Comments (0) BEST MEXICAN FOLK ART STORE IN CYBERSPACE - 2005
funkychickeneggranch
When it comes to fabulous Mexican folk art, for sheer variety and eclectic selection, no one can beat funkychickeneggranch. That's the seller's name that native Phoenician Nancy Nenad goes by on eBay, where she maintains a virtual store filled with the sacred, the profane and the downright loony. Go to www.ebay.com and search under sellers for funkychickeneggranch. Co-owner of the now-defunct Saints and Sinners folk art store in Glendale, Nenad prefers today to wheel and deal in cyberspace, which frees her up to sniff around Mexican mercados and artisans' talleres for the finest Mexican folk art to be found. Nenad knows her stuff, since she regularly travels south of the border with her equally adventurous 70-something mamacita, Bets Nenad, who for more than 40 years has been fearlessly scouring tiny Mexican towns for folk art. From funkychickeneggranch, you'll learn about where those retablos, ex-votos, papier-mâché skeletons, sequined saints and Mexican Santería ritual objects come from; their cultural and religious significance; and, often, about the artists who make them, many of whom Nenad knows personally. In fact, Nenad's entertaining auction titles and descriptions alone are worth a trip to her eBay store, like the one for a hot-pants-wearing devil figurine used traditionally for a Mexican Christmas crèche. Nenad swears that "the hot pants look a little like a sagging diaper." Or the "Don't Eat My Rabbit Tin Folk Art Retablo/Ex Voto" from Oaxaca that features a "blob-like image of a saint hovering over the scene" of a father about to consume his kid's rabbit. Muy hilarious!
