Artistic/Devotional Wax Modelling Demonstration with Marco Antonio Miranda Razo
Maestro Marco Antonio Miranda Razo is the only artisan in Mexico who combines traditional knowledge with research and documentation initiatives that promote the dissemination of learning and teaching of the traditional ceroplastics, as well as the other artisanal techniques.
The art of traditional wax modelling has given him the tools to rescue and at the same time innovate and create new and exquisite pieces with ancient technology.
Master Artisan Marco Antonio Mirada Razo studied at the National School of Anthropology and History of Mexico City. His studies included: Meso America (borders and boundaries), ethnomyology, Nahuatl language, indigenous textile processes, natural dyes, paper manufacturing with natural fibres, indigenous herbalism, plastic arts, preventive measures of conservation and restoration of documents.
He has been a wax artist and teacher since 1987 using the technique of wax modelling and casting.
He has received, throughout his career, various prizes and awards. In May 2008, in solemn ceremony in the municipal palace of Salamanca, he received the distinction "Outstanding Citizen".In June 2009, he began a collaboration with artists for an international exhibition project with the MAP (Folk Art Museum) of Mexico City, entitled "artisan among artists".
In December 2010 he was responsible of the elaboration and installation of a monumental nativity in the Vatican (Rome), donated by the state of Guanajuato.
In the same month, he received the commission of creating a life-size wax figure containing the relics of S.S. John Paul II in the state of Guanajuato.
In May 2012, he created and opened the first gallery-art workshop in the municipality of Salamanca, Guanajuato, where one can admire and learn the trade of sculpting in wax (ceriescultura).
Throughout May-July 2013 he taught classes of ceroplastics and “cerería escamada” (highly decorated devotional candles) to Nativity makers and members of the religious order in the convent of San Francisco de Quito, Ecuador with the aim of rescuing the technique in that locality, which was lost since the end of the eighteenth century.
In 2017 he was accredited for the restoration of ancient and modern artefacts from the "Ruth D. Lechuga Popular Art Studies Centre" of the Franz Mayer Museum, CDMX.
In the same year his work as artisan capable and able to carry out intervention and restoration of works of antique and contemporary art, in wax, ‘plumaria’ (feathers works) and cane and corn paste was acknowledged by BANAMEX cultural promotion.
This status was also accorded by the Museum of Mexican Medicine of the Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), collaborating with this institution. Between 1992 and 2015 he won 7 awards as Grand Master of Folk Art and one as ‘Living Legend’.