Recognizing the growing interest in Spanish Colonial art, especially from New Mexico, this book is the first in a series on contemporary Hispanic arts and Hispanic artisans to be published by LPD Enterprises. This is the first time a contemporary santero's body of work has been documented. The book was released nationally in February, 1995.
Charlie Carrillo, an award-winning santero, is considered by many to be one of the masters of contemporary northern New Mexico devotional art. Carrillo has received top honors in each of the past eight Spanish Markets in Santa Fe including the E. Boyd Memorial Award for originality and expressive design and the Florence Dibell Bartlett Award for innovative design from the International Folk Art Foundation at the 1994 Market.
Carrillo has produced some 4,500 pieces in the seventeen years that he has been carving saints. The book displays over 300 of the best and most representative pieces, including all of his award-winning pieces, both retablos (flat pictures of saints) and bultos (three-dimensional statues). Examples of Carrillo's work have been taken from many private collections as well as the Heard Museum, Taylor Museum, Tamarind Institute, Museum of International Folk Art, Albuquerque Museum, Millicent Rogers Museum, Gene Autry Western Heritage Museum, Denver Museum and the National Museum of American History/Smithsonian.
Barbe spent 15 years as an art, drama and journalism teacher in grades one through college and wrote a business column for the Patuxent Publishing Company (MD) newspapers and has had articles published in New Frontiers and Indian Trader magazines. Paul wrote "Finding Out How People Feel About Local Schools" for the National Committee for Citizens in Education and has been published in Life and U.S. News and World Report. He has written articles for Christianity and the Arts and Modern Liturgy magazines. Both have been involved with broadcasting, Barbe as a member of the first Cable TV Advisory Board of Howard County, MD and Paul as a Public Affairs Producer for the Washington, D.C. ABC-TV affiliate and Maryland Public Broadcasting, where he won the San Francisco International Film Festival Award and the National Community Service Award from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Barbe is a graduate of Towson State University with a Masters from Johns Hopkins University. Paul is a graduate of Bucknell University with graduate work at the University of Southern California. Both served on the Board of Directors of the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology and reside in Los Ranchos de Albuquerque, New Mexico.