New Mexico

Hispanic arts & crafts: bultos, colcha embroidery, pano art, retablos, santos, silverwork, tinwork, weaving, woodworking

Bultos

These brightly colored sculptures of santos (saints) or other religious figures are carved from the wood of trees that grow in New Mexico: cottonwood, cottonwood roots, aspen and pine. Bultos are used for daily reverence, for general decoration, and as a talisman in churches and private homes.

A santero carves a bulto with a knife and then covers it with gesso, a mixture of native gypsum and glue, to prepare it for painting. Santeros still use paints from homemade pigments.

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