The Day of the Dead Ofrenda: A Collector's Guide to the Living Altar

Each year on the first and second of November, Mexican families build an altar in their home. They clean the house thoroughly before they begin, because they are expecting visitors.

The altar is called an ofrenda, from the Spanish word for offering. It is not for worship. The vast majority of Mexicans who celebrate Día de Muertos are Catholic, and the ofrenda is not a religious shrine in that sense. It is a welcome. A table set for guests who have traveled a long way.

The ofrenda is perhaps the most complete expression of Mexican folk art, as it brings together almost every medium in one place: flowers, ceramics, textiles, paper, food, photography, and sculpture. Understanding what each element means is the starting point for collecting the artists who have dedicated themselves to recreating it.

The Structure

An ofrenda is set on a table covered with a white tablecloth. Papel picado, the cut tissue-paper banners that are among the most recognizable symbols of Mexican festivity, is layered on top. An ofrenda can rise in multiple tiers, with sacred images and crucifixes placed at the highest level and offerings arranged below. The levels themselves represent the relationship between the spiritual and the earthly.

The Elements and Their Meaning

Every object on the ofrenda has a purpose, and collectors of Day of the Dead art who understand these meanings see the pieces differently.

Candles, called ceras, light the way for the returning souls. One candle is set for each deceased relative. Their light is associated with the light of faith and with Christ Reborn. An ofrenda without candles is not complete.

Cempasúchil, the bright orange marigold, guides the souls with its scent and color. The petals are often arranged in paths leading from the entrance of the house to the ofrenda itself, so the souls know exactly where to go. The flower represents the fugacity of life, here in full color for a day or two and then gone.

Salt and water are placed for the souls to drink after their long journey. Water also purifies and cleanses. These are among the most ancient and universal offerings.

Copal incense is burned throughout the celebration. In pre-Hispanic tradition, it was thought to elevate prayers to the divine. The smoke carries intention upward.

Photographs of the deceased anchor the altar. The souls are called by name, by image, by the things they loved. Clothing, a favorite hat, and small personal objects are placed alongside the photographs.

Food is prepared specifically for the occasion: the favorite dishes of those being honored, mole, tamales, red rice, hot chocolate, pan de muerto, dried fruits, tejocotes, guavas, and occasionally cigarettes or a bottle of mezcal or beer if that was what the person enjoyed. The souls do not eat the food. They take the aroma, the essence of it, and that is enough.

Sugar skulls and calaveras, the skeleton figures now recognized worldwide, are placed on the altar as a reminder that death is not something to be feared but to be acknowledged, even celebrated. They represent memory made sweet.

In many towns, contests are held. Judges travel house to house and elect the three most beautiful ofrendas in the neighborhood. They are judged as what they are: ephemeral works of art.

The Ofrenda as Collectible Art

Because the real ofrenda is dismantled after the celebration, Mexican folk artists have long recreated it as a permanent object. Two distinct traditions have developed, one in ceramic and one in papier-mâché, and both are represented in the Sandia Folk collection.

Saul Montesinos works in Izúcar de Matamoros, Puebla, one of Mexico's most important centers of ceramic production. His ofrendas are hand-modeled in clay and fired in the tradition of his region, with the full vocabulary of altar elements rendered in miniature: sugar skulls, pan de muerto, bananas, a molcajete, flowers, and a liquor bottle for the relative who enjoyed a drink in life. At 5.5 inches tall, it concentrates the entire symbolic language of the celebration into a single object that can be displayed year-round. View the Saul Montesinos ceramic ofrenda.

Antonio Alonso works in Oaxaca City in cartonería, the papier-mâché tradition. His ofrenda is a four-tiered altar in salmon pink, strung with hand-cut papel picado banners in turquoise, magenta, orange, and yellow. A sugarcane archway frames the entrance, marking the threshold that souls pass through. Inside: a sepia photograph of a charro beside a woman in traditional dress, two white candles, pan de muerto, sugar skulls, paper cempasúchil marigolds, a small jar of mezcal, a hand-labeled beer bottle, tamales, mandarins, peanuts, tejocotes, and pan dulce. Each item is sculpted and painted individually. The piece stands 12 inches tall. It is among the most detailed miniature ofrendas made by any artist working in Mexico today. View the Antonio Alonso papier-mâché ofrenda.

What makes these pieces significant as collectibles is not simply the craft involved, though the craft is considerable. It is that they preserve something that disappears. The real ofrenda is taken down. The food decomposes, the flowers dry, the paper fades. The artist who recreates it in ceramic or papier-mâché is making a permanent record of an act of remembrance that was never meant to last.

For collectors of Mexican folk art, the ofrenda piece occupies a particular place: it is not decorative in the ordinary sense. It is a document. A small archive of what a family did, once a year, to keep the people they loved from being forgotten.