Changing Dreams: A Generation of Oaxaca's Woodcarvers [Hardcover]

Shepard Barbash (Author), Vicki Ragan (Photographer)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 2007

This title takes a generational look at the fast-changing world of the woodcarvers of Oaxaca, Mexico. These artisans became famous in the 1980s for their colourful novelty figures, a contemporary folk art that Shephard Barbash and Vicki Ragan documented in the book "Oaxacan Woodcarvers". Fourteen years later, beginning in 2004, Barbash and Ragan returned to Oaxaca and discovered many changes in the lives of the woodcarvers they had known. Barbash effectively presents their personal stories in narratives drawn from interviews accompanied by Ragan's arresting black-and-white photographs of the carvers and their lives today. A series of diptychs of the same people taken in 1989-90 and again fifteen years later are accompanied by extended essay-captions on the changing circumstances shaping their lives. 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. With eloquence and insight, the book puts a human face on bilateralism, a fancy term to denote divided souls. From the dusty villages of Oaxaca to the orchards of Oregon and the kitchens of Chicago, the 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: artisans and aliens. "Changing Dreams" is a moving story of change and survival, conveying the growing aspirations and changing dreams of a people struggling to catch up without leaving too much behind, whose creations we enjoy but whose lives we barely understand.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 155 pages
• Publisher: Museum of New Mexico Press (October 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0890135053
• ISBN-13: 978-0890135051
• Product Dimensions: 10.2 x 9.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,878,724 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Shimmeringly beautiful, December 28, 2007

By 

Harry Litman "mmxyzptlk" (Pittsburgh, PA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Changing Dreams: A Generation of Oaxaca's Woodcarvers (Hardcover)

This is not simply a beautiful coffee table book, though it is that. Barbash and Ragan return to the site of their previous "Magic in the Trees," which was the definitive photojournalistic account of Oaxacan wood carvers and their oneiric, arresting creations. This sequel chronicles, in richly composed pictures and prose, the lives and work of the subjects of "Magic in the Trees" some 20 years later. The result is a handsome volume that succeeds on at least three levels: 1) as a portrait of a no longer pre-industrial society adjusting to the 21st century; 2) as a further chronicling of an important and probably dying art form; and 3) most mystically, as an account of the passage of time in individual lives, along the lines of the Apted 7-up series, in which we suddenly see the kindesseses and unkindnesses of passing years in side-by-side portraits and essays. An unusual and beautiful work.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Changing Dreams, Enlightening Surprise!, December 19, 2007

By 

John C. Dean (Atlanta Georgia USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Changing Dreams: A Generation of Oaxaca's Woodcarvers (Hardcover)

It's not often that you pick up a book which changes your entire notions and preconceptions about a part of the world, you thought you knew, so close, yet so very far away. It also is rare for two artists (Barbash the narrator, and Ragan the art photographer) from one culture to become so aesthetically and spiritually attached to artists from a completely distant mileiu, the rural wood carver artists and their uniquely varried, extended families in Oaxaca Mexico. Yet, this book maintains that curiosity over close to two decades. Even ten years of which, in a rapidly changing community such as this, is in many ways a lifetime of change, struggle, dreams of the past and the hopes for the future.

The story continues and widens and weaves, like the lives of the artists themselves. It describes their often unknowable treacherous travels to El Norte, primarily to support the future of the villages they are formed by. The story is of multiple generations of Oaxacan folk art families and, how their art, the land, the traditions, the pressures of survival and, the often unpredicted trajectory toward the futures of their children dominate their lives. The stories effect an entire poetic, family-centric, agrarian society in one of the poorest, yet colorful, regions of southern Mexico. One with little wealth, but great pride.

This is the kind of book that makes you want to escape your predictable, comfortable, materialistic, ordinary urban life and take a journey to a place you haven't even imagined yet. Isn't that what life is all about? It made me discover another world so close, yet so psychologically distant. I highly recommed this book. I couldn't put it down. By the way, the black and white photographs are most sensitively created and beautifully printed and are full of unique stories all their own. Go for it. I'm glad I did.

John Dean
Atlanta Georgia

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book drew me in, January 7, 2009

By 

Rock Kyndl (Roswell, GA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Changing Dreams: A Generation of Oaxaca's Woodcarvers (Hardcover)

I received this book as a gift. I glanced through it, looking mostly at the beautiful photographs which are paired up on facing pages showing the woodcarvers and their families as they are now and as they were 15 years ago.
Much later, I was lounging on my couch and I picked it up from the coffee table...and I have to admit I was drawn in by the stories of these craftspeople. I felt like I was getting an intimate glimpse of life in this region, esp. since the verbal and pictorial narrative spans such a long period. My impressions are further deepened by the fact that the people who wrote the words and took the photographs really seem to have had their hearts opened by the experiences they've shared with their subjects.
I am in the renovation business and have daily dealings with folks from Latin America. This gently beautiful, yet poignant book has given me a wider perspective on what they may have come from and what they may have left behind to be here in the US.