Santa Fe workshop photography presentation,
Nov 3, 2006

Photography presentations Santa Fe Workshops Monday & Wednesday, November 6 & 8, 7:30pm Teatro Ángela Peralta

On Monday, November 6, the Santa Fe Workshops introduces photographers Eniac Martinez and Ralph Lee Hopkins. The public is invited to attend these free photography lectures.

Santa Fe, New Mexico-based photographer Ralph Lee Hopkins is director of photography expeditions for Lindblad Expeditions, one of the premier companies in expedition travel. He also teaches photography workshops with the Santa Fe Workshops, Arizona Highways, and National Geographic Expeditions and is co-instructor on tour with the National Geographic Traveler magazine series “Travel Photography in the Digital World.” His work is represented worldwide by the National Geographic Image Collection and Lonely Planet Images, and he has been published in most major nature and photography publications. His fine-art prints are represented by Verve Fine Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Currently, Hopkins is lucky enough to travel for a living. Over 17 years ago he started traveling with Lindblad Expeditions as a naturalist and expedition leader, interpreting the landscape in the world’s wild destinations.

These days he spends about six months of the year teaching and photographing the world’s wildest and most beautiful places. His favorite location is Baja California, with the juxtaposition of desert landscapes and rich marine life in the Sea of Cortez. In addition, Hopkins returns every year to Svalbard, Norway, to photograph polar bears and also to Antarctica to be on the icy landscape with the penguins.

Hopkins still finds peace in the magical landscapes of the American Southwest. The completion of his two recent books, Hiking Colorado’s Geology and Hiking the Southwest’s Geology, has brought him full circle back to his roots, an experience he describes as profound. 

Whether in the presence of wildlife or traveling in wild places, Hopkins is most at home working with whatever nature presents, looking through his viewfinder and trying to take it all in. “For me, photography is not just an art—it is a way of being in and connecting with the natural world,” says Hopkins. This is his fifth year teaching at the Santa Fe Workshops and his second year teaching in San Miguel.

On Wednesday, November 8, photographers Doug Beasley and Jim Stanfield present their work. 

Beasley’s personal vision explores the spiritual aspects of people and places. His photography is concerned with how the sacred is recognized and expressed in everyday life. Beasley’s photographs are widely collected, and he is a respected educator, helping others find their creative voice. “It is a process of self-discovery. Since I was a kid, I always wanted to look at things deeply,” said Beasley. He received his BFA in Fine Art with a major in Photography from the University of Michigan, and he teaches workshops worldwide.

Beasley is working on several bodies of personal work. His most recent, “Sacred Places,” is an exploration of what is considered sacred, spiritual and ritualized in other cultures as well as our own. Past bodies of work have included “Sacred Sites,” which looked at the Lakota Indians of South Dakota, the indigenous Mayans of Guatemala and shamanism in Peru. Beasley’s work has been exhibited internationally and is widely published in magazines such as The Sun, B&W, and PhotoVision. His first book, Japan: A Nisei’s First Encounter, offers insight into a journey to his mother’s homeland.

Beasley’s most recent project explores disappearing green space around the United States. This series, funded by a McKnight photography Fellowship, is about how the American landscape is quickly being changed in a permanent and profound way by rampant overdevelopment. “My intent is not to document the destruction of forests, fields and vacant lots but to explore the emotional and visual impact this brings and then to share this with the viewer. My desire is to photograph how these spaces ‘feel’ rather than how they ‘look.’ I want to experience, interpret and know for myself what we are losing forever. I want to share that experience, through my photographs, with the viewer,” states Beasley.

His photographic process is about embracing the oldest and newest technology, but only for the sake of aesthetics. Beasley typically uses a wooden 4 × 5 field camera with Polaroid Type 55 negatives. These negatives are washed and preserved, drum-scanned and then made into archival prints on an Epson 9000 printer with carbon-based inks on Somerset rag paper.

Beasley currently shoots throughout the country for various advertising, educational, public service and nonprofit clients. This is his fourth year teaching for the Workshops.

Persephone in Hades and other curiosities
By Samuel Jeremiah Callaway

Art Opening, Works by Edward Swift Saturday, November 4, 5–8pm Vandiver Gallery, Fábrica la Aurora Artist’s talk in the gallery, Saturday, November 11, 11am

The Vandiver Gallery in Fábrica la Aurora presents Edward Swift’s latest work: magic sticks, paint brushes with destiny and various fetishes, scepters and staffs. But the centerpiece of the show is a six-foot nicho of Persephone, the Queen of the Underworld, surrounded by her retinue of spiders, frogs, cobwebs, rats, and lost souls—an appropriate addition to Aurora’s Day of the Dead celebration taking place on November 4.

