Thanks to generous donations made by artists and collectors, C.A.S.A. (Centro para los Adolescentes de San Miguel de Allende) will be holding an art auction.

The funds raised will go toward CASA's AIDS program and the Violence Against Women program. Galería LeNoir has donated it's space for the auction.

Modern artworks and a few antique pieces will be on view to the public on Friday and Saturday. There will be an open bar on Saturday afternoon. Silent bids on the art can be turned in.

As with past CASA art auctions, the list of artists is impressive. A partial list of the artists includes Jody Allan, Dorothy Bruce, Roberto Cortazar, Lopez Castro, Paula Cecile, Joanne Charm, Salvador Dalí, Pedro Friedeberg, Jan Hendricks, Keith Keller, Jeremy King, John McCulloch, Samuel Peploe, Margaret Swartz, David Wright, John Heritage Wright and Zev. The work includes oils on canvas, collages, drawings, pastels, etchings, lithographs and original photography. 

The few antique pieces are really impressive, including 19th-century baroque bronze planters, a fine pair of majolica urns, and several beautifully executed Victorian samplers in exquisite, hand-carved frames. Both the modern and the antique pieces are an interior designer's dream. By the end of this coming week we will have doubled the cache.

If there are readers out there who are changing homes to smaller spaces or leaving town, perhaps you may want to consider donating some of your art for this worthy cause. You can contact me at 152-4938. Whether you are an art lover or just plain curious, I look forward to seeing you at the auction.

Art auction Benefit for C.A.S.A.
Saturday March 4, 4 & 7pm
Auction starts 5pm
Galería Jesús 2A
Viewing Friday, March 3 
10 & 2pm & 4 & 7pm

Open doors help deaf children 

The name Legorreta + Legorreta is famous internationally in the world of architecture. Though you may want to travel the world to see the designs of the award-winning Mexican architects Ricardo and Victor Legorreta, you have to go no further than el Centro.

San Miguel's newest and most spectacular home is opening its doors to the public for one special afternoon to raise funds for the local school for deaf children, IREE.

The Legorretas achieved fame in the late 1960s by bringing back the "wall culture" of Mexico. Emphasizing the supremacy of solids over voids, the use of color to enclose wall space, and the South American preference for privacy, they designed regional architecture that avoided the set-design techniques prevalent in many parts of Mexico and southern California. Their trademark is a supreme blending of space, light and color. 

Sip a margarita and enjoy this unique opportunity next weekend to see inside an architectural masterpiece. Remember to buy your tickets in advance because there are no sales at the door.

Legorreta-designed open house
Benefit for IREE (school for the deaf)

Friday, March 3, 3:30-6:30pm
45-47 Aldama 
200 pesos 
Tickets are available at Colonial Real Estate, Cuna de Allende 19A
No tickets will be sold at the door

Digital printing now available in San Miguel de Allende 
By Anne Maylor (Feb 24, 2006)

A constant challenge for painters and other artists in San Miguel de Allende has been how to duplicate high-quality images for invitations, posters and other printed pieces. Out of necessity has come change. Local painter Michael Wiebach and computer specialist Gerardo Espinosa have created Art Print, a new company that has brought in a state-of-the-art digital copier, San Miguel's first.

Backed by new technology and a talented team that now includes Georgia Dering, Art Print provides a wide range of digital printing and design work to artists and the public at large. They specialize in business cards, invitations, posters, brochures, and large-format fine art prints in color and black and white. 

After a trial run at a small location on calle Mesones, due to an increasing workload Wiebach and Espinosa have expanded their operation and moved to larger quarters, upstairs on calle San Francisco 11. 

At the new location there is gallery and studio space, which will enable the Art Print staff to display the work they do for many local artists. The first exhibit will include work by three artists: Ana Thiel, Matthieu Kuhn and Juan Ordoñez. The exhibit, which will showcase Art Print's methods and techniques, coincides with the grand opening of Art Print's new headquarters. The grand opening will feature demonstrations, cocktails, music and dancing.

Grand Opening
Art Print digital printing, gallery and studio space
Works by Ana Thiel, Matthieu Kuhn 
and Juan Ordoñez
Friday, February 24, 7:30pm
San Francisco 11

New Contemporary Gallery Opens in Centro
(Feb 24, 2006)

Imagine designing the perfect environment in which to display your own artwork. Terry Tomlinson has done just that. Her new Zen-like contemporary gallery featuring her recent work in the heart of historic Centro opens March 4. Many may remember her exciting show at Bellas Artes in winter 2004, which, to quote Peter Leventhal, "intrigued and enchanted all who saw it.

The totemic imagery Terry weaves and embeds into paper forms a seamless whole with the lovely aesthetic of the craft of handmade paper."

In her new work Tomlinson explores the possibilities of paper to the utmost. With cast paper she creates a diverse variety of images, some abstract, others alluding to natural objects. The artist also uses nagashizuki, a Japanese papermaking technique, and traditional koso and gampi fibers that display some of the more refined qualities of handmade paper. In other work handmade paper is embedded and sometimes illuminated with a variety of materials such as metal, mica, and natural fibers. The scale of the work is often large and incorporates the repetition seen in nature. The message is simple: eliminate all that is unnecessary to allow the "soul" of the subject to emerge. Some of the work has social and political implications, but the artist leaves the viewer to his or her own interpretation.

The gallery, which Tomlinson designed and just completed, is as minimal as the art itself. Hidden behind a historic wall and old doors we find high ceilings, loftlike open spaces, expansive glass, and a koi pond and water wall, which bring nature into the house and reflect the cycles of nature that are manifest in her work in handmade paper.

For Tomlinson the medium of handmade paper embodies the fragile and temporary qualities of all aspects of life. Terry comments that when she is making paper she is connected to nature and its cycles in a direct way. The theme that spontaneously recurs in her work is transformation through the process of birth and death. Even the paper she makes goes through a process of being destroyed in its original plant form, only to be reborn as a work of art.

Tomlinson comes from a background of classical painting and bronze sculpture; she studied in such places as the Art Students League and the Woodstock School of Art before discovering hand papermaking six years ago. Her work has been shown extensively in the United States and Mexico over the past 20 years.

Terry Tomlinson gallery opening
Saturday, March 4, 6 - 8pm
Terraplén 29 between calles Jesús and Aldama
other times by appointment only

Local Artists Honor Bill Hunt
(Feb 24)

For three years in the mid-1990s, Vermont painter and teacher Bill Hunt conducted month-long painting workshops at the Instituto Allende. Always fully attended, these sessions are remembered fondly by his students, many of whom are still actively painting in San Miguel de Allende.

"Bill didn't teach a painting style," said one of them, "he taught painting. And he had a remarkable ability to tell each student exactly what they needed to hear that day to go beyond where they were in their work." At the beginning of the month, Hunt would write the theme for the workshop on the blackboard at the back of the room. "Angels and Demons" is the theme most of the painters remember. Then he would challenge everyone to address it in his or her own way. Weekly group critiques supplemented the daily critiques offered by the maestro himself, and the group shared positive feedback.

From March 3 to 16, a group exhibition will be held in the very room at the Instituto Allende where the workshop took place to remember and honor this fine teacher-Bill Hunt-who succumbed to cancer in 2003. Work by Antonio Marin, Pakina Langenscheidt, Sheila Maguire, Gerry Gill, Therese Hetherington, Lois Read, Lorraine Rosenbaum, Phyllis Huller, and Harriet Ballard will be included in the show.

Group exhibit in honor of Bill Hunt
Instituto Allende
March 3-16
Opening reception Friday, March 3, 6-8pm