Alebrijes
Brightly colored Mexican folk art sculptures
Spanish pronunciation: [aleˈβɾixes]
The first alebrijes, along with invention of the term, originated with Mexico City cartonero Pedro Linares.
Linares often told that in 1936, he fell very ill, and while he was in bed, unconscious, he dreamt of a strange place resembling a forest. There, he saw trees, animals, rocks, clouds that suddenly turned into something strange, some kind of animals, but, unknown animals. He saw "a donkey with butterfly wings, a rooster with bull horns, and a lion with an eagle head", and all of them were shouting one word, "Alebrijes! Alebrijesǃ Alebrijes!" Before this happened, he was already a cartonero artisan. Upon recovery, he began recreating the creatures he saw in Cartonería, the making of three-dimensional sculptures with different types of papers, strips of papers and engrudo (glue made out of wheat flour and water). Read more on Wikipedia