Art, Nudity, Silver, Well-Kept Secrets – Taxco

Everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects.

Will Rogers

Gourds as tortilla warmers, candle holders, skeletons, mobiles, bowls.

Tepoztlán, Morelos, Mexico

I finally made it to the State of Guerrero and its gorgeous surroundings, my last journey before heading ‘home’ for part of spring and summer.  I am visiting remarkably generous and knowledgeable friends, a bonus I don’t often have the occasion to take advantage of.  There is nothing like having enthusiastic resident guides to show you around a new area. 

I had planned on calling this post ‘Of Goats and Million Dollar Homes’ but I am getting ahead of myself…

By Dave Trumpore – Taxco night.  

I don't have the type of camera to do it justice.

I arrived by bus in the near total darkness of a very late evening.  Although only a couple of hours drive away from the huge City of Mexico, Taxco is still quite rural, separated by miles of uninhabited land and dusky roads.  Watching my GPS, I knew I had to almost be at my destination but only blackness still surrounded the bus.  Unexpectedly, around a sharp corner, a steep hill ahead looked like it was covered with fireflies.  Thousands of small points of light scintillating in the hazy distance.  It was magical.  It was beautiful.  I had arrived.  A peaceful and lovely sight I would later experience nightly from the balcony of my bedroom.  

Many splendid views of town from surrounding hills

Sea of burnt orange and white in a bed of green

Coming here feels a bit like traveling back in time.  Narrow, steep, cobblestoned labyrinthine streets are lined with precariously perched picturesque whitewashed colonial-style homes and buildings topped with terracotta tile roofs.  Alternate waves of tired white and singed orange flowing over the seven or so rugged ridges buttressed by their steep uneven valley counterparts.  Although the original town is 10 kilometers south of here, the New Taxco is now where the action is.  Old Taxco has nearly been forgotten in the process. 

“Like some love child of Santorini and Córdoba, clinging to a steep hillside.”

Phoebe Eaton

The perennial VW taxis

More Vocho taxis - As colorless as the homes....

The challenging alleyways keep the town at a human scale.  In most instances, the locals still walk, keeping the size of the growing town in check. I couldn’t describe the convoluted streets any better than Manuel Toussaint: 

“It is impossible to imagine beings more whimsical or haphazard than the streets of Taxco.  They hate the mathematical fidelity of straight lines; they detest the lack of spirit in anything horizontal.  Here in Taxco, streets lead forward, rise, drop, twist to the left, then wind to the right; they suddenly rear up a ravine or return repentfully to where they started.  Who said streets were invented to go from one place to another, or to provide access to houses?  The streets of Taxco happen to be irrational entities, which justifies their existence even more than if they were rational… All streets in Taxco assume the form of a ramp; though at an incline of 45 degrees, heels are forced to tear into the cobbled spaces like claws.”

After living in the similarly built mining city of Guanajuato, I couldn’t help but notice a stark difference between the two.  They both are Magic Towns born in the 1500’s, they both have narrow windy steep streets and alleyways, they both are lined with Lego-like boxy homes precariously resting on top of each other but, as flamboyant and ornate as Guanajuato is, Taxco is merely whitish and unadorned, except for its Santa Prisca Church and a few street designs.  

Various street and plaza designs

Love that hairpin corner…

Walking and interacting with the locals, it seemed the bright colors of Guanajuato could be felt in its residents, the lack of colors in Taxco was reflected in the absence of enthusiasm of its inhabitants.  Chicken or the egg?  Did colors come from within and spilled out on homes in Guanajuato or did people become more passionate once surrounded by colors?  

Can the opposite be said of the Taxco people?  Does blandness beget insipidness?  You would think that with a year-round spring-like weather (63F-81F or 17C-27C) the tendency would be to ooze with colors and energy, but it is not the case.  Does the weight of the constant cartel surveillance have anything to do with it?  Its presence not being as strong in Guanajuato.  

Guanajuato (the State) has Cristo Rey, a famous and very large pristine statue of Christ the King.  His demeanor is strong, he proudly overlooks high above the fertile plains below.  A heartwarming center for many pilgrims.  Taxco’s Christ the Redeemer sits on an old quarry.  He has already lost a hand in a windstorm.  His base covered with graffiti, he looks hesitant, stiff, not even peeking over the nearby pine trees.  

Small angel by the pool where I stayed

Local historian Javier Ruíz Ocampo said that people came to Taxco ‘to behave badly and not get their work done…’  People came here because Taxco knew how to keep secrets.  In its heyday, Taxco was branded as a glamorous intellectual center – everyone wanted to be seen here.   Artists, politicians, activists, actors, scholars, writers, musicians, Nobel prize winners, journalists, presidents, and influential businesspeople congregated here.   

