Founded in 1975, by the Mexican Poet Ambar Past, Taller Lenateros is a cooperative artists workshop, located in the city San Cristobal, in Chiapas Mexico.   The cooperative works to preserve and promote Mayan culture, primarily in the form of books, prints, and handmade paper.

One of the first publications from Taller Lenateros was Bon Tintes Naturales, in 1980.  Published in Spanish and Tzotzil, this manual was inexpensively produced on newsprint, and contains natural dye recipes, plant illustrations, a map for locating supplies around San Cristobal, as well as poetry and commentary.  This publication was an outgrowth of the Natural Dye School, a women's cooperative established in San Cristobal, to preserve the ancient recipes and methods for naturally dyeing fibers.  The school has grown into a self supporting institution, and holds workshops across Mexico, Guatemala, and Nicaragua.  Bon Tintes Naturales is now in a second print run.

After the success of the Natural Dye School, and the publication of the Bon Tintes Naturales, Taller Lenateros began to focus more on paper making and book production.  Conjuros y Ebriedades : Cantos de Mujeres Mayas [ Conjuring Spells and Drinking Songs of Mayan Women], is one of their most important publications.  Songs, poems and stories were collected from Mayan women in remote villages  for 23 years, and the finished volume is the first book to be written, illustrated, and published by the Mayan people in over 1000 years

Published in Tzotzil with a Spanish translation, the paper is made from palm fronds, recycled log wood, and soot.  The three-dimensional cover was created by Norwegian sculptor Gitte Daehlin and is cast from paper made of recycled cardboard boxes, corn silk and coffee.

In 1992, Taller Lenateros began published La Jicara [ the Gourd], a journal to promote the literature, history and art of the Mayan people.  The first edition of 200 copies, numero zero, sold out in ten minutes .  Since then, edition size has grown to 1,000 copies, and some editions are devoted to special topics, such as La Jicara 8 (1998), which is an issue devoted to celebrating peace, after the end of the civil war in Guatemala.  This issue took twenty people three years to assemble.  It contains 150 silk screen prints, tipped in facsimiles of  letters, telegrams and postcards, from politicians, soldiers and civilians during the civil war.  Books with in books have been created, and foldouts of news sheets from the era, as well as loose, one of kind prints are enclosed.  The journal is wrapped with a string held in a gourd clasp, which was hand carved in the village of Rabinal in Guatemala.

This volume of the journal is a truly unique accomplishment in bookmaking.

Taller Lenateros continues to create and publish beautiful artists' books, such as Words of Chan K'in : Lacandon Jungle (2000).  Created as a tribute to Chan K'in Viejo, patriarch of the Lacandon Maya, who died on the 23rd of December of 1996, at the age of 116.   Issued in wrapper of molded paper, the title is printed on leaf which has been glued to box and threaded with a piece of vine.  The paper was made with pansy flowers and renewable fibers from the rainforest, such as banana trunks, pine needles, oak leaves, ferns, corn husks, lichen, vines and palm fronds.