Legend has it that Persephone was sentenced to one month in the underworld for every pomegranate seed she ate. One version of the Greek myth has her consuming only three seeds; another, four seeds; and yet another version insists that the number was six. Whatever the case, she certainly spends the winter in Hades, where she is the Queen of Terror. Then she returns to earth each spring to bring forth an abundance of new growth and a bountiful harvest before descending again into the depths of Hades. 

Working with mythological themes is nothing new to Swift, a resident of San Miguel de Allende. He was born in the Big Thicket National Preserve of southeastern Texas, a land of mysterious swamps, forests and bayous with legendary names and stories. Swift is also a novelist. His books are directly influenced by his birthplace, and his visual art is often influenced by the storyline of his books. His other influences are more obvious: folk art, tribal art, ceremonial objects and magic combined with a satirical, ironic or often twisted point of view. Sometimes it is nothing more than a button, a rusty nail or some other object from the Tuesday market that sets him off on a course of no return. An avid collector, he is no stranger to flea markets and dumping grounds. 

“I have always been fascinated by what other people throw away,” he says. “When I was a kid, our neighbor, Mrs. Woodcock, loved visiting the city dump to look for things. She usually took me with her. I was about 10 years old, and we found lots of treasures, including old love letters, which we read aloud to each other. Mrs. Woodcock was fascinated by the discarded substance of other people’s lives, and that curiosity rubbed off on me. I’ve been collecting junk all my life. Much of it I try to transform into art. Some of it never makes it that far, so I, too, end up throwing a lot of things away for other people to collect, perhaps transform. I hate to think that anything goes to waste.”

One of Swift’s latest finds occurred when he was digging around in the trash at Fábrica la Aurora. There he found discarded pieces of the old manta loom. The objects he found were hardwood spokes about eight inches long hinged with metal loops.

The spokes contain holes for pegs, and the placement of the pegs controlled the weave of the fabric. Many of the magic sticks in Swift’s current exhibition are made from discarded loom parts, but no one would ever guess it. The spokes have been cleaned, painted and reassembled. In other words they, like Persephone, have been transformed to another life. 

The sculpture Swift has created seems to be ceremonial in nature. But what ceremony, exactly? The magic sticks resemble something you might want to march around with after some joyous entertainment or soul-cleansing ritual. He has painted them nearly every color in the spectrum and has made good use of colored string, ribbon, buttons, antique roofing nails and discarded faces and figures from other pieces of sculpture that didn’t please him. “I destroy my old work that doesn’t hold up with time,” he says. “However, I usually save part of what I destroy. One of the magic sticks incorporates bits and pieces of about six other works of art I recently chopped up.”

Along with the magic sticks, the Vandiver Gallery is showing three white boxes that hang on the wall. They are elegant creations that utilize fan-shaped paintbrushes, mother-of-pearl buttons, aluminum foil and cheesecloth. They represent the latest additions to an ongoing series Swift calls “A Brush with Destiny.” He is quick to say that he makes almost all his boxes himself. He doesn’t like using a box that somebody else has made because he usually can’t “find a way of owning it, making it my own creation.” The boxes he builds all have the mark of his unsteady hand and wandering eye. He saws everything with a hand saw, and everything he saws is a little lopsided. “But somehow,” he says, “I manage to make it work, usually. I admit, to make it work really takes a lot of work sometimes, but I enjoy it, so it’s not really work. But it’s not fun either. I hate the word ‘fun,’ especially when it’s applied to art. When people see my work and say ‘Oh, you’re having fun, aren’t you,’ I just want to boil them in a pot.”

When asked if he doesn’t think that’s a little drastic, he quickly replies: “Nothing’s very drastic when you descend from both Jonathan Swift and John Gay, and I do. Yes, I have a dark point of view, but there’s a lot of frivolity mixed up in it also.”The other curiosities of Swift’s exhibition are small totemlike figures that appear to be made of stone, but they’re actually made of rock-hard papier mâché. The paper mixture is his own formula, but he says that anybody with half a mind could think of it. Even so, all he will say is that he grinds up various kinds of paper in his kitchen blender. “I’ve ruined two blenders this year,” he says. “But that’s nothing. One year I destroyed five.” Some of the papier-mâché figures have bone heads and are appropriately named “Bone Heads.” Many of the double marrow bones he uses were found at the dumping grounds at Atotonilco. “I have to saw the bones down to size,” he says. “I use a hacksaw, and it can be pretty tricky sawing those bones. One slip and there goes a finger. We already have my grandfather’s finger in a bottle, and I don’t want to add to it. If you want to know more about this, you’ll have to read my memoir, My Grandfather’s Finger. It’s in the Biblioteca.” 