Orange, white, orange, white, orange, white

City ordinance stipulates you cannot build in any other style

Nicknamed the Montparnasse of Mexico in the 1930-40’s, artists and scofflaws rubbed elbows in the, as many as, 150 drinking establishments that could be found around town in what is now muted cartel country.  Some came to be creative, others, to forget.  They met in secret, talked Marxism, painted, plotted, agitated, unionized, innovated, created, sang about the revolution and social changes.  After WWI, Mexico had become a blank page where Euro-intellectuals were attracted to write a new history.

Art, revolution, and lawlessness were seemingly inseparable, feeding off each other.  Art is the language of revolution.  The world is drawn by the power of art to enact changes.  LACMA

Ford Country in Taxco Pueblo Magico

Before I get into more details, here is a list of many of the greats who visited:

Adrian of Hollywood (American costume designer famous for Dorothy's red slippers), Aldous Huxley (English writer and philosopher who complained about the town’s bohemian pretentions and the insidious fog of alcohol.  He wrote about Mexico in Beyond the Mexique Bay, 1934), Alexander von Humbolt (Prussian naturalist and explorer), Bette Davis (American actress), Cary Grant (English born, American actor), Chief White Eagle of Oklahoma (aka Basil Heath, American actor and stuntman) Clare Boothe Luce (American author), Clinton Blair King (American artist), David Siqueiros (Mexican social realist painter, muralist, Latin America buccaneer), Diego Rivera (Mexican painter, muralist, designed the Guerrero State Coat of Arm), Dolores del Rio (Mexican actress), Dorothy Parker (American poet and satirist), Errol Flynn (Australian actor), Frida Kahlo (Mexican artist), Frank Sinatra (sang Sunrise over Taxco), George Gershwin (American composer), Gertrude Stein (American novelist), Hart Crane (American poet), Henry Ford (American business magnate), Jack Palance (American actor), John Dos Passos (American novelist whose claim to fame is the invention of Berta, a Taxco honey sweetened margarita-like drink), John Ford (American film director, part of the movie The Fugitive was shot in Taxco in 1947), John Huston (American film director), Jose Clemente Orozco (Mexican caricaturist and painter who illustrated The Pearl by Steinbeck), Katherine Anne Porter (American journalist), Lana Turner (American actress), Leon Trotsky (Russian Marxist), Leopold Stokowski (English conductor), Leslie Howard (English stage and film director), Linda Darnell (American actress), Mabel Dodge Luhan (American patron of the arts), Mae West (American actress), Maria Felix (Mexican actress), Marilyn Monroe (American actress), Marlene Dietrich (German actress), Miguel Covarrubias (Mexican painter and ethnologist – mostly of the Olmec culture, his art work on the covers of The New Yorker and Vanity Fair), Orson Welles (American actor, director, writer and producer), Patricia Highsmith (American Novelist – glad to be in Taxco where she could wear trousers. It is thought her inspiration for Mr. Ripley may have flowered in Taxco), Paul Bowles (American composer), Ned Rorem (American composer), Paulette Goddard (American actress), Peggy Cowley (American landscape painter), Rockefeller (American industrial and banking family), Rufino Tamayo (Mexican painter), Saul Bellow (Canadian writer inspired in Taxco to write The Adventures of Augie March), Sergei Eisenstein (Soviet film director), Stuart Chase (American economist, social theorist, wrote Mexico, A study of two Americas), US President John and Jackie Kennedy (stayed in room 12 at La Borda Hotel), US President Johnson, US President Lyndon, US President Nixon, Vanderbilt (American industrial family), William Faulkner (American writer), William Spratling (Silver designer and artist who wrote Little Mexico).

Violin for money

I will concentrate on only a few main characters. 

Acapulco is part of the State of Guerrero and the likes of Brigitte Bardot, JFK, Kissinger, the Clintons and many more had vacations, spent honeymoons or filmed movies there.  It used to be a splendid place to be near the ocean, on a pleasant beach.  These days are long gone with the cartel taking over but with its proximity to Acapulco, Taxco had its fair share of famous visitors, secretly or not.  

Santa Prisca from wave of burnt orange

Marilyn Monroe came to Taxco as a guest of honor but also in secret.  Some of these secrets will never be completely revealed, now modest innuendoes or rumors. 

