Welcome!
Attention Dealers of Mexican Folk Art
If you would like to have postcards advertising Los Amigos & our website for your customers, please visit the contact page and email your request. We will be glad to send you some and will appreciate your assistance in encouraging others to join. Members who are dealers are gladly linked to our site upon request.
Goals & Mission Statement
Our mission is to share our passion for Mexico and its art and to carry out our goals to promote and educate the public about Mexican folk art. Rendezvous and events are a wonderful experience where we meet others with the same passion & learn from each other, attempting to meet all our financial, educational & social goals.
TOP TEN GOALS FOR LOS AMIGOS
These are the goals of the President & not all have yet been Board approved
1. Develop internship programs which will benefit Los Amigos, Mexican artisans and the interns that participate ultimately growing the number of aficionados involved in Mexican folk art. For example, interns could be used in meeting several of the following goals:
2. Promote the purchase & use of the artisan videos we have funded through Troy Lanier & Lisa Orr so they become popular resources for use in classrooms across the USA. Interns could work to get the videos listed in all teaching material manuals & catalogues and into all public & university libraries.
3. Promote the real art of Mexican folk art so that it may be recognized & valued by a wider audience and be displayed more prominently in ever increasing numbers of museums & galleries across the USA. LADAP could have an active part in bringing this about through a PR program of writing and calling on museums to encourage both permanent & traveling exhibitions which we might also assist in funding.
4. Search for & contact all collectors, dealers, authors and museum personnel connected with Mexican folk art & fine art, Spanish colonial art and pre-Hispanic Mexican art to mail information about Los Amigos, including an invitation to join.
5. Launch our blog and improve our website so that it becomes invaluable to anyone doing research on Mexican art topics; recruit contributors to provide excellent articles, update & maintain the bibliography, add videos and research for the site so that visitor sessions increase significantly and steadily.
6. Sponsor annually the Feria Maestros in Chapala, Jalisco since it directly benefits so many Mexican artisans & find ways to make our contribution more valuable to the artisans, Amigos and others.
7. Recognize & reward significant contributions to the promotion & education of Mexican folk art through our annual VDC award and develop a community of support among our Van Deren Coke award recipients so that they are voluntarily contributing their valuable skills, experience, ideas and connections to the benefit of Los Amigos in a mutually beneficial way.
8. Travel to Mexico to meet the artisans and further good relationships and good will towards & between our neighbors and at the same time, increase our appreciation of Mexico and Mexican folk art
9. Form community groups of Amigos which plan & host several local events annually in their own areas for the members in their areas only so that Amigos everywhere have the opportunity to meet & socialize without having to travel far or overnight (this would be in addition to our regularly scheduled national rendezvous for all members).
10. Locate those with a vision for Los Amigos to serve on the board and take the lead so that LADAP may continue to grow and develop beyond our wildest expectations.
Website Information Gathering
Visitors to our website can be assured that information collected for one purpose is not shared or sold to any third party. Visitors may also be assured that by providing personal information they will not receive unwanted solicitations.