Loteria Jarocha
Linoleum Prints
- Publisher
- Porcupine's Quill
- Initial publish date
- Apr 2013
- Category
- Prints, Folk & Outsider Art
-
Paperback / softback
- ISBN
- 9780889843622
- Publish Date
- Apr 2013
- List Price
- $18.95
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Description
Lotería Jarocha assembles a series of linoleum-block prints created by Mexican-Canadian artist Alec Dempster after his return to his native Mexico in the mid-1990s. Discovering a lively genre of folk music from the Veracruz region, Dempster subsequently devoted himself to documenting his heritage with printmaking. The result is Lotería Jarocha, a collection of expressive images which catalogue Dempster's encounter with the vibrant son jarocho culture of his birthplace.
About the author
Alec Dempster was born in Mexico City in 1971 but moved to Toronto as a child. In 1995 he moved back to Mexico and settled in Xalapa, Veracruz, where his relief prints eventually became infused with the local tradition of son jarocho music. Alec's conversations with rural musicians, presented along with thirty linoleum portraits, have been published recently as Faces and Voices of Son Jarocho. He has produced six CDs of son jarocho recorded in the field but is perhaps best known for his two lotería games – El Fandanguito, Lotería de Sones Jarochos, and the Lotería Huasteca – which include over a hundred prints. He has had solo exhibitions in the United States, Canada, Mexico, France and Spain. Alec now lives in Toronto. His own son jarocho group, Café Con Pan, has recorded two CDs, the most recent being Nuevos Caminos a Santiago. They are currently the recipients of a Popular Music grant from the Ontario Arts Council.
Awards
- Short-listed, ForeWord IndieFab Book of the Year Award
Excerpt: Loteria Jarocha: Linoleum Prints (by (artist) Alec Dempster)
El Aguanieve
The rain in Santiago Tuxtla has two flavours: the torrid din of a summer downpour and the penetrating cold of a slow winter drizzle, called aguanieve. In December, damp weather often muffles the sound of nocturnal processions along streets and down alleyways when musicians gather, moving in multiple directions, each with a chorus of followers. Time and place are blurred by the mist and steady rain saturated with the collective incantation of a familiar refrain: “Oranges and limes, limes and lemons. The Virgin is more beautiful than all the flowers.” The tranquility, however, is sometimes interrupted by northerly winds which invade the night with violent gusts, shattering windowpanes and rattling tin roofs. Many of the verses associated with this son mention tears, rain and the sea. Longing and departure are also common themes. Perhaps El Aguanieve originated along the coast as a lament for sailors out at sea, with other lyrics attaching themselves to it on its journey inland to places like Santiago Tuxtla where this son has been played for many generations.
El Balajú
Most people sing El Balajú without considering what the title might mean or what the son may be about. This is not surprising because balajú is an archaic word that has disappeared from the dictionary and common usage. Some clues may be found in the verse which is usually sung as an introduction.Because he was a warrior
Balajú set off to sea.
This is what he said to his mate,
– Come and navigate with me.
Who—ll be first to cross the ocean?
Shall it be you” Shall it be me?The maritime theme makes sense in relation to a definition published in 1859 referring to balajú as a schooner found in the Caribbean as well a type of boat used on the Bay of Biscay. The origin of certain verses and songs has been traced to very old songbooks. A songbook from Santiago Tuxtla includes a couple of pages of verses for El Balajú. One verse mentions The Port of Veracruz, Havana and El Muelle Inglés. The latter may refer to a historic port in Panama.
