Tonala the Unadorned Handicrafts Mecca

Tlaquepaque, Jalisco approximately seven kilometers southeast of Guadalajara is a suburb of Mexico’s second largest city  that is known nationally and internationally for its quaint and charming section of town that  in  restored colonial mansions houses swank contemporary design boutiques  featuring  high-end, one-of-a-kind handicrafts and house furnishings, art galleries, antique shops,  upscale restaurants, and lovely Bed and Breakfast’s. Just another six kilometers or so southeast  of Tlaquepaque is another nationally and internationally known handicrafts suburb  that could never be described as quaint or charming. That community,  Tonala, although physically nondescript, drab, and not so attractive could best be described as being an unadorned mecca for handicrafts.

Although often described in travel and tourist literature for marketing purposes as a “village,” Tonala with a population of over 400,000 is hardly a village. Rather, it is a city whose economy has historically been driven by the production of and selling of numerous types of artisan products and is home to some of the best, quantity-wise if not quality-wise, arts and crafts shopping in Mexico. The streets of the city’s downtown area are lined with dozens upon dozens of both small and large handicraft shops with attached workshops, warehouses, and the private residences of the proprietors families, most of whom have been making those crafts for generations. As such, this primarily cottage industry city attracts professional wholesale buyers especially including interior designers from not only all over Mexico but also from all over the world.

For five days a week the business in those mostly not so fancy nor not so well-appointed (compared to Tlaquepaque’s) crafts stores may range from spotty to fairly busy. While producing a huge range of handicrafts, Tonala is particularly famous for its pottery and ceramics utilizing multiple crafting techniques along with creative and fanciful blown and spun glass, carved wood and bone figures, textiles/weavings, and saddlery. Also outstanding are its sculpture-like quality figurines such as lions, tigers, giraffes, birds, cats, frogs, fish, turtles, and camels made from exquisitely varnished and polished paper mache. Moreover, Tonala might be (make that must be!) Mexico’s leading producer of sun symbols (primarily made from clay, some unfinished while others brilliantly colored) since they ubiquitously seem to appear all over town as its name is derived from the Nahuatl word “Tonallan” meaning “place where the sun rises.”

However, it is on Thursdays and Sundays that Tonala becomes a veritable mecca for handicraft seekers, if not worshippers. Throughout the year on those days from 9AM-3PM (mas o menos as befitting Mexico’s traditionally floating definition of time), virtually every space in the downtown area becomes home to a tianguis, a bazaar-like sprawling open market. It was on a Sunday a few years ago that I first made my acquaintance with Tonala and what an acquaintance it was!

Maria my wife, her parents, and myself arrived in Tonala on what I often call “one of those Sunday chartered bus adventures that you never really knowing what or when you’re going to see that emanate never remotely close to on time” from our small town of Churintzio, Michoacan which is about a two and a half hour drive to Guadalajara. First we pulled into the by then overflowing municipal parking lot. In addition to hordes of handicraft and food vendors, well over a hundred busses were already parked there that had journeyed to Tonala for its market day from approximately a three hour or so radius in all directions.

Once we were out on the streets, the going seemed to be less than snail-like as the town was filled with a continuously merging (and hardly ever even slightly dispersing!) literally buzzing swarm of primarily Mexican visitors along with foreign tourists who came there to browse, to socialize as many of the visitors consisted of multiple generational Mexican families, and mainly to shop, shop, shop. While the fixed stores got wall-to-wall business it was the tianguis’ seemingly never ending array of (if you could manage to get to all of them!) stalls, tables, mats, and open display areas that got most of the beyond crowded activity. You see, the selection of goods available was also overwhelming and for the most part inexpensive.

In addition to the types of quality crafts and sun symbols described previously and such mundane items like CDs, DVDs, T-shirts, baseball caps, costume jewelry, and plastic toys, and street food vendors, the tianguis was filled with a colorful array of handicrafts. These artisan crafts and vendors were primarily from the Tonala area but also included those from the nearby states of Michoacan and Guanajuato and even some like the renowned black pottery from as far away as Oaxaca. These handicrafts and other pieces of workmanship included silver and gold jewelry, metal sculptures, wrought iron creations, wax figures and candles, masks made from various materials, paintings and other art work, traditional wooden toys and games, leather goods, and wooden rustic furniture including the popular and rust colored leather covered Jaliscan “equipal” tables and chairs which has its roots in prehispanic wooden furniture making. Not exactly handicrafts, the market also had numerous displays of locally made fireworks that are loudly used in what seems to me like Mexico's never-ending fiestas and celebrations.

After a few hours in Tonala’s shops and tianguis with a side trip for a seafood lunch in an, of course, exceedingly crowded restaurant, we somehow made it past the swarms back to the bus. By then I had purchased for a whopping total of around $15 three representative samples of the town’s inexpensive handicrafts that would eventually become part of our home’s ever-expanding “Mexican Museum”: three ceramic hand painted red and green wall hanging lizards: an array of varnished rice, beans and seeds separately displayed in six small clay dishes attached to a thick rope, and a large wooden yoke of seven medium-sized dangling clay pots. As for our other traveling companions on our “squatting room“ only bus, they had filled all of the underneath cargo areas, over head storage units, the areas by and underneath their seats, their laps, and the aisles (where no one was sitting on stools) with their craft purchases. You see, that was only ”normal” as we had just been to that unadorned mecca for handicrafts, Tonala.