Since he was three years old, Gerardo Goss has been fascinated by the Virgin of Zapopan.
“I wanted one, but my parents told me it wasn’t a toy,” says the now-29-year-old Tlaquepaque artist.
So Coss had to content himself with a statue of the Virgin Mary from a creche scene. He relates how, at the age of 8, “I made her a paper dress and pulled her around in a cart,” simulating the famed, annual romeria (parade) of the Virgin of Zapopan, which is set to take place this Sunday, October 12.
His parents were not that enthused, especially when the boy cut up some fine sheets his grandmother had just bought, in order to make a dress for a Virgin figure.
Coss’s passion continued unabated until, at 13, he began to teach himself sculpture, painting, embroidery, jewelry making and all the arts necessary for constructing and decorating the diminutive, 34-centimeter-tall figure that is the object of a near frenzy of religious fervor centering in Zapopan, Guadalajara and Chapala every year from May to October, climaxing in the romeria. (Many distinct Virgins are honored in Mexico, all of course representing the mother of Jesus, although scholars say that this reverence recapitulates prehispanic worship of the goddess Tonantzin and that, some 400 years ago, Franciscan missionaries, who these days spearhead Virgin of Zapopan festivities from their monastery here, supplanted Tonantzin with their Virgin.)
Now that Coss’s childhood hobby has blossomed into a serious enterprise involving local and foreign clients who commission various religious figures, many of his relatives have joined him in his busy workshop in a modest house where they make and restore statues as well as do antique restoration.
His sister-in-law, for example, does embroidery, often using thread and beads made of gold, silver, natural pearls and stones such as emeralds or zirconium. The fabrics, which are usually cotton or silk rather than synthetic, are normally imported from France or Spain.
“My grandmother did handicrafts and taught me some, but nobody in my family did restoration or religious art,” he said, explaining that he was the pioneer who started the family enterprise. “A nun taught me gold embroidery and I studied painting and sculpture with Maestro Carlos Zarate. But I’m 90-percent self-taught.”
Coss notes that other artists have recently handled the Virgin of Zapopan figure and that his contribution the last few years has been her jewelry, which he designs to be made by his uncle and, this year, dressing the Virgin figure that circulated to area churches.
However, after so many years of involvement, he is privvy to just about all the Virgin of Zapopan lore in existence.
“The dresses of the figure that travels to different churches varies according to the monk in charge,” he said. “The Virgin in the Zapopan basilica is more than 400 years old and originally her skin and eyes were very light but with the centuries, her face turned a gray color. People think she is grey because she was created morena [dark in complexion like indigenous Mexicans], but no, she was created fair.”
Coss has three Virgin of Zapopan figures in his home workshop. And, although the sculptures he has made are of wood or fiberglass resin, he said the original figure is made from pulpa de maiz, the center part of the cornstalk. He points out that her clothing consists of four items — a blouse, skirt, cape and a banda de generala or sash — all made of fine cloth with sumptuous embellishments, such as embroidery, gems and fringe.
On her head, surrounded by a halo in her church persona, she wears a crown, but in the parades, according to the taste of the friar handling such things that year, she wears either a crown or a jaunty hat, as she did this year, presumably to shield her from the sun. In the event of rain, not uncommon on October 12, she is protected by a hard, clear plastic structure.
On Facebook, see Gerardo Coss.