With this humble retablo, I thank Saint Jude Thaddeus because in Hollywood they created this movie “Coco” in which they show the beautiful and colorful Mexican tradition of the Day of the Dead. And it’s absolutely fair that it won the Oscar for the best animated picture.

My husband and I thank the Virgin of the Solitude with this retablo for allowing us to perform the Son Jarocho dance every weekend in the city center and in the arcades. It fills us with pride to keep our traditions alive and to share our music with the tourists who visit the beautiful city of Veracruz.

Inocencia Cruz and Pascual Dominguez

With this humble retablo, I thank the Holy Child of Atocha for granting me health so I could celebrate another Christmas and holidays with my family and keep carrying the pilgrims because it’s the annual tradition. May you be blessed.

Doña Clarita Pantoja
Tlaxcala, Mexico

We thank the Virgin of Guadalupe for we have met the love and happiness in this house in beautiful Mexico. We have only pleasant memories of its culture and traditions and it will be forever in our hearts.

Victoir and Erve di Rosa
Lomas de Chapultepec, Mexico
August 2002

Notes:
Erve di Rosa is a French artist and a Mexican culture lover. He helped Alfredo Vilchis to create his retablo book.

Raul Lopez thanks Saint Paschal for he didn’t faint at the moment of sacrificing of the pig for the celebration of his godson. Raul is afraid of blood, but it was him who had the honor of killing the animal according to the tradition.

Following the family tradition, I participated in the Huejotzingo carnival ever since I was a child. But after a grave accident I couldn’t walk anymore. I prayed, with al my faith, to the Lord of Chalma, and he granted me healing. This year, I’m back again to participate in the celebrating of the carnival. I’m eternally grateful for that.

Hipólito Mendoza
Huejotzingo, Puebla

Margarito Navarro thanks Saint Jude Thaddeus with this retablo for protecting him during the performance of this antique ritual of the flying-men. He inherited this tradition from his father and grandfather and now keeps it alive.

Cuetzalan, Puebla

Don Mateo Vidal humbly dedicates this retablo to the Virgin of the Solitude thanking for he managed to preserve the family tradition of butterfly nets fishing. Since he was a child, his dad and grandfather taught him to fish, and now he’s teaching his own kids and feels very proud and blessed.

Patzcuaro, Michoacan

I give thanks to the queen of my fatherland, Saint Mary of Guadalupe, for giving me health and a job to tell these stories about the revolution that goes on even now. This great woman, Elin Luque, opened the doors of the Casa Lamm for me. She is doing a marvelous work saving and protecting the value, customs and tradition of the Mexican exvoto. Because the art is a miracle that never dies. Till I have faith, hope and love, I swear my brushes speak for my fatherland.

Alfredo Vilchis Roque
Corner of the miracles
Minas de Cristo, Mexico
January 2011

Elin Luque Agraz is an art historian, curator and director of the Casa Lamm Cultural Center in Mexico.

The Holy Virgin of Guadalupe we thank. We thank for we met and knew each other on the road of the art. We share our knowledge and our work in order to save this precious tradition of the ex-voto, which tells us the history of our beloved Mexico. Because the art is a miracle of God.

Corner of the miracles, Mexico City
Elin Luque A. & Alfredo Vilchis
June 1, 2004. Tuesday

Juan from Coaxustenco, Mexico, offers this retablo to St. Isidor Labourer because he and his family continue to work with clay by tradition of his forefathers, and it is the pride of his town.

May 15, 2000

Virgin of San Juan, I thank you for healing me because I had problems with my heart. I ask you to take care of my son also, as he chose to follow the family tradition.

Alberto and Rodrigo from the Atayde Brothers Circus
January 25, 1992

Saint Jude Thaddeus, I thank you because I find inspiration in wrestling to create paintings about traditions and fantasies of my Mexico that lives with folk tradition.

From Mexico to entire world.
A(lfredo) V(ilchis) R(oque)
Alley of miracles, Minas de Cristo. 2009