Marriage Of Metal
Marriage of Metal or "metales casados" is an ancient Mexican metal technique which dates back to at least 2500 B.C. It is known to have been used in the Olmeca, Monte Alban and Zapoteca cultures and most certainly by the Mayans. It is a way of combining two or more different matals; silver, brass, copper and other metals in designs. Pieces made with this method are each truly one of a kind.
However from the time Cortes landed in the Americas, the Spanish looted most of the Mexican art.
Any of the gold, silver and other metals they found was melted down for their own use. Much of Mexican
art was lost. However the Aztecs being insightful did hide much of their art from the Spainards and
the Spanish never did find the Mayan cities. During this time this technique seems to have been
lost.
In the 1930's a modern metalwork movement began in Taxaco,Mexico which was largely influenced by Pre-Columbian art. The Castillo brothers Antonio, Jorge, Miguel and Justo were among the thousands of artists that joined this movement. The youngest of the Castillo brothers Jorge (Chato) was responsible for reviving a number of ancient metalworking techniques. Among these techniques was metales casados or married metals or Marriage of Metals.
The last of these brothers died in 2000 but Dom Antonio Castillo's daughter Emilia and many other crafts people carry on in Los Castillos and the many other workshops that are still in Texaco, Mexico.
The pieces shown here were made by Clare who first saw the technique when viewing a showing of Tony Papp's
work in New York City. Tony who was with us a very short time(1961-1991) was Clare's inspiration but Tony
didn't live long enough to mentor her. Clare using Tony Papp's designs as guides taught herself the
technique and later found some courses in it to help her refine it. These pieces are not for sale they are part of Clare's personal collection. They are here for your viewing pleasure. Enjoy!
