Homage to a San Miguel great: Ed Osman
By Melanie Harris (July 14, 2006)

“Timeless” is the title of the show of new and old works by of one of San Miguel’s most beloved and talented expats, Ed Osman. Edward Osman Janovcik was born in Newark, New Jersey, on the first day of 1927.

After serving his country in World War II and receiving benefits from the G.I. Bill, Osman headed south to a land he has not yet been able to leave. The following is a brief recount of the life story of this remarkable man and his deep love for Mexico.
Osman’s parents were both immigrants (his mother from the Austro-Hungarian Empire and his father from Turkey) who met in the melting pot of New York City. Osman was born a fraternal twin, and the two were physically and emotionally poles apart, a subject Osman later explores in his painting. Shortly after his birth, Osman’s family was thrust into the Great Depression, but they survived. As an adolescent, Osman admits to running away from home, not because of family problems but because of deep-seated wanderlust. In school, Osman was not an academic, which led him to study manufacturing in a technical high school.

When the call to serve came in WWII, Ed was a willing recruit but was rejected by the Navy due to “bad eyesight.”

Soon after, however, he was recruited by the Merchant Marines with rank of Second Cook and Baker, placing him in charge of making all of the pastries and desserts for the crew of the Oakley L. Alexander. At the end of the war, he enlisted in the Army for 18 months to finish out his service, where he was a Mess Sergeant in charge of feeding three meals a day to 250 hungry soldiers. Osman reflects kindly on his days in the Army when he was stationed at Camp Carson, Colorado, where training exercises included mountain climbing and ski training as preparations for possible future conflicts with North Korea or Russia. 

At the end of his service, Osman returned to Newark and took advantage of the G.I. Bill, which offered a stipend of $20 a month to take classes. He initially took a 10-week course to become a dancing instructor. But Osman was not content with struggling to make ends meet with the odd pastry chef gigs and teaching tango and waltz to people with no rhythm. He decided to take night classes in anatomy drawing. After passing the Veterans Administration’s aptitude test, he was given a full scholarship for art classes at the school of his choice. Initially, Osman was drawn to New York City’s Art Students League, but he found it to be disorganized and opted instead to attend the Newark School of Fine and Industrial Arts. Here, Osman studied under some of the top technical and anatomical artists in the field.

After graduating, Osman worked briefly in advertising, but he quickly became frustrated with difficult clients and quit his job to travel in Europe. In 1962, Osman returned home, only to embark on another journey abroad. Heeding the advice of one of his mentors, he bought a new Volkswagen and headed south to Latin America seeking inspiration. Ed originally set out with an ESSO gas station map and set his sights for Mexico City and Acapulco. 

On his way down, however, in San Luis Potosí, weary from of the difficult drive, Osman took another look at his map and noticed a tiny speck of a town named San Miguel de Allende. This glance would forever change the course of his personal and creative life.

He recalls the exact time that he arrived in San Miguel—6:30pm—just as a brilliant sunset was creeping along a blue sky the likes of which he had never seen. He sat atop the Mirador for what seemed like hours soaking up the moment and then descended quietly into town below. Hardly any cars or buses came into town back then. He parked his VW, wandered into the Posada San Francisco, and got a room. Across the street, he found the infamous Cucaracha at its former location, now Banamex, and was surprised to find how many expats were haunting this bar. 

The next morning, Osman awoke to the sound of enchanting voices. Weary-eyed, he followed his ears to the window, and he saw a procession of old women singing in the Jardín in front of the Parroquia. Osman was mesmerized and deeply moved. The spectacle of these singing women was more beautiful than anything he had ever witnessed before.

Knowing this is where he belonged, at least for a month or two, Ed rented his first apartment for 40 dollars a month, and in the afternoon met up with the gang at “The Cuca.” Several days later, Ed met a beggar woman whom he felt compelled to paint. She agreed to be his model and sat for him. Recalling the incident, Osman swears the “the paintbrushes left his hand and the painting painted itself.” From that moment on, Osman couldn’t keep his brush still, painting the warm glow and spirit of the rural people, the passion of the bullfighters, the elegance and fairytale quality of the Parroquia, the strange and intoxicating processions, the glorious sunsets—everything was an inspiration. 

