Puerto Rican Arts & Crafts

On Calle Fortaleza in the heart of Old San Juan, Puerto Rican Arts & Crafts gathers work from more than 100 island artists and artisans rather than importing stock, putting it among the longer-running craft retailers on a street known for exactly this kind of shop. The range covers the island's core folk-art forms: carved santos, the small devotional figures Catholic missionaries once used as storytelling tools during the colonial era; vejigante masks in both the coconut-shell style associated with Loiza and the papier-mache style associated with Ponce, the island's two historic mask-making centers; handmade hammocks; and jewelry and ceramics in both decorative and functional pieces.

Vejigante masks carry their own layered history, the word combines the Spanish vejiga (bladder) and gigante (giant), and the figures were once viewed by the church as symbols of demons before being reclaimed as an expression of Puerto Rican identity shaped by African and Taino influence. Santos, for their part, saw a decline after the 1898 U.S. invasion, when Protestant missionaries pushed converts to discard the carved figures, before a later folk-art revival restored interest in the form. The shop also stocks tropical wood pieces, original artwork, and island staples like local coffee, rum and hot sauce, functioning as much as a survey of Puerto Rican craft traditions as a place to buy them.