Amate Painting

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   "Amate" painting is not in the OED.
   Tyler Cowen, an economics professor at George Mason University, is writing 
a book on amate painting and owns perhaps the world's largest collection.  
Cowen's personal web page is at:
   
http://www.gmu.edu/jbc/Tyler/
    
   His web page on amates:
  
http://www.gmu.edu/jbc/Tyler/amate2.htm
Concordance of Amate Painters
The following directory offers some pictures of amates, and paintings, in my 
collection (a few are borrowed images).  I have about 200 museum-quality 
amates, which I believe is the biggest quality collection in the world, and many 
paintings by artists from the area.  Here is only a small sample of the 
creativity and diversity of amate art. I am planning to write about the amate arts in 
more detail in the future, this page will offer periodic updates on those 
writings.  For now, there are three excellent books on amate.  Jonathan Amith’s 
The Amate Tradition (La Tradicion del Amate is the formal title, if you are 
doing a search) is in both English and Spanish.  Catherine Good’s Haciendo la 
Lucha is in Spanish only.  Plus there is Gobi Stromberg’s El Universo del Amate.  
Amith’s you can get from Amazon, I highly recommend it, it is simply great and 
has wonderful color plates.  The others are harder to find. 
   
   Cowen himself is a very interesting person.  His (Washington Post & 
Chowhound.com recommended) web site on the ethnic cuisine of the Washington, DC area 
is excellent:
    
http://www.gmu.edu/jbc/Tyler/ethnicnewest.htm
  
   According to a profile in the LOS ANGELES TIMES,  7 February 2003, pg. 
E1::
   
   At 40, Cowen is something of an odd duck in his field -- a statistical 
outlier, as an economist might put it. He grew up in suburban Hillsdale, N.J., 
and might well come by his lifelong optimism genetically (his father ran a 
chamber of commerce). At 14 or 15, he was the chess champion of all New Jersey, and 
as an undergraduate he attended George Mason, a hotbed of libertarian social 
and political thinking that happens to be (shhh!) a state university.
   After Harvard, Cowen taught at UC Irvine before returning to George Mason, 
where, single and childless (he's about to marry a Russian emigre), he found 
himself with the time and tenure to pursue his interest in global culture. By 
now he's been to 60 countries, owns thousands of CDs and watches TV only in 
Spanish, to keep up his language skills.

     We dined at Brew Burger!  He wore Spock ears!  We met at Milo's Chess & 
Chinese (dinner)!  But I digress.
    "Amate" and "painting" has 2,000 Google hits and 54 Google Groups hits.  
It's gotta be in OED so Tyler will owe me a dinner.