In a few words, this exhibition is an odd and compelling mixture of this and that. Some of the work is beautiful, some is dark and brooding and other pieces are downright silly, such as “Two Little Redheaded Girls Skipping Rope with an Alien in a Party Dress” and “The Mummies of Guanajuato.” The artist says his work is like a mish-mash of Bach cantatas. That being said, no one has captured the Swiftian style better than the artist Mary Rapp, who recently wrote this limerick in celebration of Edward Swift’s 63rd birthday: 

A superior artist named Swift
Was born with a masterful gift
His winsome creations
Breed novel sensations
And give one a singular lift.

The exhibition runs through the month of November. 

Sam Callaway is a poet who lives in Austin and frequently visits San Miguel. He met Edward Swift at the Tuesday market.

A fine-art compilation at Generator
By Margaret Failoni, 

A Fine-Art Compilation, Saturday, November 4, 5–8pm 

Generator Gallery, Fábrica La Aurora

Over the past season, Generator Gallery has presented a group of varied fine-art paintings indicative of today’s Mexican art scene. Many different techniques and media have been part of an avalanche of superb creativity by international artists. From trompe l’oeil to the expressionist, from oils and acrylics to encaustic and collage, the variety has enriched San Miguel’s art scene.

Miguel Ángel Garrido, the youngest of the artists showing at Generator Gallery, has an inimitable expressionist style of realism, owing much to the contemporary British masters Bacon and Freud. His palette is rich in color, and his subject matter and brush strokes are rich and sensuous. 

Lynne Gleason is a master painter and sculptor. Her magnificent versions of landscapes, as well as her equestrian series, are a testament to her masterly painting technique and vision. She has just returned from a sold-out show in the United States, where she presented her most recent horse paintings. 

Leigh Hyams’s recent exhibition of flowers has been very successful with collectors and the public in general. She presented her most recent oeuvre mixing beautifully painted, mixed-media painted surfaces, highlighted by adding actual petals and other flower parts to the images. Hyams is not only a brilliant artist but a superb lecturer and teacher.

Keith Miller, the perfect chronicler of magnificently executed flowers, enchants San Miguel art viewers with a beautiful and highly successful exhibition of seascapes from the northeastern shores of the US to the tropical beaches of Mexico’s Pacific Coast. Accompanying this show is a small selection of watercolor landscapes from his recent trip to the Far East. Like Lynne Gleason, Keith Miller is a master painter and an artist’s artist.

Ricardo Ángel Ricardo Ruiz brings to us a lush vision of form and color with his beautifully executed silk cushions, sensuous metaphors for the immediate world around us. Always tongue-in-cheek, Ruiz’s work invites us to dally and give in to pleasure. His use of form and color is quite unique.

Anne Marie Slipper is primarily a sculptor who has recently started using acids, fire and dabs of paint on metal surfaces, creating a flat picture plane and using the carefully corroded surfaces to visually create three-dimensions. In effect, these works are vigorous and dramatic abstract landscapes.

Gary Slipper continues to amaze us with his romantic fairy-tale vision of the world, gently erotic, always subtle and always masterful, with superb composition and painting.

Master trompe l’oeil artist and teacher Edgar Soberón goes a step further than pure realism. The fruit is not necessarily what he sees but what we think it ideally should be, always perfect, always a sublime vision of realism, a metaphor for the world as it should be.

Navarro Tadeo is new to the roster of artists showing at the gallery. He lives in the world of Mexican mythology and brings to his canvases all its drama, color and passion. His work is beautifully executed and is inspired by ancient Indian myths.

Ending the season with a compilation of work from the past year ,this exhibit is meant to be a visual index leading us to the next season, beginning in December. The exhibit runs through the end of November.

Unlatching the gates of women’s lives

Art Opening, Works by Sallie Latch Saturday, Nov. 11, 6pm, Villas de Allende, Libramiento a Dolores Hidalgo, Km 3

Sallie Latch shows work featuring paintings created during the past six years while she was in India as well as in Mexico. The show, “Mujeras Fuertas” (Strong Women), spans not only two distinct continents but covers great social distances as well. 

