“As I evolved in the art process of retablo painting and carving bultos, the use of mica, leather, tin, human hair, cloth fillers, recycled wood and natural plants all became materials I incorporated into my art figures.” Our Penitente Land Exhibit at the National Hispanic Cultural Center in Albuquerque is a true complement to Ray John’s decades of research and eventual publication of his book, Hermanos de la Luz – Brothers of the Light, printed in 1998 by Heartsfare Books of Santa Fe.
Presently, Ray John is researching the Civil War History of New Mexico and is anxiously awaiting the publishing of his next book that is now in print, Don Quixote – A New Mexican Perspective, due out in late fall, 2016.
Exerpts from a plática with Ray John de Aragón of Albuquerque, New Mexico September 24, 2016, for El Alba Magazine.
Other works written by Ray John de Aragón include: Enchanted Legends and Lore of New Mexico; New Mexico Book of the Undead; The Legend of La Llorona; Padre Martínez: New Prospective from Taos and Hermanos de la Luz, Brothers of the Light (also featured in this issue’s Literature section).
Further examination of Ray John de Aragón’s many artistic talents leads one to his creation and design of bultos and santos. In company with his wife, Rosa María Calles, they have amassed a rare eighty five item exhibit collection titled, “Our Penitente Land.” This self-created exhibit includes bultos carvings, hide paintings, retablo paintings and numerous other 18th, 19th and 20th century Penitente Society items constructed from wood, tin, hide and cloth fabrics; also including such items as tambor (drum), pito (reed flute) and matraca (wooden rattle). Ray John relates proudly that his grandfather was a Hermano Mayor, head prayer leader, “and my grandmother belonged to Las Penitente Carmelitas, the women’s auxiliary at the Morada de Peñasco Blanco.”
Nuestra Señora del Rosario
Carreta de La Muerte