The American Gringa or La Gringa Bonita, as the locals called her was celebrating winning The Golden Globe for the movie Some Like It Hot at the hotel La Borda in downtown Taxco.  As a guest of honor, Marilyn was serenaded by Jose Bolaños, a 1960’s playboy director. He brought with him upwards of 50 mariachi band members from the City of Mexico, trying to impress the young actress. 

Not a real blonde.  Antonio Caballero

During a certain well attended interview (not certain if in Acapulco or Taxco), photographer Antonio Caballero, by accident, ended up taking a picture of Marilyn just as she was changing the crossing of her legs.  That famous / infamous picture was proof that she was not a natural blonde.  Mr. Caballero sold the picture for only 10 pesos and it was never published nor made the tabloids.  It stayed hidden for a long while.  Marilyn was asked about the incident and she answered that underwear were too restrictive. 

When queried whether she would like to have an affair with a Mexican actor, Marilyn’s quick answer was ‘Why does he have to be an actor?  That he is Mexican is enough because I cannot be without a man.’

During the same period, John F Kennedy came to Taxco.  Some historians say he was with his wife at the time.  Others that he was, in secret, with Marilyn Monroe.  Could’ve been both. FBI documents show that Marilyn Monroe had been to Taxco but the name of the person she was with is still hidden today.  It is only a guess, since the name is still concealed, that it had to be President JFK. 

Marilyn knew William Spratling (more on this famous silversmith below) and came more than once (in secret) to visit directly with Spratling at his ranch in Old Taxco, where only he and indigenous people lived.  She often had lunch with Spratling, and she taught some of his friends to Twist, a glass of champagne in one hand. 

She ordered furniture for her newly purchased colonial style Brentwood, CA, home.  Some of that exclusively designed furniture never got delivered to California, as Marilyn committed suicide before it was sent out. 

After her death, Jose Bolaños continued to claim that they would’ve gotten married had she lived but no one in Marilyn’s inner circle accepted that story.  He was only thought of as an escort, or possibly an FBI agent.  Many say he was the last person to speak with her.  

Loving that jewelry

William Spratling arrived in Mexico in 1926, bought a house in Taxco in 1928, and started working silver in 1931.  Taxco then was a overlooked village of 2,000 inhabitants. He was lucky enough to be in the age of El Dorado of silversmithing.  An era of cheap silver, cheap labor, and little competition.  Before Spratling’s influence, almost only gold was used for jewelry production since it had a much higher value. 

North American professor and architect, he was a man passionate about Mexico and Taxco.  He taught at the ‘Harvard of the South’, Tulane University.  He left his teaching position abruptly and it could’ve been due to aggravating sexual motives.  Spratling had a preference for children.  In the creation of his apprenticeship program, the apprentices were called ‘zorritos’, little foxes. What he did then, would today be called grooming. 

He was no saint in business either, before making a living with silversmithing, Spratling trafficked in pre-Colombian antiquities, real and fake.  He dabbled in a little bit of everything: writing, horse rental, guide service, interpretation, furniture, tin work, weaving, hollowware, etc.  

More street designs

Taxco’s local historian likes to remind people that ‘Where there was Spratling, there was nudity.’  He often sketched naked boys or let them run around that way.  He built a swimming pool where bathing suits were optional.  The town turned the other way but eventually pressure made Spratling move to Old Taxco for a bit more space and privacy. 

He started an entire silver movement after being introduced by friend Diego Rivera to primitivist art.  When embarking on his new life as a silversmith, Spratling said: ‘Taxco has been producing silver for four hundred years without benefiting its own people.’  Time to change that!

When fame finally reached Spratling, his jewelry would sell at Macy’s, Saks Fifth Avenue, Tiffany & Co, Neiman Marcus, Marshall Fields, and more.  His American audience was admiring Mexico’s success on ‘building an authentically national mode of art out of the turmoil of their revolution.’ (Wilson-Powell, 2011)

In 1931, with the help of gold artisans from nearby Iguala, he opened his first shop, called Las Delicias (The Delights).  In the mid-1930’s he had 145 silversmiths working for him with a weekly production of 440 pounds (200 kilos) of silver.  In 1945, Spratling employed 400+ silversmiths. 

Antonio Pineda, a fellow silversmith said of Spratling that ‘he was the author who lit the fire of modern silverwork.’ 

Spratling even brought over eight young Eskimo boys (of course) from Alaska to start the same type of apprenticeship and silversmithing in that part of the world, training them here first.  That project never took off. 

The way the silversmithing (if we can even call it that anymore) is done today would break Spratling’s heart.  Cheap, machine made, production pieces, lower quality silver, etc.  Instead of paying their workers a salary, some jewelry molds were given to the artisans who use them in unauthorized ways today.  One must be weary of what they buy. 

