Changing Lives through Folk Art: Huichol Art in Mexico

Rafael Valadez is part of a new generation of young Huichol Indians who have migrated to cities outside of their indigenous villages. Educated as doctors, lawyers and teachers, they use their professional positions to advocate for the rights of their struggling Huichol communities, while continuing to apprentice to learn the practices, traditions, and arts of their elders.

The son of world-renowned Huichol yarn painter Mariano Valadez and anthropologist Susana Valadez Eger, Rafael has been mentored by his communities’ master craftsmen and shamans to be able to carry on the practices of the Huichol mystic arts to coming generations. One of the few in his community fluent in English, Rafael uses his voice as an advocate for Huichol indigenous rights and his vision as an artist to spread the meaning and beauty of his people’s culture to the world.