Wood sculpture in San Antonia de Ibarra

I find it fascinating in Ecuador that there is so much art being made and that each small town seems to have its own specialty. Near the city of Ibarra is the small town of San Antonio de Ibarra where the specialty is wood carving. The little town is full of shops and galleries offering everything from elaborately carved furniture to wooden spoons and kitchen utensils. The city park boasts two large carvings of fanciful birds, which on closer inspection, are actually children's play structures.

Aren't they wonderful? There is a slide inside the body of the bird.

This is in one of the better galleries with very finely carved work. And here is the studio in the back of one of the galleries. The garden out back was wild and wonderful.

We wandered through many of the shops, watching work in progress in many of them.

Then we came to a shop that produced saints and holy figures for churches. Upstairs was a workroom where old, damaged saints (santos) were waiting to be repaired.

The worn and damaged faces were haunting and beautiful.