How It's Made - Amate Paper Wall Art, The Original Bark Art from San Pablito

Amate paper wall art is original artwork created on handmade Mexican bark paper—known locally as "papel amate"—produced in San Pablito, Puebla. As Otomí artisans, we boil, shred, weave, and beat each piece by hand using techniques passed down for generations. The intricate lattice patterns and openwork designs you see aren't printed or painted on—they're woven, fiber by fiber. Every piece is textured, organic, and one-of-a-kind.

How I Learned to Make Amate Paper by Hand

One morning I woke before the sun touched the jonote trees—the same trees that give us the bark for our amate paper. The air was cool, and I could hear my grandmother's voice in the silence, not a memory, exactly, but a feeling in my hands. By the time the water began to steam in the pot, I was already thinking about the mistake I made last week. A bark sheet tore. Clean across. Hours of work, ruined because I rushed the beating process.

My daughter stood beside me, watching the bark soften in the boiling water. She's eight now. The same age I was when my grandmother first let me hold the stone. I remember the weight of it, the way it fit my palm like it had been waiting. The sound it made against the board—thump, thump, thump—like a heartbeat.

That sound is the same today. The smell of steaming bark is the same. The light coming through the workshop doorway is the same. When I lift an Amate piece and feel the fibers under my fingertips, I am eight years old again, and my grandmother is telling me to slow down. To listen. To let the bark teach me.

The Heart of Amate: What Mexican Bark Paper Wall Art Means to Us

Amate paper wall art begins with a tree. Not just any tree. Jonote, mostly, with its rust-colored bark that grows in the humid hills around our village here in San Pablito. Sometimes Morera or Brujo trees, if we want a different tone or texture. The bark comes to us in bundles, rolled tight and carried on horseback. My husband brings it from the mountain. 

We boil the bark for eight to ten hours in a mixture of water, lime, and ash. The steam rises and fills the workshop. It smells like the earth and heat. The lime and ash soften the fibers, the way our grandmothers did it, and the way their grandmothers did it. Around midday, we flip the bark so the pieces on the bottom move to the top. Everything must soften evenly. By late afternoon, the bark is ready. We rinse it clean, three times, four times, until the water runs clear and the fibers are soft as cloth.

Now, the real work is just beginning.

We call the next step "deshebrado": shredding. We pull the softened bark apart into individual fibers, separating them by hand until we have piles of long threads and short scraps. This takes patience. The fibers want to cling together; you have to coax them apart without breaking them.

Now the design work begins. On a wooden board, we lay the fibers into patterns: lattice grids, spirals, openwork holes, woven bands. Some designs have tight geometric grids. Others have loose, organic openings where light will pass through.

Once the design is laid, we beat. This is where the magic happens. We take the river stone—the same kind our great-grandmothers used—and we pound the fibers together. Thump. Thump. Thump. The crossing threads fuse where they touch. The lattice locks into place. The loose fibers become one sheet. You cannot rush this. If you beat too hard, the delicate openwork tears. If you beat too soft, the fibers don't bond and the sheet falls apart when it dries.

A small piece might take two hours of beating. A large wall piece takes most of a day, and my arms ache for two days after.

Once the sheet is formed, we press it flat and carry it into the sun. It dries in 24 to 48 hours if the days are warm. When it's dry, it feels like paper, but thicker. You can see the fibers. You can feel the texture. You can hold it up to the light and see the lattice patterns.

This is amate art in its truest form. Not a painting on paper—the paper is the art. The design is woven into its structure. The texture you see is the texture you feel. 

When someone says "Amate paper wall art," they're talking about all of this. The tree. The fire. The water. The handmade weaves. The stone. The sun. It's not fast. It's not easy. But it's ours. 

In short: Amate art is handmade Mexican bark paper created through a multi-week process: boiling Jonote bark for 8-10 hours in lime and ash, shredding the softened fibers by hand, weaving them into lattice patterns and openwork designs, then beating the woven fibers with river stones until they fuse into a single art work. After 24-48 hours drying in the sun, the art is ready—or it's painted with traditional Otomí designs. The word "amate" comes from the Nahuatl "amatl," the Aztec term for bark paper. Each piece is one-of-a-kind: the design is woven into the paper's structure, not printed on its surface.

Traditional Wisdom: Lessons from My Grandmother

Last week I was making a large Amate piece, 47 by 94 inches, big enough to cover an entire wall. I was tired. My son had been up all night with a fever, and I hadn't slept. I laid the bark on the board and started beating with the river stone. Too hard. Too fast. Halfway through, I heard the rip. A clean line, straight across the center. Ruined.

I sat on the floor and cried—not for the torn sheet, but because I could hear my grandmother: "The bark will tell you when it's ready. You have to listen." She said it when I was a restless teenager, eager to rush to the next step. "If you don't listen, the bark will break. And then you'll have to start over."

She was right. I hadn't listened. I had pushed when I should have waited. The bark wasn't ready, and I wasn't ready, and the sheet tore because of it.

The design work is where patience matters most. You cannot force fibers into a lattice. You lay them, and if they don't sit right, you lift them and lay them again. My grandmother could weave a perfect spiderweb pattern without looking—her hands just knew. I still have to watch every thread.

The "right feel" of a finished Amate is something you learn over years. It's not about perfection. It's about knowing when the fibers have locked together, when the sheet will hold, when it will last. You press your palm against it. You lift it to the light. You listen. 

This is what separates real Amate wall art from imitations: the knowledge of hands that have done this work for generations.

Bringing Amate Wall Art into Modern Homes

Amate wall art belongs in any space that craves something real. I've seen it hung in entryways, above sofas and beds, framed in simple wood or floating on the wall with no frame at all. It doesn't need much. The texture does the talking here.

A dark Amate piece adds warmth to neutral spaces. If your room is already full of color, a lighter piece calms things down. Small accent pieces fit well in corners, on shelves, grouped together. Large statement pieces ask you to stop and look.

Either way, it brings something alive into the room—rare in a world of mass production. 

The bark itself has a smell, faint and earthy, that fades over time but never quite disappears. When you walk past it, you might catch it. Or you might just feel it: the weight of hands, the memory of mountains, the patience of an ancient craft.

Find Your Piece

I don't push my work on anyone. If you see an amate piece and feel something—a pull, a recognition, a curiosity—maybe it's meant for your home. Maybe it's meant to hang where you'll see it every day and remember that something in this world is still made slowly, with care, by hands that learned from other hands.

If you'd like to see what I've made recently, browse my current collection of amate bark art. Each piece is different. Each one carries a bit of my village with it.

Entryway

Living Room

Bedroom

Dining Room

Stairway