Artist Paul Modlin’s Chapbook on Copala, Mexico Offers History and Visuals
Artist Paul Modlin’s chapbook on Copala, Mexico provides a brief, illustrated history of the town.
Standing in the center of Copala, Mexico today, one cannot help but wonder what it once was: recently even, remotely, of course. Today, this very small town is a dusty, quiet place with a decaying church in its center. Copala, in Sinaloa state, now offers a square surrounded by shuttered buildings with more distant plots of land bearing “for sale” signs. And yet it still charms.
I am fortunate to discover a chapbook of sorts, Thru the Eyes of an Artist . . . Copala, published in October 1978 by the artist Paul Modlin. This pamphlet of a work contains a brief history of Copala and Modlin’s drawings of the town. As I learn from my own guide, the French showed up in the 1860s—aiding and abetting which war? the U.S. Civil War? a conflagration in Mexico? Was Mexico even Mexico then? Or was it in some official capacity still a part of Spain? I do not know or cannot remember or never learned this bit of history.
Copala’s history goes back in time even further than that, as does Modlin’s book, to when indigenous people lived here and then the Spanish arrived and we can all really wonder whether and to what extent colonization was a good occurrence or not. What would Mexico be today if the Spanish had never taken over?
The tower of San José church in Copala, Mexico. Photo credit: L. Tripoli.
Stand at that dusty square in Copala and wonder; conquerors have moved on, tourists have been led elsewhere thanks to a highway that passes Copala by. But walk into that church and perhaps detect a whisper of incense and remember that Copala is named for copal, a tree resin burned as incense as an offering to the good forces of the universe. Wonder what might have been. Imagine how much this place has remained the same—its jail, its town square, its church—from its rich mining past through the cholera epidemic of 1850 to the arrival of the French in 1865 to a century of population decline, down from 10,000 around the year 1900.
Still, what was true of Copala at the time of the publication of Modlin’s work—that “there is an opportunity with a little work of restoration to expose its colorful past history”—remains accurate today.
Modlin died in 2008.
—Lori Tripoli
Disclosure: The Estrella del Mar resort in Mazátlan hosted the author’s trip to Sinaloa.
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Planning to visit Mazatlán and vicinity? You might like these posts:
- An Afternoon in Copala, Mexico
- Estrella del Mar in Mazatlan, Mexico: A Place to Relax and Unwind
- Golf Estrella del Mar: The Mexican President Does!