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Connecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program collection, 2015.196.347.29, Connecticut Historical ...
SNEAP Year 9 Teaching Session : Vejigante Masks
Connecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program collection, 2015.196.347.29, Connecticut Historical Society, Copyright Undetermined

SNEAP Year 9 Teaching Session : Vejigante Masks

Subject (Puerto Rican)
Subject (Puerto Rican)
Date2007 May 12
Mediumnegatives
ClassificationsGraphics
Credit LineConnecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program collections
CopyrightIn Copyright
Object number2015.196.347.29-.40
DescriptionPhotographs of a Year 9 Southern New Engand Apprenticeship Program teaching session in Puerto Rican vejigante masks with teaching artist Angel Sánchez Ortiz and apprentice Lydia Pérez held on May 12, 2007.

(.29) Angel Sánchez Ortiz holding a vejigante figurine of Santiago playing bomba drums and a tiny vejigante mask.

(.30-.31) A wall in Angel's home covered in vejigante masks.

(.32) A full-size vejigante figure in costume and wearing a vejigante mask in Angel's living room.

(.33) Angel Sánchez Ortiz creating a mask.

(.34) Several papier-mâché masks being created by apprentice Lydia Pérez.

(.35-.36) Angel Sánchez Ortiz and Lydia Pérez holding comparsa masks in progress.

(.37) Angel Sánchez Ortiz and Lydia Pérez holding vejigante masks in progress.

(.38) Lydia Pérez working on a mask.

(.39-.40) Angel Sánchez Ortiz with apprentice Lydia Pérez working on a mask.
NotesSubject Note: During Year 9 of the Southern New England Apprenticeship Program Angel Sánchez Ortiz and Lydia Pérez created several vejigante masks of the type made in Ponce, Puerto Rico, for festivals and parades called comparsas. Lydia used the ones she learned to make in her main-stage performance in Providence at the First Works Festival. Angel displayed his masks at the festival.


Subject Note: The Southern New England Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program is a CCHAP initiative since 1997 that fosters the sharing of community-based traditional (folk) artistic skills through the apprenticeship learning model of regular, intensive, one-on-one teaching by a skilled mentor artist to a student/apprentice. The program pairs master artists from Rhode Island, Massachusetts, or Connecticut with apprentices from one of the other states, as a way to knit together members of the same community or group across state lines. Teaching and learning traditional arts help to sustain cultural expressions that are central to a community, while also strengthening festivals, arts activities and events when master/apprentice artists perform or demonstrate results of their cooperative learning to public audiences. The Connecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program at the Connecticut Historical Society manages the program in collaboration with the Folk Arts Program at the Massachusetts Cultural Council and independent folklorist Winifred Lambrecht who has a deep knowledge of the folk arts landscape of Rhode Island. Primary funding for the program comes from the National Endowment for the Arts, with support also from the Connecticut Commission on the Arts, the Institute for Community Research, and the Connecticut Historical Society.


Biographical Note: Lydia Pérez has been a teacher in the Southern New England Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program in 1999-2000 to student Maria Perez Colon, and Menen Osorio in 1998-1999, both in Puerto Rican bomba dance. Lydia has been an apprentice in the program three times: with mentor Angel Sanchez Ortiz in vejigante making in 2006-2007, and 2015-2016 and 2016-2017 with mentor Carlos Santiago Arroyo in santos carving. Lydia is a longtime arts activist and practitioner of Puerto Rican bomba and plena dance and music with her family joining her in the group Yoruba II. She has developed the Puerto Rican Institute for Arts and Advocacy, an organization for education, performance, and advocacy for Puerto Rican arts and culture, and gives performances and teachings all over New England.


Biographical Note: Angel Sánchez Ortiz, based in Holyoke, Massachusetts, is a maker of traditional Puerto Rican vejigante masks made of painted paper maché that are worn by costumed dancers representing demons and playfully scary figures at celebrations including Carnival and the St. James de Campostela Festival held in Ponce and Loiza, Puerto Rico. This festival has also been held in several cities around New England, including New Haven for some years in the 1990s. Today’s Puerto Rican masks are the result of a blend of the African, Spanish, and native Táíno cultures. Africans, who were forced to come to the island as slaves, brought with them a rich and ancient tradition of wearing masks during rituals. Angel taught the process of Puerto Rican vejigante-making to Lydia Perez in the Southern New England Traditional Arts Program in 2006-2007.

Angel Sánchez Ortíz was born in Ponce and raised in Barrio San Antón in Puerto Rico. He grew up living the traditional Carnival festivities in February each year. During this time, family and friends were immersed in the celebration heralding the beginning of Lent. These festivities are more vibrant in the poorer areas of Ponce. He participated in the making of masks and costumes as they got ready for the Carnival in the Calle Cuatro, Bélgica, Cantera and Playa de Ponce. These masks are made out of papier-maché and depict animals with fantastic imagery. Angel Sánchez Ortíz made his own masks at the age of seven after observing artisans such as Mariano, Geño and others. By the time he was nine years old he had completed several other masks with vivid splashes of color and curved horns with the encouragement of his art teacher. Sánchez Ortíz continued his craft after immigrating to the Pioneer Valley of Massachusetts in 1989, teaching children and adolescents this cultural tradition through workshops and other activities. He has exhibited his work at the Puerto Rican Cultural Center, the Spanish American Union, Worcester Art Museum, Wheeler Gallery at Umass, Holyoke Community College, at Hartford Public Library, at Lowell Folk Festival and many other events around southern New England. Angel is a strong advocate for transmission of Puerto Rican culture through mask-making and other paper crafts.


Additional materials exist in the CCHAP archive for these artists.


Cataloging Note: This project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services MA-245929-OMS-20.
Status
Not on view
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