Changing Dreams; A Generation of Oaxaca's Woodcarvers by Shepard Barbash - 2007

Santa Fe, NM: Museum of New Mexico Press, 2007 Museum of New Mexico Press, Santa Fe, NM. 2007. Hardcover. First Edition. Book is tight, square, and unmarked. Book Condition: New in publisher's vinyl wrap. DJ: New in publishers vinyl wrap. Brown cloth boards with black lettering on the spine. 155 pp 4to. This book takes a generational look at the fast-changing world of the woodcarvers of Oaxaca, Mexico. These artisans became famous in the 1980s for their colorful novelty figures, a contemporary folk art that the authors documented in their book "Oaxacan Woodcarvers". Fourteen years later, the authors returned to Oaxaca and discovered many changes in the lives of the woodcarvers they had known. Faced with a glut of carvings on the market, declining sales abroad, and an unsteady supply of tourists at home, a number of Oaxacan artisans put aside their craft to become mojados, or foreign workers, drawn by the economic opportunities north of the border. These carvers have joined millions of Mexicans who, unable to find good work or sustain their recent prosperity in their own country, have fled across the border. A clean pristine copy.