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MEMBERS PREVIEW

Theater Stories of Ancient West Mexican Art

May 10 | Lecture 6p | Preview & Reception 7p |Free Admission

Dr. Kristi Butterwick, Guest Lecturer

Dr. Kristi Butterwick will discuss the stories that ancient West Mexican art tells. From the portraits of leaders, family, and kinship, the ancient people created their universe in beautiful clay sculptures, showing relationships and feasting celebrations. While the ancient people do not possess a name such as the Maya, Aztec or Olmec, their ceramic sculptures are among the most astounding and detailed pieces in the Mesoamerican art lexicon. Taken as a whole, the collection from the family of Ted Weiner gifted to The Flint Institute of Art is a stunning capture of life around 2,000 years ago in the environs of Tequila and Colima volcanoes in western Mexico.

Kristi Butterwick Martens received her PhD in Anthropology from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1998. Her thesis was about Days of the Dead in ancient West Mexico. Her work has focused on ancient West Mexico since then. Dr. Butterwick’s research has resulted in publications and talks for the Chicago Art Institute, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, among major American museums. Currently she is researching the origins of agave production and pulque feasts in ancient West Mexico, based on art, archaeology and biology.