The craft of Master Eduardo Muñoz Lora is preceded by an old artisanal tradition. Long before the conquest, the inhabitants of the southeast of Colombia were already extracting varnish from the leaves of the mopa-mopa, a shrub that grows in the jungles of Putumayo and Caquetá. After the arrival of the Spaniards in Pasto, the indigenous people who mastered the technique were commissioned to decorate chests with their family crests, tassels, gold, and silver. For a long time, the pieces depicted European and Japanese landscapes, animals, and buildings that did not belong to these lands.

Being aware of the history of the craft, and with a huge desire to explore the material, Master Muñoz Lora decided, in 1974, to start his artistic career using Pasto varnish as his medium. He felt there was so much to do. As a young man, he had been an apprentice in the workshop of Master varnisher José Francisco Torres. Later, he studied at the School of Fine Arts of the University of Nariño, and had worked in various jobs, from house painter to elevator operator in Bogotá. By the time he returned to Pasto and married Graciela Martínez, he was already on his way to revolutionizing the craft.

From the beginning, he was a defender of the dissemination of the technique. He knew that, if it was to be preserved, it was necessary to open the doors of the workshops and share the knowledge instead of hoarding it like a secret. Moreover, he wanted to find a theme that had not been imported, a theme of his own. He ventured for the first time in 1976 when Artesanías de Colombia invited him to participate in the Colombian week in Paris, and he changed the traditional flat surfaces for relief pieces of ducks and peacocks, which he varnished with their characteristic feathers. He narrates the event as quite a daring move, because until then, no varnisher used volumetric wooden bases, which seemed nonsensical to him, as the varnish sheets stretch and mold to the surfaces just like plastic would.

He wondered why artisans continued to represent foreign motifs from Europe, Mexico, Peru, and Ecuador, when there were so many beautiful local things to be represented. So, hand in hand with the carvers, he began to make peasant virgins, wooden spoons, and ñapangas with their typical costumes, the same ones he saw as a child when they went down to the Saturday market. He found his inspiration in the cosmovision of the cultures of Nariño and its surroundings, the Pastos, Awaes, and Incas. He was passionate about their rituals, legends, and clothing. The worship of the sun became a recurring motif in his pieces, as well as the sun of the Pastos and its eight points.

The story would be different if he had not had the support of his wife, Graciela, whom he remembers fondly for having been she, with her eight senses and knowledge in the kitchen, who helped him perfect the technique to clean the mopa-mopa leaves and obtain an almost transparent varnish. Thanks to that impeccable varnish, the Master was able to solve from the root the greatest challenge facing his artistic practice: creating shadows, lights, and transparencies with a traditionally opaque material. Mixing the varnish with translucent pigments used for dyeing wool, he achieved the blurred effect on the sheets, giving volume and complexity to his drawings. Thus, his characteristic style was constituted: the faces with elongated noses and red skins of his indigenous characters, and all their customs. The Master has represented with loving detail the corn of their chagras, their musical instruments, festivals, decorations, flags, clothes, symbols, weavings, and suns. In his scenes, the landscape stands out; the green lands of Pasto, and the Galeras and Cumbal volcanoes, are always present.

During the more than fifty years he has been in the craft, his work has brought him multiple joys and recognitions, among which are the Medal of the Order of Craftsmanship, the UNESCO Excellence Award, and the recognition as Master of Masters in Pasto. He proudly recalls his participation in the world lacquer competition in Japan in the late eighties, where he learned from oriental materials and was able to appreciate his material even more because, unlike the lacquers extracted from the milk of trees in Japan, China, and Russia, Pasto varnish is the only one extracted from the young leaves of a shrub. For the Master, the craftsman enjoys what he does, and he has undoubtedly known how to take advantage of the fortune of living a life dedicated to the craft that he continues to practice and love as deeply as in his early years.