Folk Arts - Master Artist - Robert Garcia

Robert Garcia is master bead worker utilizing Yoruba/Lucumi traditions. Yoruba/Lucumi is a religion that was brought to Cuba through the West African slave trade.  After about three centuries of disruption from their African origins, the Yoruba/Lucumi religion developed by slaves and their descendents. Garcia originally learned the traditions from his grandmother, religious elders, and master teachers in Cuba, and has been involved with the Yoruba/Lucumi tradition for the past thirty years.

Garcia is a high Priest, or Oba, and is a member of the Yoruba Association of Havana Cuba. He is also registered with the National Association of religious communities in Philadelphia. Garcia believes this artistic tradition is useful to the community because the cultural heritage of Yoruba/Lucumi people embraces the African religious and cultural roots of their ancestors and gives them a deeper sense of individual and cultural identity.

Garcia has been awarded a 2009 Apprenticeship grant and will be working with his Apprentice, Sharon Baez, to teach her the basic techniques of decorating each Yoruba deity. He will teach the main colors, patakis (stories), and number patterns associated with the principle deities. In addition to beadwork and story traditions, he will teach some aspects of ceremonies and herbal medicines.

Baez has already been exposed to artistic beadwork, but has yet to delve deep into the Yoruba/Lucumi traditions. She has collaborated with Garcia for the past three years, and six months age he began teaching her the art.  She selected Garcia because of the scarcity of teachers of his caliber in the region.

After this apprenticeship, Baez plans to work with this art by teaching beadwork to children in the elementary school in which she works. She also plans on continuing to create beadwork for Yoruba community events. She is also making a collection of pictures of the art work and patakis related to the deities in hopes of someday creating a book on the Yoruba/Lucumi religious traditions.