Seventy percent of Taxco’s population depends directly or indirectly on the silver industry today.  More than 10,000 artisans know how to work silver.  But with globalization and competition, the prime days of Taxco silver jewelry are well over.  

"Spratling owned reproductions of the Codexes Vindobonensis, Fejérváry-Mayer, and Nuttall as part of an extensive library on pre-Columbian art. He shared his passion for collecting with Josué Sáenz, Miguel Covarrubias, Diego Rivera, and Roberto Montenegro, and with North Americans Nelson Rockefeller, Robert Woods Bliss, Gillett G. Griffin, and Morton D. May. 

Spratling visited archeological sites and knew many of the notable archaeologists and scholars in Mexico, among them, Ignacio Bernal, Herbert J. Spinden, Alfonso Caso, and George Vaillant. Caso’s discovery in 1931 of the gold treasure in Monte Albán’s Tomb 7, in Oaxaca, directly influenced the work of designers in Taxco and throughout Mexico. 

Most of these Mexican jewelers resisted slavish imitation and moved to subtle and suggestive borrowings, all the while retaining symbolic references. The resonance of these works reveals the fascination with indigenous culture, which was shared by those who made the silver and by those who bought it. Today these silver designs remain powerful and sensuous artistic statements." LACMA

Silver jewelry modeled after Aztec and Maya relics as well as codices

Santa Prisca Church 

Tallest Mexican building for 45 years (until 1806)

518 angels, 9 altars, 23 tons of gold leaf

54 paintings by Miguel Cabrera of Oaxaca

Close up of tile work on cupola
Blue Puebla Talavera tiles

The beginning of artisanship in precious metals in the region of Taxco goes back to pre-Hispanic times.  Back then, silver mining and jewelry making were for ceremonies honoring the Aztecs and their deities.  They created headdresses, charms, pendants, rings, nose pins, earrings, armlets, pectorals, and bracelets for their ruling class. 

Hernán Cortés arrived in the area in 1521 to fight the Aztecs.  He discovered silver around 1532-34 while he was looking for tin to combine with copper to make cannons used in the conquest of Mexico.  What he found was more valuable to the Spanish Crown, the new rulers of the area… 

Statue of French Don Jose de la Borda

However, the most important silver mining period occurred after the arrival of Don Jose de la Borda in 1716.  The amount of metals extracted by that time accounted for 80% of the silver exported from Mexico to Europe via Asia by sea – from the main port of Acapulco. 

It is believed that at the time he was the richest man in the world.  He built the Santa Prisca Church and had full control of the designs and all the details.  This best example of Mexican Baroque was built in less than eight years, lightspeed for the amount of work and the intricate techniques involved. 

Some compare him to Trump in that he loved to build lavish and elaborate over the top buildings spending his immense fortune in the process.  ‘He almost went bankrupt gilding the baroque guts of Santa Prisca, his twin-towered ticket to heaven.’  Phoebe Eaton

Religious pieces for the churches and accessories for horses were then more in vogue than headdresses and pectorals.  Later, Spratling came along and the rest is history. 

Today goats roam around million-dollar homes turned rentals – were they homes of cartel lords, activists, famous folks?  The juxtaposition of poor goat herder walking his herd amongst mansions is quite fascinating.  Currently, Guerrero is a top producer of opium and methamphetamine and a transit hub for South American cocaine.  Non-players are buried in dormant mineshafts, informal graveyards of the 21^st century.  

I slept in such a mysterious house, goats passing by regularly.  Were goats and herders witnesses of the debauchery of Taxco’s majestic days?  Merely announced by their delicate bells ringing up and down the steep rough country?  They have outlived the silver rush, they have outlived the revolution, what will they see next?

For the Guinness World Records – from town’s website

With not much else to attract tourists anymore, Taxco is now pushing for Guinness World Records.   

• Creating the world’s largest flower out of 10,000 poinsettias (first discovered in Taxco).
• Making the biggest cast silver Virgin of Guadalupe to be blessed by the pope, hence enhancing their reputation as pious pilgrims.
  

From the race website

They also have an Urban Downhill Mountain Bike Race where participants come from all over the world.  They call it Urban Insanity, and one can see why with all the stairs, hairpin turns, cobbled streets, and narrow alleys the racers must face.  Their Facebook page for more photos:  https://www.facebook.com/DownHillTaxco/

Video of silversmiths of Taxco in Spanish and English: https://vimeo.com/14484261

Angel guarding Santa Prisca

From Montetaxco Hotel’s website Santa Prisca Church cupola details

Thought to protect against lightning and storms

which are frequent in this mountain region