Dante López
About the artist
Cancun is a new city, with approximately 50 years of history, whose economy is based on tourism. When I came to live in Cancun at only 9 years old, there were no art schools, the city barely had a couple of basic and middle schools. There was a bookstore where I could buy books of art and ancient cultures, I learned about the Egyptians, Olmecas, Maya, Aztecs, Greeks, I learned from Art Nouveau, Art Deco, from sculptors like Rodin and great masters like Davinci… their work aroused in me a great inspiration.
I couldn’t finish high school, I had to work at an early age; however, I started working with paper mache that I learned empirically, with many failed attempts to get the right blend. I sold my pieces to tourists and where I has my booth there was a man who carved bone, when I saw his work I thought that with the right tools I could make better carvings, on those days I was commissioned a work in fiberglass for the scenery of a musical play and with what I charged I was able to buy a Dremel machine and started carving. I didn’t know how to clean and prepare the bone for carving but I also learned from trial and error. The first bone to cut was a bone that I took away from my dog, and had already left it very clean.
Then I tried carving harder materials such as wood from the region, shells and some stones like quartz.
I was very limited with the tools because in Cancun there were no shops to buy them.
I met Franco Tamaro, an Italian cameo carver, liked my job and asked me to carve cameos for him. He taught me the techniques to carve with buril and to give the perfect finishes in the shell. I used to carve the special cameos he took to Italy.
Then I met Raul, a man who had a store of minerals, opals, amber, jewelry, etc. he became my mentor and put at my disposal all the necessary tools and materials that I wanted to carve, but all the tools, materials and finished pieces belonged to him.
Raul is an endearing friend and as a father to me, thanks to him I met gems and other materials and got familiar with tools available outside Cancun. Also I cut jade for the first time with him, we were amazed by the hardness of that material.
Raul introduced me to Jalisco opal miners and I was hired to go to Magdalena for two months to carve some opal pieces for a national contest, in the process I learned the techniques and secrets to carve opals. The pieces won and my name was not mentioned which I didn’t care about because I was very young and happy about the experience.
Cancun was growing very fast and there was a growing variety of tools in local stores.
I met Don Ramón Alavés, a fine-working jeweler, and wondered if what I carved in stone could be carved into jewelry wax, this was a new material for me and I learned from him how to work the wax in addition to other jewelry processes.
By then I met the Internet and now the materials, tools and knowledge were more within my reach.
I met Cristina, my life partner, and her father Alejandro Cabrera, owns an Opal Mine in Querétaro. Alejandro helped us a lot with his great experience in minerals, tools and suppliers and gave us some tools and many stones such as Tiger’s Eye, Lapis Lazuli, Quartz, Marble, Jade, Moldavites, etc. to start working.
I was also able to start buying my own tools and a while later, in 2000, I opened my own shop in Cancun Hotel Zone, Studio Dante.
I kept the store for 15 years, in this time I became increasingly interested in jade to the point of being passionate about this material and now most of my pieces are carved in jade but, thanks to the different techniques I learned, I can now make pieces with a complete concept; Combining various materials, I can make a carving and turn it into a piece of jewelry, an artifact or a decorative piece.
The H1N1 Flu affected my economy a lot because there were no tourists buying my pieces so I was forced to look for other options. Looking for customers online, I contacted a Jade Gallery in Arizona, they asked me for pictures of my work and realized that I was the Mexican carver they had heard of. Instead of buying me pieces I was offered to participate in international jade events as part of the group… that group is formed of all the Western Masters Jade Carvers I had always admired, the Internationally Recognized Masters, it was a surprise and a great honor to meet them and become part of this group.
As the first event, I was invited to the Jade Festival in Big Sur, California, in 2009.Thus, my work became increasingly public at the international level.
I was then invited as a speaker and part of the jury of the jade carving contest at the World Jade Symposium in Vancouver in 2014.
My lecture was around Jade in Mesoamerica, I focused on the past because my culture is rich in pre-Hispanic pieces of jade; there are currently very few modern works, and very few jade carvers in Mexico. In fact, I was the only Latin American at these international events.
On my return, I dedicate my efforts to bring together on Facebook all the jade carvers of Latin America, to rescue our tradition of jade carving, share my experience and knowledge, learn from them and support each other.
In 2015 I went to Suzhou, China, and won a third place in the world’s leading jade carving contest ZI GANG BEI; and I was still the only Latin American in these events, but thanks to the group I formed on Facebook, in 2016 I came back to the contest with Mario. Mario is a jade carver from Costa Rica who managed to learn about these international events, learn better techniques of volume, polishing, better tool options, etc. thanks to my teachings and remote advice, but most importantly he learned to value his work enough to encourage himself to participate in the contest. We both brought a prize home! a second and a third place in the contest.
The following year I returned to China, for the third time, to the ZI GANG BEI 2017 international jade event, and this time I won a Silver Medal.
Since 2018 I also exhibit my work at the Annual Monterey Bay Jade Festival in Monterey, CA.
I am always grateful for the people in my life that, named here or not, have taught me what I know and have supported my work in every way, I thank each and every one of you!
Now, one of my dreams is to open a Carving and Lapidary School in Mexico, where high-level academic and artistic professionals are trained. In this formation I want not only to rescue our pre-Hispanic tradition of carving, but also that new generations make modern proposals in Jade and other materials and that they can learn old, traditional and new techniques and even the new 3D technologies.