Prize-winning Zapotec Weavers
Masters Jacobo and Jacobito Mendoza
Exhibition and Sale:
February 12-15 and 23-28, 10am-4pm
Casa de La Cuesta
(Upstairs from the Mask Museum at the
end of Privada de Huitzilopochtli #7)
jacobomendoza298@gmail.com
951-400-6081

by Colleen Besman

Jacobo Mendoza explains, “The first step is birth, the second is youth, the third is wisdom, when coming of age. The final step, which turns down, is death or perhaps heaven and then the cycle begins again.” He is pointing to the grecas, spiraling geometric designs. He explains that they also adorn the pre-Hispanic Zapotec stronghold, Mitla ruins.

Intent on interpreting Jacobo Mendoza’s rug patterns, I see both modern and ancient designs ablaze in amazing tones of red and orange, or softly represented in greens and gold, indigo and yellow. Wavy patterns of water? “No,” he tells me, “those are mountains.” Navajo zig zags? “No, that is lightning.”

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