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About Beatrice Valdez Ximénez
- Beatrice Valdez Ximénez (November 5, 1904 – June 26, 1989) was an American folk sculptor.
- With Consuelo González Amezcua and Alicia Dickerson Montemayor she was one of a handful of Texas women of Mexican descent to win fame as a folk artist. Ximénez was a native of Graytown, Texas, the youngest of five children of Juan and Josefa (Caballero) Valdez; she grew up in San Antonio, receiving no formal education.
- In 1923 she married Pedro Ximénez, with whom she would go on to have six sons and one daughter.
- The family lived in Floresville.
- Pedro, a student of Dionicio Rodriguez and Sam Murray, produced faux-wooden cement furniture, and Beatrice learned to work with the material while helping him.
- The couple also produced buildings using the technique on their property.
- Pedro Ximénez died in 1956, and eleven years later Beatrice, inspired by children's books, science fiction films, and television nature shows, began creating animales feos, "ugly animals".
- Her first was a dinosaur, crafted at the request of a grandchild.
- Her grandson Johnny Verduzco often helped her with the more difficult portions of the process.
- Ximénez mixed the cement which she used in her art with sand and dyed it a bright color before ornamenting it with various objects.
- Over twenty-two years she completed some fifty life-sized figures, which she used to create a folk environment which has been called a "bizarre wild kingdom".
- Some of her pieces were included in a 1986 touring exhibition organized by Texas Folklife Resources, and in 1987 she gave a workshop in working with cement at the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center in San Antonio.
- Many sculptures by Ximénez have found their way into private collections; others remain at her former home in Floresville.
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