The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
HISTORIC HOME GETS HISPANIC FLAIR
Heritage center, museum join for exhibition
One of Oberlin’s historic homes gained a Hispanic flavor with a special exhibit this month.
The Oberlin Heritage Center is the latest site to display artifacts from the Museum of Hispanic and Latino Cultures of Lorain.
Museum President and Curator Guillermo Arriaga has taken 180 artifacts from 19 countries and set them amid the 19th century décor of the 1866 Monroe House, which houses the Oberlin Heritage Center, 73 1/2 S. Professor St.
More than 160 people have been through the combined display, which remains on exhibit through the end of September.
“Seeing all these artifacts kind of livens things up a little bit,” said Rebecca Posner, an Oberlin College senior studying art history and computer science.
Posner also works as an intern researcher and docent for the Heritage Center.
On Sept. 19, the two discussed the nature of the artifacts from the Hispanic-influenced nations
“Seeing all these artifacts kind of livens things up a little bit.”
— Rebecca Posner, an Oberlin College senior
compared to the portraits, books and housewares normally on display.
The pieces come from Mexico, Spain, Puerto Rico, Guatemala, Bolivia and other Central and South American countries influenced by Hispanic culture.
The art and everyday items from some of those lands also show influences from the Aztec, Maya and Inca civilizations.
Many of the artifacts come from countries where residents used vivid colors and stand out in their natural environments, Arriaga said. Many of the pieces stand out in the Monroe House.
The residents of 19th Century Oberlin could have had access to colored cloth and paints for their village.
But in their culture and ideas for living, the Oberlin residents adhered to the idea of simplicity, not ostentatious
displays in their clothes and homes, Arriaga and Posner said.
It is the first joint exhibit in a house for the Museum of Hispanic and Latino Cultures, which has no single space to display Arriago’s collection, which is approaching 5,000 pieces.
Many of the items easily are recognizable, but others have specialized uses, such as a Chilean sculpture of a flute player that itself can be played like a flute.
“This is like archaeological work,” Arriaga said. “These are the things as a museum that we look at. There’s a lot of research that goes into our artifacts.”
The displays include items that match the rooms of the house.
For example, the dining room had a tablecloth and place settings from Mexico.
The kitchen had a “metate,” a panel and roller made from lava rock for grinding white corn, and pottery bean pots.
“Usually, these things
were large because most Mexican people had large families,” Arriago said.
Among Arriago’s favorites is a carving of an Argentinian gaucho.
Posner said one of her favorites was a jewelry box carved from coconut shells.
That piece comes from Brazil, a country whose native culture was influenced by Portuguese explorers, not Spaniards.
Arriago said he has included Brazilian items in his collection because it is surrounded by other countries that mixed native heritage with Hispanic art and customs.
People in those countries also crossed their borders to mix with residents of Brazil, he said.
Incidentally, the namesake of the Monroe House is the abolitionist James Monroe, a friend of Frederick Douglass who served in Congress.
Monroe was appointed by President Abraham Lincoln to serve as U.S. consul in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.