Osman fell in love with San Miguel and also found love here. In 1963, he met Guadalupe and moved with her to Mexico City to start a family. Together, Osman and Guadalupe had two daughters, Marie (Maruschka) and Marcela. To provide for his new family, Osman sold his work on Sundays at Parque Sullivan. His sales at this bohemian site generated exposure for Osman, translating into multiple shows throughout the city. Vincent Price, actor and patron of the arts, came to discover Osman and arranged several shows for him in the United States, as well as acquiring Osman’s pieces for Sears & Roebuck, the Ford Foundation and Coca-Cola. Through these shows Osman’s art became well known and was acquired by collectors as far away as Iran, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland, Japan and New Zealand.

In 1972, Ed was finally able to move back to San Miguel with his family after getting a teaching job at the Instituto Allende. He opened his own studio, where he gave private classes in addition to giving several classes at Belles Artes. San Miguel has been his home since, and he has made himself an integral part of the community, teaching, painting and enjoying the San Miguel life.

Osman made lasting friendships with the townspeople as well as some US celebrities, including Anthony Quinn, Candace Bergen, Jason Robards, Anne Baxter and Jane Russell. All the while, the magic from the quartz in the San Miguel ground and the beautiful sky kindled his creative fire.

For those not familiar with Ed’s work, it can be technically classified as Romanticism and Social Realism with abstractions in the negative areas of his paintings. His two preferred mediums are pastel and oil, showing traces of the influences of Monet and Klimt, among others. He still uses the faces and sights around San Miguel to make his art.

It’s a daily struggle for Osman to get out of bed due to emphysema and his subsequent battle with pulmonary complications. He admits that life is fragile for him right now and that he hasn’t had the initiative to work because everything takes him more than twice as long as it used to. However, the encouragement from his first opening in 14 years has him in good spirits. The opening is set for Saturday, July 15, from 5 to 8pm at Fábrica La Aurora.

Art Opening works by Ed Osman
Saturday, July 15, 5–8pm, 
galería/atelier, Fábrica La Aurora, Calzada de la Aurora



An artist in prison
By Stephen Kurtz

When YAM Gallery’s Adolfo Caballero first saw Donald Johnson’s paintings he said, “This isn’t the work of a prison artist; it’s the work of an artist in prison.” And he immediately offered to curate a show. Johnson, now 46, is a lifer in one of America’s most notorious supermaxes: Pelican Bay State Prison in northern California. He has been in solitary confinement there for 16 years—locked all day, every day, in an 8- by 10-foot, windowless cell with no human contact.

He and his mother can’t remember their last hug. Yet despite recurrent episodes of depression, his spirit has flourished. These paintings are the proof of it.

Four years ago, Johnson had never even thought of being an artist. And if he had, how could he have realized such a hope, since the prison provides no materials? Then, inexplicably, the desire came upon him and he found a way. He made a brush by cutting strands of his own hair and securing them to a rolled piece of paper. He uses M&M candy dyes for color, working on the backs of greeting cards bought from the prison canteen. The ingenuity alone is remarkable, but what is more remarkable are the results. Aesthetically, these paintings are first-rate.

Mythology and Jungian analysis are central to Johnson’s thinking—and, inevitably, to his work. For this reason, some pieces are reminiscent of Jackson Pollock’s art of the early 1940s, though there is no direct influence. Only occasionally, however, is there a clear reference to myth in content or title, since most of Johnson’s work is abstract. And it is in the handling of color that he excels: gorgeous or plain, lush or simple, he applies it with masterful technique. M&M dyes are very difficult to work with, but Johnson’s vision permits no limitations. He works until he gets what he wants. 

All art is an effort at self-healing, as the sculptor Louise Bourgeois observed, and Johnson would agree. It opens a window on the unconscious. “The unconscious is like space,” he says, “vast and unknown, and with constant revelations.” And the making of art is a liberation. “When I dive into a piece I’m free from solitary confinement,” Johnson adds. “I go into a place out of time or space.” 

The viewer is invited into this space—sometimes vast and chaotic, sometimes ordered and contained—always worth the trip. These necessarily small works have an immense presence.
Caballero, a self-taught curator, identifies with this self-taught artist. “I learned everything I know by traveling and looking and reading,” he says. “I carry a museum in my head and when I saw Johnson’s work, I knew it belonged there.” The YAM gallery, now located in San Miguel’s Instituto Allende, represents international artists, both well-established and new. “Quality is all I look for,” says Caballero.

Johnson has donated his paintings to the Pelican Bay Prison Project to raise money for a program to help children of incarcerated parents—a group particularly at risk for imprisonment themselves. The Project is a U.S. 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, so that all contributions are tax-deductible. The show opens on Saturday, July 15.

