The Serapes have followed Martínez throughout his extensive career as an artist. His first few, created in the 1980s, were relatively simple, featuring primary color progressions separated by broader areas of color, reminiscent of serapes found on the border or in tourist towns in Mexico. Every couple of years, his serapes were revisited. “Very recently, I have returned to the series, changed my technical approach, and pared the serape idea down to the essentials. I started utilizing the entire, appropriately proportioned canvas or paper to create a complete painting as a single object. It is probably the closest I’ve come to “pure” painting for its own sake. The new variations, in dark, somber tones, were painted on trapezoidal-shaped canvases and became the serape-derived “Tlacuilo Stele” series. In ancient Mesoamerica, a tlacuilo was a highly respected artisan, perhaps a worker on stone or perhaps a scribe or artist.”