familiarize me with the splendid art objects that came from below the border.  Clif Wallace was also involved in the shop, and he and Bob continued to tutor me on the merchandise.  Although I don't recall specific pieces, I'm sure Heron Martinez was represented in the stunning collection -- such was the quality of the stock, the excellence of display and the expertise of Bob Winn's taste.  Several of us traveled to Monterrey after the event, just for R&R, my first visit to the interior.  Fell in love again.

San Antonio was in the process of planning for a World's Fair, and I've been a Fair freak since my  folks took me to Chicago's Century of Progress in 1933 -- I've been to eight World Fairs.  Because of my work in the city at the 1964 convention, I was offered a post at the San Antonio World's Fair, HemisFair '68, and moved to the city in 1967 with the intention of staying on after the Fair.  I was Manager of Special Events at the Fair, which was the adventure of a lifetime and another story altogether.  In addition to much Mexican and Latin American influence and flavor at the Fair, my office was located just a block from the Alexander Girard folk art exhibit, The Magic of a People, where I acquired a whole new appreciation for Mexican folk art, with heavy emphasis on Josefina Aguilar and Heron Martinez.  (That collection is now at the Folk Art Museum in Santa Fe, which I've visited several times.)

After the Fair, I joined the staff of the San Antonio Chamber of Commerce where I remained for ten years.  I began to visit Mexico in earnest at every opportunity.  I became a member of the San Antonio Conservation Society and eventually was co-chair of the Mexican Tienda at their annual Night in Old San Antonio celebration in April, a duty originally performed by the afore-mentioned  Bob Winn.  This meant making periodic visits to the border and the interior to shop for merchandise.  Over the five or so years I worked at the Tienda, a friend of mine and I made many trips and spent thousands of dollars on folk art, making me sort of an amateur expert on the subject.  Our offerings did very well in making money for the Society.

I had become a true fan of Heron Martinez and his unique style, but can't recall my first acquisition.  I just came quickly to appreciate his subtle techniques, and especially the whimsy in his designs.  In our travels, we had met several of the artisans personally, and I determined to find Martinez and visit his taller.  The opportunity came in 1982 when we were driving from Mexico City via Puebla to Oaxaca.  I knew he was in Acatlan, Puebla, and expected his work would be much in evidence there.  Incorrect!  We stopped in several shops and found not one piece of Martinez, and no one knew who we were talking about.  Could this be the wrong town?  In despair, we stopped at a local cafe for a Sidral Mundet  and asked the waitress about Martinez.  "Yes, he lives right up this street," she said.  We drove to where she had directed us and saw a house on the corner with some of Martinez' pieces on the fence posts.  A lady, apparently his wife, who was standing on the porch, recognized our ilk and directed us around the corner to his taller. We parked, walked in and drew our breath as though we had encountered the Holy Grail.  There was a large open brick kiln in the yard and a flat-roofed building much like a large garage, filled with rows and rows of his artwork, with more on the walls.  And there, against one wall, was the master himself, burnishing the finish on one of his distinctive pieces.



Martinez had less English than I have Spanish, which is pitiful at best, but we seemed to hit it off well.  I asked if I could take a few photos of him and his handiwork, which was fine with him.  I was able to ask if there was any outlet in the state of Puebla where his work was available, and surprisingly, he said "no."  He pulled out his wallet and produced a business card for El Cocijo, a shop in Oaxaca where his work was displayed.  The principal was an American, Frank Hale, and his partner was Saul Lopez Jimenez, and I have made many pilgrimages to El Cocijo over the intervening years where I bought a number of the Martinez pieces I now have.  In fact, it was Frank Hale who told me about Heron's passing in 1990.

Heron Martinez was really not in the retail trade from his taller, but we were able to buy a half dozen pieces from him.  He didn't even have a bag  or wrapping paper, so we just anchored them on the back seat as best we could and hoped for the best.  We were flying back from Mexico City so we could not carry any of the larger pieces.  All of these items were sold in the Tienda in San Antonio, save one which had sustained some damage in transit.  I was able to repair it and treasure it now as the only piece I had bought directly from Martinez himself (see the photo of the decorated goat shown below).  (I have many pieces  of Mexican folk art I've purchased directly from the artisan who created it.)

In the late 1970s and early 80s, I lived in Laredo, where I discovered in the mid-80s that Martinez's daughter and her husband had set up a shop in Nuevo Laredo, where I also purchased several pieces, notably my largest one, a church (shown below with Josefina Aguilar figures).  

I have only ten or so pieces of Heron Martinez, which I value highly.  Most of them are small because of  their having to be transported by air.  I don't buy any more because I have no room here in the condo, and I do have quite a few other pieces of Mexican folk art, including much carved wood from Oaxaca, a lot of Josefina Aguilar's figures (and those of her sisters), a few Teodora Blanco, a number  of Gorki Gonzalez, a tin military band from Oaxaca, serapes from a number of sources, Mixe primitives from Oaxaca and Ken Edwards' El Palomar ironware which  we use on the table every day.  I've visited 28 of Mexico's 31 states, I've planned and conducted a number of historical tours of the country, and I hope to see the other three states one of these days.

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