Mexican Odyssey: Our Search for the People's Art [Paperback]

Biloine Whiting Young (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 258 pages
• Publisher: Pogo Pr (October 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1880654105
• ISBN-13: 978-1880654101
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,896,448 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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5.0 out of 5 stars Well-written story of a friendship, business, and adventure., July 14, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Mexican Odyssey: Our Search for the People's Art (Paperback)

This delightful account of two women now in their late 60's describes the whim that became a dream which turned into a flourishing enterprise. In 1972 the author and her new friend Mary broke out of a Junior League life of civic associations by deciding to hold a Mexican crafts sale in the unheated third floor of the author's rambling house. To sell crafts they had to buy them. They loaded a suburban station wagon with canned goods to forestall hunger and drove south with $1,888 stuffed in homemade money belts. The author, who spoke Spanish, translated and worried about customs. Mary, who packed the lunches and watched the account ledgers, provided the right contrasts.

On the road the two women encountered dangers, great generosity, magnificent artistry, and wonderful stories. Anyone today following the routes traced in the book will find few changes. Teotitlan del Valle weavers still ply their art in the heat and dust. The black pottery of Coyotepec is made in the same fashion. Cholula and its pyramid are as fascinating today as in the 1970's. The same can be said for dozens of other places encountered in Young's Mexican odyssey.

With profound, but not syrupy, sensibility, Biloine Young tells us how the odyssey changed her and her friend and how they became part of the country whose crafts they sold. The "tag sale" became a well-known Midwestern boutique but the goods continued to some extent to be articles of enduring integrity, ingenuity, and value.

Young's prose is as well made as a Oaxacan pot. Her lively accounts, told with unpretentious humor and self-revelation, should star the recommendation of this multifaceted book for travelers to Mexico, persons interested in marketing crafts, and those wanting spend a time with appealing women.