Barely 40 km from the city of Tlaxcala northwards, almost border on the state of Puebla is located Tlaxco, a small town surrounded by forests of pines and oaks.
 

By: Mexico Desconocido

In addition to his church quarry Tlaxco is notable because it contains a simple adobe house with yellow gate, one of the workshops to rescue Mexico's most important jewelry. The teacher Eva Martínez Sánchez, director of the workshop, explains it simply: It all began in 1985 when, following the earthquakes, the teacher Martha Turok, General Directorate of Popular Culture, commissioned me to rescue some machines left in Tlaxcala ". Graduate School of Jewelry Art and Design and the INBA SEP, Eva Martinez said:" Since childhood, in Saltillo, I was very fond of painting and jewelry making rudimentary jobs. Arriving in Tlaxcala was pleasantly surprised to realize that some of the machines were working abandoned silver. "

Thus began the real work of archaeological recovery.

The teacher began to travel Martínez Michoacán, Guanajuato, Morelos, Jalisco, Estado de Mexico, Yucatan, and, of course, Tlaxcala in search of antiques, from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to reproduce. "Human beings have always had the need to wear jewelry, beautiful pieces for him very valuable, but they are easily subject to theft or loss, says Eva Martinez. The work of rescuing the old parts should continue. Mexico is a rich country and certainly, there are still many designs that are to be lost. Recreate these parts is a good way to preserve evidence of past, not to dissociate the past. " In the workshop of Tlaxcala, the teacher Martínez and Hernández Erasmo Montalvo and Lucía Hernández Sosa, playing old silver earrings with coral, quartz, garnets and amethysts, and other stones.

The result of his work is exceptional. Each piece is a craft, as much parle the process is done manually. "Once the piece has been rescued, begins a series of seventeen steps that conclude with the assembly of the earring," the teacher explains Martínez. To make earrings using the ancient technique of "lost wax." The designs date from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and are, almost entirely inspired by the Catholic symbolism, prevalent in those years.

In its work, the workshop Tlaxcala represents elements of nature: birds, herons, fruit, pomegranate, grapes and vine leaves, and flowers such as roses and daisies. There are also pictures of crosses, hands, bows and keys. Currently in the workshop are ten models of art nouveau from France, but were very popular with Mexican society in the first half of the twentieth century. Many of the pieces now produced at the workshop were originally gold. Now paid through the money, a new life out of anonymity to be ornamental accessible. Prolongation of the past, these earrings are the answer to a sentiment seldom solved: the nostalgia.

Source: Mexico in the Time No. 34 January-February 2000