La Bamba
In 1958 Richie Valens rebranded the most emblematic of sones jarochos, in a rock and roll setting. He took his cue from early versions of La Bamba sung by musicians from Veracruz who had found a place in Mexico City's burgeoning film industry and night club scene. Verses associated with La Bamba indicate that it may have originated in the Port of Veracruz during the seventeenth century when the population lived in fear of attacks by “Lorencillo?, a dreaded Dutch pirate. I first heard a more traditional interpretation of La Bamba in 1995 on a tape of field recordings made in Los Tuxtlas. A year later I heard a similar version after stumbling off a bus in Santiago Tuxtla. I had walked just a few blocks under the searing July sun when I came across a group of old musicians huddled together playing La Bamba under the protective shade of a storefront awning. They were from different communities taking part in the annual celebrations of the town's patron saint. After attending a few fandangos I realized that La Bamba is still very much at the heart of the traditional son jarocho repertoire.
El Zapateado
Six short notes are enough to announce the arrival of El Zaptateado with a cavalcade of nails quickly following suit across rows of expectant strings. Two brazen chords are unleashed and begin to sway back and forth like a pendulum, creating the thick sound emanating from the fandango. Meanwhile, the guitarra de son weaves an endless string of melodic variations within the harmonic tug of war. Dancing couples take turns facing each other on the tarima to engage in the rhythmic dialogue. Singers jump into the fray with a piercing cry of “Ayyyyy!” as a signal for the dancers to quieten their steps. In spite of the sudden lull each verse must be forcefully sung over the rumble of hard soled shoes, boots, and the cumulative drone of strings and staccato melodies. Throughout the son disparate voices ring out from all around the tarima, drawing from an old well of memorized poetry. The dancers wait impatiently on the sidelines for the end of each verse. Only then is there an opportunity for a change of partners, indicated by a gentle tap on the back.
Editorial Reviews
Dempster's linocut illustrations based on Mexican folk music are imaginative and fun, with writing that only adds to the enjoyment.
During his time in Veracruz, Mexico, musician and artist Alec Dempster began to create illustrations of various son jarocho, musical pieces in a folk style popular in the region. Dempster's book Lotería Jarocha: Linoleum Prints combines sixty of his linocut illustrations--each based on a specific son--with artist's notes about each. The result is an impressive collection art fans will appreciate.
Dempster has recorded multiple albums of son jarocho himself, and his linocuts have been used on multiple game boards for lotería--a bingo-like game that uses illustrations rather than numbers. He clearly loves the material, and that resonates in his artwork. His pieces have a whimsical quality that works for decorating lotería game boards, while also celebrating the music that inspired him.
Each of the drawings appears on a right-hand page, and Dempster supplements his artwork with just the right amount of text on the left-hand side. Depending on the print, he writes about the lyrics of the son that inspired it, the history of a particular piece of music or dance, or the personal experiences in Veracruz he evokes in his art. The book is beautifully produced, printed on a textured paper stock that helps the black-and-white images pop on the page, and gives the project a timeless appearance and tactile feel.
His anecdotes are brief and interesting, enhancing the reader's understanding of each piece without becoming indulgent or repetitive. For a piece called "La Iguana," Dempster created a dancing man holding the titular lizard by the tale, and text describes the experience of watching the dance that accompanies this piece of music. "El Conejo" depicts an enormous rabbit leaping over a city, and is accompanied by the story of how rabbits became associated with the town of Santiago Tuxtla in Veracruz. In the case of "El Huerfanito," Dempster includes the lyrics of a son usually played at funerals, to accompany his plaintive portrait of a child kneeling in mournful prayer.
Dempster's linocuts convey equally the sorrow of "El Huerfanito," the joy of the dance-based prints, the gentle absurdity of an absent-minded mole with a cane ("La Tuza"), and a pig using its snout to cook ("La Tarasca"). Dempster's artwork is imaginative and fun to experience, and his writing only adds to the enjoyment.
ForeWord Reviews
Dempster's collection of songs, linoleum prints, and prose descriptions create an amazing reminder that it is an error to treat folklore as simply sentimental material to be preserved as cultural history. Lotería Jarocha joyously posits folklore as resistance to a monolithic way of thinking or expressing oneself and an embrace of community and cultural diversity.
World Literature Today
