CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — For nearly two decades, Roel Palacios Jr. has turned paper, paste and paint into some of the most recognizable faces at Corpus Christi’s Día de los Muertos Festival.
Palacios hand-crafts paper-mâché sugar skull masks covered in flowers, bright colors, and intricate designs. He has sold them at the downtown festival, organized by K Space Contemporary, every year since it began in 2008.
“I’ve sold quite a lot, a lot of them, thousands of them,” Palacios said.
Palacios spent about 30 years as an art instructor with CCISD, where paper-mâché was a regular part of his lessons. He was exhibiting masks downtown when he met Michelle Smythe of K Space Contemporary, who invited him to sell them at the gallery’s first Día de los Muertos festival.
The idea for the masks came from a book a fellow teacher brought back from San Antonio. It featured the work of José Guadalupe Posada, the famed Mexican artist known for drawings of skulls and skeletons that poked fun at high society. Posada’s message stuck with Palacios: no matter your status, everyone ends up the same.
“No matter what state you are in life, eventually we’re all going to be skeletons,” Palacios said.
He says each mask takes about six hours of work. He works on several at a time and tries to improve his designs every year, sometimes adding jaguars, two-sided faces or images inspired by Posada.
Palacios says the holiday is often misunderstood. Though it centers on death, the tradition honors loved ones who have died, and many believe their souls return to visit during this time.
“I feel as long as you have them in your mind and you remember them, and in your heart, they’re not really ever gone,” he said.
Sometimes his masks become personal tributes. He recently finished a custom mask for a friend of his sister whose father, a police officer in Missouri, had died. The mask carried police symbolism in his honor.
For Palacios, the best moment comes when someone puts on one of his masks and walks through the festival.
“That’s such a great feeling because then I realized, you know, that’s, uh, that’s what they were made for,” he said.
Some festivalgoers come back every year to add to their collections.
The Día de los Muertos Festival takes over several blocks of downtown Corpus Christi, including Chaparral, Starr, Mesquite, Taylor, and Peoples streets.
K Space Contemporary is located at 623 N. Chaparral St.
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