Connoisseurs of Mexican handicrafts consider 10 villages around scenic Lake Patzcuaro, in the State of Michoacan, to be top sources for their collections.
The historic Lake Patzcuaro area was the center of the Tarascan Indian culture. Many old ways still express themselves in craft traditions that have been handed down for generations.
Midway between Mexico City and Guadalajara, Lake Patzcuaro is remote enough to have retained its traditions, but to be easily accessible by car, train or bus. The area is popular with Mexican tourists, but the fact that it is relatively unknown among foreign visitors means prices are reasonable.
Touring the area`s villages, 12 to 50 miles apart, provides a delightful and rewarding shopping adventure. Each village has its specialties, including superb lacquerware from Patzcuaro, copperware from Santa Clara del Cobre, masks from Tocuaro, guitars from Parucho, toys from Quiroga, wooden furniture from Cuanajo, weavings from Erongaricuaro, straw work from Tzintzuntzan, and ceramic tableware and figurines from Capula and Ocumicho.
You can visit artisans in their fabrica (workshops) or go to crafts shops that distribute works by several craftsmen, including those living in other towns or the countryside. Shop prices are slightly higher than those in artists` workshops, but selections are bigger and sometimes of better quality. In general, village prices are at least a third less than those in shops in Mexico City and Guadalajara.
Narrow your focus
One way to tour the area is to focus on handicrafts that most interest you and design your itinerary around villages in which they are produced. Mexico Travel Advisors (213-462-5345), specializing in tours of Mexico, can assist with individualized itineraries.
The starting point for most shopping tours is Morelia, capital of Michoacan, about 30 miles from Lake Patzcuaro. Before leaving Morelia, visit Casa de las Artesanias (Fray Juan de San Miguel 129) for an overview of crafts found around Lake Patzcuaro.
This museumlike crafts center and shop provides information about villages and the artists working in them. Dozens of shops in Morelia sell Michoacan-made crafts, from expensive pieces to touristic trash, but the villages have more.
The largest crafts town is Patzcuaro, formerly capital of the Tarascan kingdom and colonial capital of the province of Michoacan. This slow-paced, slightly dusty town has cobblestone streets, lovely white adobe buildings and a vital lakeside port.
Friday is market day. Vendors, including Patzcuaro artisans and those from other towns, offer a full range of crafts in stalls around Plaza Gertrudis Bocanegra.
Patzcuaro`s artisans are famous for exquisite lacquerware trays, plates and chests, with beautiful, intricate patterns painted in gold on a black background, and for hand-loomed cotton tablecloths and napkins, serapes and rebozos and hand-carved red pine chests, tables, children`s furniture, toys and masks.
A converted convent
The town`s crafts center, Los Once Patios (Calle Dr. Coss), a colonial convent converted into a school, workshop and shop, has 11 crafts-filled patios. Featured are lacquerwares ($65 and up) by award-winning Alfonso Guido Santillan and Rogelio Alonso Mesa, plus henequen rugs (from $40) and cotton tablecloths (from $20) loomed on the premises, plus Michoacan pottery and furniture.
Excellent shops are around Plaza Don Vasco de Quiroga, Patzcuaro`s commercial center.
Prendas Tipica de Lana y Algodon sells beautiful serapes (from $18). Muebles y Artesanias Coloniales has masks (from $8), wooden chests (from $15) and lacquerware tables (from $75).
El Jorongo (Ave. L. Cardenas 521) and El Tarasco 2 (Calle Jaime Torres Bodet 3) feature woven rugs (from $40), serapes (from $28) and handknit sweaters (from $25).
Twelve miles south of Patzcuaro, Santa Clara del Cobre`s artisans make hand-hammered and polished copperware dishes, vases, platters, pitchers, candlesticks and other decorative items. The town has 50 forges employing more than 300 artisans.
The Museo del Cobre, in Morelos near the main square, shows collectible pieces by top artisans, including Joaquin Pureco Ramirez, Jose Perez Ornelos, Jose Velazquez Correa, Etelberto Ramirez Tinoco and Abdon Punzo Angel.
Trays and vases
Casa Saucedo (on the square) displays trays (from $65) incised with intricate patterns. Artesania Ruiz (on Pino Suarez, near the Museo del Cobre) features pieces with dark patterns (from $55) made by using acid, tar and wax, and painted copper vases and platters (from $40).
Cuanajo, off the Patzcuaro-Santa Clara road, produces wooden chests and furniture with elaborate handcarved motifs of flowers and animals. Chests are priced from $80. Make sure that the wood has been cured properly before buying.
In the other direction from Patzcuaro, Tzintzuntzan, 10 miles down the Old Morelia Road, makes inventive, amusing and inexpensive straw objects and toys.
Tzintzuntzan`s artisans also make ceramic tableware (from $2 each) with illustrations of Mexican country life drawn in dark brown on a beige background.
A few miles toward Morelia, Quiroga`s craft shops (along the street)
feature wooden toys and miniature furniture for doll houses. These delightful playthings cost pennies.
Nearby, Capula is known for dark brown ceramic dishes (from $2), serving bowls (from $3) and casseroles (from $4) made in molds and hand decorated with colorful paintings of fish, birds and animals or floral motifs.
In Tocuaro, 10 miles west of Patzcuaro, artisans make wooden dance masks for holidays and rituals in nearby villages. Ask anyone for directions to a maskmaker`s house to see and buy the wares. Juan Ortega and his son (on Calle San Andres) make lively looking masks (from $18) that are painted in great detail or polished to enhance the grain.
Soft goods
In Erongaricuaro, one mile from Tocuaro, women make wonderful clothes and tablecloths from handwoven cotton.
In the town`s Centro de Artes Applicadas Erongaricuaro, designer Steve Rosenthal has set up shop handpainting sideboards, headboards, screens and other furniture made in Cuanajo with a profusion of birds, animals, flowers and plants. Unfortunately, the workshop sells only to the trade on special order, but samples sometimes are sold at Casa de Artesanias in Morelia.
About 40 miles west of Lake Patzcuaro, Paracho is famous for guitars, from tinny toys made of avocado wood for $12 to masterpieces of Brazilian rosewood or fine-grained German spruce and ebony costing $2,500 or more.
There are dozens of shops and workshops in town. The Amezcua family shop
(20 de Noviembre No. 305) and David Carro at Los Michoacanos (Independencia 67) have top-quality instruments costing about $2,000. Ramon Guanados
(Independencia 164) specializes in good quality American-style steel-string guitars from about $150. Hermanos Hernandez (20 de Noviembre No. 9) has a wide variety of less expensive guitars from about $50.
Ocumicho, 20 miles northwest of Paracho as the crow flies, produces colorful clay figurines (from $9) of devils, monsters, serpents and men in a playful, surrealistic style. Figures are shown in mortal combat, at the Last Supper or in nativity scenes or driving Coca-Cola trucks. Ocumicho is way off the tourist trail, but shoppers are often so intrigued by figurines they see in Morelia or Patzcuaro that they want to visit the town. Ask directions to the workshops of Catalina Martinez and Maria and Emilio Basilio for fine figurines.
Prices quoted in this article reflect currency exchange rates at the time of writing.
