Alebrijes

Have you ever seen a creature with the brilliant, patterned wings of a butterfly, the sharp horns of a bull, and the long, slithering body of a serpent? My skin is a wild map of colors, painted with sunburst yellows, deep ocean blues, and fiery reds that seem to hum with a secret song. I wasn’t born in a zoo or discovered deep in a jungle. My story begins in a dream, a swirling vision inside the mind of a very special man. In his dream, he walked through a magical forest where the trees whispered and the ground pulsed with life. And in this forest, he met creatures like me—impossible animals that were both wonderful and strange. He saw donkeys with delicate dragonfly wings, proud roosters with the mighty antlers of a deer, and fierce lions with the sharp-eyed heads of eagles. We all paraded together through this humming, colorful place. As we walked, a sound echoed through the trees. It was a word that made no sense but felt completely right, a word that was our name. The creatures chanted it together, a joyful and nonsensical chorus: 'Alebrijes. Alebrijes. Alebrijes.' Can you guess what I am? I am one of those fantastic, dream-born beings. We are the Alebrijes, born from a wild imagination, and our story was just beginning.

The man who dreamed of us was named Pedro Linares López. He was a kind and clever artist who lived in Mexico City, and he was known for his wonderful skill with paper and paste. He was a cartonero, an artist who made piñatas and other figures from papier-mâché for festivals. His hands knew just how to turn simple paper into something magical. But in the year 1936, a terrible sickness fell upon him. He had a very high fever, and for days he drifted in a world between waking and sleeping. It was during this time that he took his journey into our forest. He wasn’t scared of us. He said we were his guides, his strange and colorful friends who kept him company. When he finally woke up, his fever was gone. He felt weak, but his mind was buzzing with the memory of the forest and the sound of our name. 'Alebrijes.' he whispered. He knew he had to show his family what he had seen. So, he got to work. He didn't have special tools, just his talented hands. He started by building a skeleton for my body out of reeds. Then, he carefully tore strips of newspaper and mixed them with a special paste. Layer by layer, he covered the frame, smoothing the paper until my strange shape emerged. Once I was dry and hard, he picked up his paintbrushes. He remembered every detail—my bull horns, my serpent tail, my butterfly wings—and he covered me in patterns and colors so bright they looked like they could fly right off my body. I was no longer just a dream. I was real.

For many years, my brothers and sisters and I were a wonderful secret, crafted from paper in the Linares family workshop in Mexico City. People who saw us were amazed. They had never seen anything like us. Our fame began to spread, and soon our story traveled to other parts of Mexico. Our journey took us to a beautiful place called Oaxaca, a region famous for its artists and ancient traditions. There, in a village surrounded by mountains, another talented artist named Manuel Jiménez Ramírez saw us. He was a master at carving wood, and a new idea sparked in his mind. What if we weren't made of paper, but carved from the earth itself? Around the 1980s, he and other Oaxacan artists began to create us from the wood of a special tree called the copal. Can you imagine the skill it takes to carve a dragon's wing or a lizard's tail from a solid block of wood? They were giving us new bodies, strong and earthy. But they didn't just copy us. They gave us a new kind of magic. They decorated our wooden skin with incredibly tiny, detailed patterns inspired by the symbols of their Zapotec ancestors. Each dot, each line, each swirl was a tiny prayer or a piece of a story, painted with brushes made from just a few hairs. From paper dreams in the city, we were reborn as wooden spirits of the mountains, connecting a new dream to an ancient past.

So, what am I? A paper monster? A wooden animal? I am so much more than that. I am proof that even the wildest dreams can become real if you have the courage to create them. I am a reminder to look at the world and see the magic hiding just beneath the surface. My family has grown and traveled the world, standing in museums and homes, making people smile. Since 2007, giant versions of us even march through the streets of Mexico City in a fantastic annual parade. You may have even seen some of my cousins in movies, sharing our story with the whole world. We show everyone that it’s okay to have wild ideas and to mix things up. After all, why shouldn't a donkey have wings? Whenever you have a fantastic dream, remember us. We are the colors of your imagination, just waiting for you to bring us to life.