Latch’s colors are vibrant and her statements clear and direct. Her motivation for painting women stems from her worldwide travels, during which she found women who were necessarily strong, dealing with poverty, hunger, homelessness, back-breaking labor and mothering. Although the settings were often harsh, there was always color and a kind of vibrancy born out of the need for survival. These are reflected in her paintings of women, whether in the background of a marketplace or the scourge of war.

Her images of women evoke strong feelings, such as the painting “Nada Mas,” clearly an anti-war statement. Others, such as “The Doll Sellers” or “Goa Beach Sellers,” depict women in their everyday lives. 

The Center for Global Justice is proud to support this exhibit and its focus on social issues, both in our community and globally.

The show is at Villas San Miguel, located on the Libramiento a Dolores Hidalgo. If you are coming from town, turn right at the glorieta, past the Pemex station. Keep driving for about one mile until you see a housing development on the right side of the road, which is Villa San Miguel. If you’ve gone to the Hospital de La Fe, you’ve gone too far. There are two large sculptures outside the gates. Inside is the gallery. Refreshments will be provided.

Pozos ArtWalk 2006: Art ’n’ Books
By Roxanne Cordero

Pozos ArtWalk “Art ’n’ Books”, Saturday & Sunday, November 11 & 12, 10am–4pm Mineral de Pozos

Mineral de Pozos Turismo y Cultura, A.C., again invites all of those who enjoy visiting quaint and interesting places to the “Art ’n’ Books” ArtWalk. This event began in January 2005 and was a great success, according to the participants as well as drivers, vendors, restaurateurs and hoteliers in this former town of fantasmas. As in previous ArtWalks, we simply exhibit the wonderful works of many artists and artisans who live in or love Pozos. This time around we have chosen to add the theme of books to help celebrate National Book Day. This ArtWalk will exhibit all types of books to buy or share but will concentrate especially on those of the art world.

Susan Montana hosts photographer and author David Spear of Madison, North Carolina. He will be signing his book, Visible Spirits, at Casa Montana Hotel, located at Jardin Principal 4, on Saturday and Sunday from 1 to 4pm. Spear has been a long-time lover of Pozos and has beautifully represented the people and spirit of this once thriving mining town in his book. His work is highly collectible and can be found in many galleries around the world.

A wine tasting and wine sale will also be hosted by Casa Montana on Saturday, November 11, from 4 to 6pm. Club Vino Guanajuato invites you to discover the wines of Mexico: Cavas of Monte Xanic, Adobe Guadalupe, Casa Madero and Santo Tomás. These wineries will surprise you with their tasty wines, accompanied by savory appetizers. Cost per person is only 100 pesos, which includes eight tasting tickets and appetizers. 

Cinema Colectiva, located at Cinco de Mayo 5, will screen Damaged Books, directed by Cynthia Buzzard. This documentary focuses on four Santa Fe, New Mexico, artists who transformed mutilated library books from the San Francisco Public Library. Show times are noon and 2pm on Saturday and Sunday.

Don’t miss the poetry readings along with a short history lesson about Pozos and the surrounding region at Galeria 6, located at Jardín Principal 6, Saturday and Sunday at 11am and 3:30pm. Photography by Nick Hamblen will also be on exhibit.

Lena Bartula Studio Gallery, located at Cinco de Mayo 5, will present “The Art of Cigar ‘Booxes.’” This exhibition creatively recycles old cigar boxes into books, hand-made journals, and poetry books.

“Flores de Lluvia” is a photo exhibit by David Winslow presented at Posada de las Minas. His photo collection depicts wildflowers in the area surrounding Pozos. Small gift books of the photos are also available for purchase.

We Poceños always look forward to meeting new and adventurous people. Mark your calendars for November 11 and 12, and make your shuttle reservations by calling 01-442-293-0032. An ATM is not available, and most artisan shops do not accept credit cards. ArtWalk hours are 10am to 4pm. Maps and guides will be available at the Jardín Principal and Plaza Zaragoza in Pozos.

Nugent’s paintings featured at Lloyd’s

Nancy Nugent is the featured artist showing at Seguros Lloyd’s,San Francisco 33, for the month of November. 

She is a figurative colorist who studied painting and drawing at New York’s Art Students League as well as with many master teachers in California and San Miguel. She has been featured in galleries in northern California and has shown here at Galerías San Miguel and La Luz, as well as privately. Her work is in many collections locally and abroad..