Works by Donald Johnson
Saturday, July 15, 7pm, YAM Gallery, Instituto Allende, Ancha de San Antonio 20



Un poco de todos

For the upcoming ArtWalk 2006, Pozos resident Lena Bartula presents new works at her studio/gallery inside the Colectiva de Pozos compound at 5 de Mayo 5.

With a repertoire of oil painting, mixed media, installation, poetry, book art and shrines, Bartula has a tough time deciding what to feature, so she’s titled her exhibition “Un Poco de Todos.” Noticing that many small tiendas in Mexico have a sign to that effect, which translates to “a little bit of everything,” she decided to go along with the concept and be content to allow the flow from fine art to shrine art. The book arts series, some of which are transformed from old relics found in the bin at one of the shops, features mixed media treasures, or perhaps are lit from within, recalling her recent “illuminated manuscripts.” Some books and shrines are made from Cuban cigar boxes; one in particular contains image and text wrapped around the theme of sun and moon. Thinking on the US embargo on Cuba, Bartula likes to recognize that “sun and moon are something that we all share, friend and foe alike.”

The sun plays a large part in the paintings as well, as in the case of a diptych on wood panels titled “La Casa del Mar y Sol.” Having spent a bit of time on the incredible beaches of Mexico’s Pacific coast, her influences change as she works. Even her Sushi box shrines incorporate the subject: a faux Barbie doll from the sea of stalls in a typical tianguis sits deconstructed as “Sirena Sushi.” 

Other shrines created from boxes include travelers’ shrines, an idea born from her experience at the Tibetan compound in Santa Fe. Bartula’s landlord there, a Tibetan Buddhist named Paljor, gifted her with a similar container many years ago, and she often incorporates the notion in her work. In this exhibition, “The Eightfold Path” is a small cigar box that opens on its edge to expose a silver statue of Buddha encased in a gold altar. Opposite, on the left, old prayer flags cover the eightfold symbol circling around a mirror. As is traditional, these types of shrines can be easily closed up, taken on pilgrimages and opened along the way or upon arrival at the destination. 

Themes have always played a major role in the way this artist thinks and creates. Universal and cosmic concepts become entwined, as in a tiny book in the star format: a structure that opens to pages that are shaped rather like stars. In “El Mundo de las Estrellas,” not only are the shapes reminiscent, but the message is that like the sun and moon, we all, friend and foe, share the light of the stars in the heavens. This message, Bartula feels, helps us to be comfortable and compassionate when traveling, visiting or living among other cultures. Now a full-time resident of Mexico, her fantasy is like the words in one of her poems:

“… we follow this map or that road
embrace with our hearts
acknowledge with our eyes
and in doing so
we become each other.”

Art exhibit by Lena Bartula
Saturday & Sunday, July 22 & 23, Cinco de mayo 5, Pozos



Getting what you want … with art
By Joseph Dispenza

What if you regularly dreamed up some fantastic thing in your life—a relationship with Mr. Right, say, or a vacation in some exotic land, or a huge financial return on an investment—and then saw this thing make a sudden appearance, almost by magic?

San Miguel artists Dawn Gaskill and Christina Sol work with paint, but also with intention, visioning, dreaming and manifesting. “The beginning of your success in any endeavor lies in your imagination,” Gaskill says. “Anyone can learn how to access one’s inner guidance through dreams, visions, meditations and even daydreams.”

“I have been painting my dreams for several years,” Sol says. “When the pictures in my head and in my heart leave me and go to the canvas—or tin, which is another medium I use—something happens. The imaginary scene comes alive in the outside world. I have seen good things manifest in my life in this way.”
Dawn Gaskill’s work with “intentional art” blends well with Christina Sol’s art of painting dreams and visions. These are some of the principles they use in their artistic work, and which they share with others (artists and non-artists alike):
-Visualize all the things you want in your life.
-Learn to access the powerful field of intention; make your mental blueprint and begin to build. 
-You can make every thought, every fact, that comes into your mind pay you a dividend. 
-Your imagination will show you how to turn your possibilities into reality.
-The will to succeed springs from the knowledge that you can succeed. 
-Think of things not as they are, but as they might be. 
-Don’t merely dream—create your life. 



Christina Sol 

Is a self-taught artist who developed the idea of painting on tin with oil. In 2001, she met a mentor and dream teacher and began the process of painting her dreams, visions and spiritual experiences. Her latest work focuses on painting symbols that have come to her in this manner.

Dawn Gaskill 

Is also a self-taught artist who creates what she has named “intentional art.” Her travels around the world and studies of ancient belief systems and cultures is reflected in the work that she creates to support other people in manifesting their heart’s desires by having symbols that empower them in their homes and offices. Dawn’s latest expression of these has been found in the ancient Greek technique of encaustic painting.

