Figure Item Number: 3462/33 from the MOA: University of British Columbia
Day of the Dead figure. Figure features two skeletons dancing. Two of their hands are clasped together, and the other rests on their partner's back. The skeleton on the left is wearing a floor length gold dress with a tiered skirt. Five-petaled flowers are sculpted into the bottom edge of the skirt. The skeleton's hair is yellow, and styled into an updo. The skeleton on the right is wearing a white shirt, as well as a black jacket, pants, and tie. Both skeletons' heads are affixed to their bodies via thin, metal rods.
Figures like these, made by local artisans, have commonly been sold in indigenous markets throughout Mexico, especially for Day of the Dead celebrations. The figures are used as domestic decorations and presents for children. In 2019 Shelton noted that both the large Oaxaca market and the Sonora market in Mexico City had far fewer stalls selling this type of figure than there had been twenty years earlier. One maker in Oaxaca said domestic demand had declined, and that there were fewer artisans as many of the older makers had died and their children hadn't taken-up the craft. Some of the artisans make skeletal figures encased in glass, to sell to tourists through folk art shops.
Purchased directly from the maker in Oaxaca in 2019. Sra. Elipidia Chacon Ruiz told Shelton that her parents had also been potters in Oaxaca. She is in her 80s, and has taught her daughters and their children how to make the figures. She also told him it was the younger members of her family that came up with the idea of making skeletons in cars and racing cars.