Our trajectory
Efrain is part of the third generation of wood carvers, he began to carve wood at the age of 7 under the supervision of his father Epifanio Fuentes. The first piece that he carved was a small angel that to this day still conserves it as a great memory.
In 1993, when Efrain was just 13 years old, he went out for the first time to expose his work abroad to Santa Fe, New Mexico in Jackalope, he was exhibiting with many artists from different countries where he caused admiration for being the youngest artist. He is currently married to Silvia Gómez, an artisan from the same town, who decorates the alebrijes that Efraín and his children carve. He has a family workshop where Efraín, Silvia and his 4 children collaborate.
Thanks to this beautiful work and to people who have been interested in spreading it, we have had the opportunity to take a small sample of our art to different galleries, schools, museums as well as art institutes.
As artisans they are very grateful for what Mother Nature gives them, we use wood to carve the alebrije but they pay back by making a plantation on land belonging to the population of San Martin Tilcajete which has been in the Efrain workshop for more than 20 years. Silvia are choosing to reuse different woods, roots or recovered woods that they collect from the hills of their population, since they manage to project in the dry woods another way of continuing to live in the form of alebrije for this reason they use a great variety of woods in addition to copal, walnut, cedar, salsa, sabino, huamúchil and zompantle.
