Art opening

Works by Steven Cary Sat, Apr 7, 6–8pm Galería Izamal Mesones 80

Steven Cary’s: Figure and form
By Henry A. Vermillion, April 6, 2007

Steven Cary is a painter who has arrived at his calling after a long and winding road through life. Born in Nebraska into a farm family, he dreamed, as have many, of writing the “Great American Novel.”

He enrolled as an English major in Claremont College in southern California, but, it being the ‘60s, he dropped out after three years. He worked his way across the Western states in construction jobs—Idaho, California, Colorado and other places. He bought a bookstore in Macon, Georgia, made it successful, sold it, and took time off to write. He moved to Vermont and, as he says, wrote the “not so great American novel.” (Recently he hauled it out of a box, re-read it and “with no regrets,” threw away the manuscript.)

After his good luck with the bookstore, he realized he had a knack for business, however. For a time he operated a successful restaurant in Woodstock, Vermont. In the late ‘70s he took a six-month sabbatical in Paris, then moved to New York City to make his fortune. Lacking a degree in a world of BAs and MBAs, the best job he could get was in a public relations firm—as a typist. Soon he was writing copy and news releases. But still, with no degree, his prospects were limited. He enrolled at Columbia University, finished his BA and in 1982, earned his MBA, working all the while full-time as a technical writer.

Once he had his professional union card, Cary decided he had had enough of the spin business in the big city. He missed the West so in 1985, he moved to Santa Fe. He bought into a small book-publishing house, and over 15 years helped it grow ten-fold. Their specialty was travel guides. They published many editions of Carl Franz’s People’s Guide to Mexico, and the very popular European guides of Rick Steves.

The urge to creative activity wasn’t erased by Cary’s successful business career, and in the early ‘90s, he began painting.

In 2000, he sold his business interests. Four years later, after a marriage breakup, he sold his car and house in Santa Fe, and moved to Oaxaca. In 2006, he came to San Miguel, where he has continued to paint.

Cary paints the face and human figure. His art studies began with classes from Kevin Georges, who is a classically trained graduate of the Florence Academy in Italy. “Kevin instilled in me a passion for realism. He taught me to see, to break down the habitual line vocabulary that dominated my prior work. Most of what I know about making art I learned from Kevin.” His recent images, however, reflect his struggle to break away from what has been called “the tyranny of nature”—the need to try to duplicate exactly (or idealize) what the eye sees. His faces and figures are sometimes exaggerated, stretched, stylized.

His opinions are firm about what makes for good art. First, the image should have the power to stop and captivate the viewer. But “more than simply adding grace, charm and beauty to life, it has a responsibility to transform the viewer, to move him or her to an emotional, mental or spiritual place he has never been before,” he says. For example, painting with a political agenda often has stopping power, but because its intent is to incite or shock, it usually fails to move the viewer in a new emotional or spiritual sense, he believes.

Finally, he accepts the idea that a work need not be beautiful to qualify as good art, but says he is dedicated to enlarging the supply of beauty in a world that often seems to have an under-supply of that element. “I strongly prefer art that elevates rather than depresses.”

This is Cary’s first featured show at Galeía Izamal. New work by Galería Izamal painters Juan Ezcurdia, Jaime Goded, Marion Perlet, Henry Vermillion, Britt Zaist and jeweler Maria Bracho can also be seen. (Watercolorist Mike Kleimo has had to leave Galería Izamal to attend to family matters in California following the death of his mother.)

Art opening

Works by Narissa Ferrer Tues, Apr 10, 6–8pm RaLuz Gallery Posada de San Francisco Plaza Principal No. 1

Narissa Ferrer retrospective Narissa Ferrer presents a retrospective with some new paintings, whose figures seem as though they could walk off the canvas and mingle with the human race. This will be her fifth exhibition at RaLuz Gallery.

Ferrer has studied in Philadelphia at the Academy of Fine Arts, in New York at the Art Student League and with Jim Gimpaoli in San Miguel about whom she states, “I was inspired by his original way of looking at people and objects.”