Beautiful Bugs

I saw these two Mexican VW's on the streets of San Miguel on the same day. To me they perfectly represent some of the reasons I love this place....

The beaded bug

It turns out this car is quite famous. Here is some info I gleaned from the web:

This famous VW is called “Vochol” and is a combination of “Vocho,” a popular term for Volkswagen Beetles in Mexico, and “Huichol”, a Mexican indigenous group. (The Huichol community live in the states of Nayarit and Jalisco and are famous for their traditional beads and fabric craftsmanship.)

The imagery is traditional, featuring serpents resting on clouds cover the front of the car – an appeal for rain – while the roof depicts a sun and four eagles. The trunk is adorned with a shaman in a boat, and the sides of the car feature the sun god, the corn god, the deer god, scorpions, and peyote.

The designs on the car were created by master craftsman Francisco Bautista, and is adorned with over 2 million beads on the body, dashboard, and steering wheel.

Found Art

Here is a humbler version of the VW parked down the street from our house. I love the layered rustic beauty of the surface, as if it has lived many lives and has many stories to tell...

-posted by Susan