Retablos
are two dimensional, portable wooden boxes filled
with figurines usually made up of a mixture of
boiled potato and gypsum powder, depicting religious,
historical, political or everyday events. Using
a wooden tool resembling a toothpick, Nicario
Jiménez creates retablos that reference
his life in Ayacucho, Peru and in his new home
in the United States. Growing up in the Peruvian
Andes, he attributes his love of the tradition
to his great-grandfather who made retablos of
Saint Mark. During the 16th to the 19th centuries,
Spanish priests carried retablos of Catholic Saints
through these mountains. Today, Nicario Jiménez
is a renowned retablos marker whose work is collected
by the Smithsonian Institution, the Rhode Island
School of Design and the San Francisco Craft and
Folk Art Museum. Nicario has taught and lectured
at the University of Miami, the University of
California, San Diego, Whittier College and American
University.
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