Soteno family
[1] Metepec is known for sun decorations for walls, guitar-strumming mermaids, skeletal figures, animals of Noah's Ark along with other items, which attract buyers from Mexico City and Toluca.
The municipality is a suburb of industrial Toluca but the historic center still maintains its rural feel with tile roofs and stone paved streets.
In the colonial period, Metepec become a ceramics center, blending European and indigenous traditions, mostly specializing in black and green tableware, toys, religious figure and candlestick holders.
[4][5] She has a prestigious contest named after her called the Modesta Fernandez National Pottery and Ceramic Competition, which attracts artisan from all over Mexico.
[3] The couple produced ten children Mónico, Carmen, Estela, Alfonso, Víctor, Tiburcio, Pedro, Teresa, Manuel and Agustina, all of which have worked in pottery.
The Soteno artists have garnered acclaim both at home and abroad, as their sculptures are part of museum collections in Mexico, the United States, Canada, Europe and South Africa .
[6] Their works can be found in private collections, museums, galleries and other institutions in the U.S., France, Sweden, Japan, Switzerland, Germany, England, China and Brazil.
The small details may be made with molds, but a number of artisans in the family, including Oscar, prefer to do it all by hand.
[2][8] Today Tiburcio tries to fill in as many empty spaces as possible to avoid the use of wire, which he says rusts over time, making the piece fall apart.
Themes of these trees have ranged from the religious to the erotic, with famous characters such as the Virgin of Guadalupe and Frida Kahlo as well as stories of everyday people who placed special orders.
[10] One particular permanent exhibition of his work is at the Museum of Mankind in London which relates to Day of the Dead as well as a piece dedicated to the 500th anniversary of Columbus’s discovery of America.
[5] For 2010, the family made a number of pieces related to the Bicentennial of Mexico’s Independence features figures such as Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, José María Morelos y Pavón, Emiliano Zapata and Pancho Villa .
[10] He created the Tree of Life that appears in the church of San Francisco in Ecuador, whose story extends from the origin of sin in the Garden of Eden to the 21st century.
[10] Tiburcio also created the three meter tall double sided Tree sculpture that is on the place next to the 16th century Franciscan monastery in his hometown of Metepec.
[6] Oscar Soteno Elías family workshop is just outside Metepec on the highway that leads to Ixtapan de la Sal.
[1] Oscar Soteno has also been experimenting with selling his pieces online, especially Day of the Dead themed work for Halloween in the United States, with sales rising.
He has won a number of acknowledgements and awards at exhibitions, competitions and art fairs, including the Galardón Nacional in Jalisco in 1995 and the Premio Fomento Cultural Banamex in 1996.
It was awarded for a Tree of Life sculpture donated to Cuba in 1975 by then Mexican president Luis Echeverría Álvarez.
This sculpture is seven meters tall and contains 663 figures including mermaids, suns and moons which has become one of the symbols of the Casa de las Américas in Havana.