She mixes her own medium with beeswax, resins, oils and pigments, and then fuses each thin layer with heat. 
You can see the work of Dawn Gaskill and Christina Sol on display Friday, July 21, at LifePath Center, Recreo 80, from 6 to 8pm in advance of a four-hour workshop by the two artists on Saturday, July 22, also at LifePath Center. For information, phone 154-8465.

Art Opening and Talk, Dawn Gaskill and Christina Sol
Friday, July 21, 6–8pm, LifePath Center, Recreo 80



Master carver exhibits in Dolores Hidalgo

On June 22 to 25, Galería Tesoros hosted the first in an ongoing series of indigenous cultural demonstrations. The event featured woodcarver Filipe de Jesús Horta Terra, from Tocuaro, Michoacán. Horta is Tarasca Indian and a master carver. His work has been shown in Phoenix, Arizona; Bozeman, Montana; and San Francisco, California, where he makes presentations in schools and libraries and participates in local Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) festivals. His masks are currently featured in Wildwood Art Café’s Mexican Folkart Gallery in Austin, Texas, as well on the website koshercomedy.com. He will be having another exhibition in nearby Dolores Hidalgo, July 14–16. For information on this event, contact Horta at felipehorta2000@yahoo.com. 



Political cartoons featured in Bellas Artes show

An exhibit commemorates the bicentennial of the birth of Benito Juárez García, with cartoons from the liberal newspaper The Orchestra. The drawings are a reflection of 19th-century Mexican politics at a time when the press enjoyed absolute freedom.

The National Council for Culture and the Arts and the National Institute of Bellas Artes, through Cultural Center Ignacio Ramírez, El Nigromante, in collaboration with the Secretaría de Cultura of the Government of the Distrito Federal and the Museum of the City of Mexico, invite the public to the opening of the exhibition “The Political Cartoon in the Time of Juárez, Collection of Rafael Barajas, el Fisgón.” 

Rafael Barajas, el Fisgón, a cartoonist for the newspaper La Jornada, is an heir to that combative tradition and has rescued, studied and reevaluated the Mexican political cartoon. He comments that “Juárez tolerated everything and never closed a newspaper or censured cartoons. [...] One week before his death he was insulted, but when he died the caricaturists memorialized him as a national hero.”

The show includes works by such 19th-century visionary artists as Constantino Escalante, Alexander Casarín and Santiago Hernández and remains open until September 10.

The Political Cartoon in the Time of Juárez, Collection of Rafael Barajas, “Fisgón” Friday, July 14, 7:30pm, Sala de Arte Mexicano, Bellas Artes, Hernández Macías 75

Lynne Gleason: Master painter and sculptor
By Margaret Failoni

Much like Edgar Degas, Lynne Gleason likes to paint in themes; also like Degas, one of her favorite themes is horses. After her superb carnival paintings, the swamp and river scenes and the still lifes, the artist has been mesmerized by horses. 

She wavers and paints another subject—such as trees in the water—but inevitably she returns to horses, the subject of this exhibition. Degas chose the racehorses of Europe’s royal enclaves; Gleason started her love affair with horses with the Queen’s Cavalry while living in London, then moved on to a romantic interpretation of historic figures, such as those in Greek and Roman mythology and history. 

Her Alexander series, with his magnificent stallions rearing and racing off to conquer, is painted in Mediterranean blues, gold and turquoise.

At the same time, her desire for experimentation and pushing creativity as far as it could go led her to experiment further with sculpture, using the classic methods with twigs and wax to create bronzes of horses that seem vividly realistic.

Gleason’s new, small, black, red and white paintings of horses racing toward the viewer suggest both the straining and the attainment of equilibrium. The application of acrylics and diluted water-based paints over the incised surface is disciplined and thin, without the indulgence in the collective wild mass of color that make Gleason’s former works so thrilling. But this very restraint in color blending is what enhances the sense of perfection in composition and rendition; the use of a few direct and pure colors is what gives these small paintings a sense of high drama. 

And so, once having achieved great equilibrium, as in the Alexander paintings, Gleason seems determined to strain that very achievement, to shake it up.

Gleason has focused on a variety of genres and subjects over the years using a variety of techniques—oil and acrylics, pencil, charcoal, watercolors, collage and sculpture—and with her handling of these techniques, rapid or deliberate, the quality of her work never wavers.

Works by Lynne Gleason
Generator Gallery, Fábrica La Aurora, through August 2