A Tree of Life

A Tree of Life is a common theme in Mexican folk art pottery. This example is in the Smithsonian Museum of American History. You never know what you are going to find in the Smithsonian's huge museum complex. Here is a short description of this folk art from the Wikipedia article, "Tree of Life (craft)."

A Tree of Life (Spanish: Árbol de la vida) is a theme of clay sculpture created in central Mexico, especially in the municipality of Metepec, State of Mexico. The image depicted in these sculptures originally was for the teaching of the Biblical story of creation to natives in the early colonial period. The fashioning of the trees in a clay sculpture began in Izúcar de Matamoros, Puebla but today the craft is most closely identified with Metepec. Traditionally, these sculptures are supposed to consist of certain biblical images, such as Adam and Eve, but recently there have been trees created with themes completely unrelated to the Bible.

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