Margarito Melchor

• San Martin Tilcajete

The Melchor family is one of the pilar of San Martin Tilcajete carving for 3 generations. Though they are specialized in mask his father is well known for his cats. Margarito and his sons are following the path and developing each one their own style: The three generations are still working together in their studio in San Martin.

Margarito Melchor Fuentes is a pioneer in wood carving. he was born on January 26, 1950, and began his exciting career in this noble craft in 1970, at the age of 20. In ancient times, his ancestors were already artisans who, in order to cultivate the land, dedicated themselves to the development of their work tools, which were used to sow the land, such as the plow that was used to make furrows and sow corn and beans, and yokes were made to harness bulls and carts to harvest the crops.

Wood carving began in the 60s with the master craftsman C. Isidoro Cruz Hernández who began making acrobats, tops, masks and many others.

He was the first director of FONART in the city of Oaxaca and exhibited his works from 1968 in the United States, as well as in the cities of Tokyo and Osaka in Japan. At the beginning, Isidoro Cruz invited some families to his house, of which the Fuentes family stands out (Epifanio Fuentes, Zenén Fuentes, Celedonio Fuentes), the Xuana family (Ventura Fabián), and Margarito Melchor Fuentes. They began making simple toys like tops, slingshots, and hopscotch.

We also carved animal figures, inspired by what we saw around us and those we had at home, such as dogs, cats, bulls, etc., as well as representations of the life of our people, such as the lady making tortillas, the farmer and his team. What I liked most was that we didn't need special tools. We used what we had at home: the machete we used in the fields, knives, wooden mallets, or any other tool that could help shape the wood the way we wanted. It was slow and complicated work because we didn't have the slightest knowledge of how it was made, but every little piece of wood we removed brought us closer to the final creation.

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