Mariachi music, handmade tissue paper flowers, decorated sugar skulls, art and altars – the Tacoma Art Museum came alive Sunday for El Día de los Muertos.

“We’re in record-setting territory,” museum director Stephanie Stepich said of the crowd Sunday attending the fifth annual Day of the Dead Festival. She estimated at least 2,600 people had entered the museum and there were still a couple of hours of the festival left.

The first year there were 400 to 500; last year around 2,000.

A Latin American tradition with special meaning in Mexico, the Day of the Dead also has roots in the Catholic religion’s All Souls Day and All Saints Day celebrations held Nov. 1-2. It is a time to honor those who have passed away and celebrate their lives.

Coordinated with Tacoma’s Centro Latino organization, the festival draws heavily from the community’s Hispanics. But there was plenty of diversity among those who attended.

Kay Frallic of Olympia said she came to see the altars. There were a dozen of them on display on the third-floor Atrium. Created by schools, Latino clubs and individuals, they honored the lives of loved ones who had died with photographs, tissue flowers, rosaries and decorated skulls.

“They are gorgeous,” she said. “I took pictures of all them.”

Frallic was downstairs in the lobby snapping shots of the large tapete, or sand drawing, on the lobby floor created two weeks ago by tapete artist Fulgencio Lazo from Seattle.

The sand mural was showing a little wear from the edges thanks to curious kids. Frallic said next year she plans to be there when it is made.

Upstairs, more than 1,000 skulls made of sugar were available for painting. Decorated skulls and skeletons are symbols of the dead and celebration.

At least one of the skulls will travel to Germany.

Frederike Pape, 16, a German exchange student at Foss High School, was attending her first Day of the Dead and she found it “pretty cool … really creative.”

She looked forward to calling her mother and telling her about it. The skull will go home with her, she said.

Next to her John Perez of University Place was turning a skull into his likeness, complete with mustache. It will reside in his truck, he said.

Downstairs the Mariachi Ayutla band of Tacoma drew an appreciative crowd that whooped along with the music. Elsewhere there was Mexican food to buy. Faces could be painted into black and white skeleton masks.

In the flower-making room, Paul Robinson and Suanne Martin-Smith were diligently turning tissue into flowers. They had come from Port Orchard with their five children, four of whom were in line to paint skulls made of sugar.

Martin-Smith said the festival had special meaning for her. Her father, who was Spanish, died a couple of years ago. “That’s who I thought about driving out here,” she said.

“I think it’s fantastic,” Martin-Smith said of the festival. “It celebrates diversity and educates our children that there are other cultures.”

Said Robinson, referring to the festival and the general downtown Renaissance: “Tacoma’s come a long way.”

Melody Rodriguez, one of the event coordinators and a museum volunteer, said the event began as a way to reach out to a part of the community not often seen at the museum.

The attendance at the festival, said Stebich “is a good sign we have rooted in the community.”

Mike Archbold: 253-597-8692

mike.archbold@thenewstribune.com