Leonard Brooks: Elder statesman and artistic icon
By Ximena Dominguez

Art Opening
Leonard Brooks
Sat, Dec 15, 5–8pm
Galería Aspen
Mesones 74

Painter and writer Leonard Brooks has become an artistic icon, having lived in San Miguel since the forties. Upon arrival, he began meeting some of the legendary figures of San Miguel’s past. “I lived right next to Stirling Dickinson,” he said, “and have been fortunate to meet men like Siqueiros and Tamayo.” Other Canadian artists such as York Wilson, Fred Taylor, Michael Forster and Fred Powell followed.

Brooks has seen the town change through the decades. “Back then, there was only one taxicab. Traffic now is what hurts me the most. We still have interesting people living here, but the artistic scene has become too commercial. Anyone comes here and paints a few things and calls himself an ‘artist.’ A lot of people come here to buy houses, but do not contribute anything to the town, and it’s sad. We do have the gringos, who do a great job for San Miguel, like open hospitals. Back in the day, we had to go to San Luis Potosí for any little thing.”

He enjoyed several Mexican locales, but San Miguel held the most allure, despite its distance from the sea. “I love the ocean. I loved Manzanillo. Many of my paintings are from the beaches of Manzanillo.” He said. “But San Miguel was the place. So I bought a house on Pila Seca for US$1,500. Now it is a bed and breakfast and it’s worth millions!”

Brooks began writing at an early age and has published many books on art technique. His Siamese cat was the latest literary inspiration, for Sir Nobby—A Cat-ography.

Brooks is never short on inspiration. “I often dream paintings. My mind is still painting even after going to sleep; I have been doing it so long. Or just looking at flowers or walking down the street.

I just look at a street and think, ‘This is worth painting.’ Abstracts are color and form together in some fashion that moves you.”

Now 96 years of age, Leonard Brooks is an elder statesman and icon of San Miguel. His advice about longevity and happiness: “If you want to live to a nice age, get interested in books and art. It will keep you long after you are retired.”

Ximena Dominguez is freelance writer and mother of two, living in San Miguel de Allende.

Profile excerpted from a September 29, 2006 Atención article by Wayne Greenhaw.

Born in London in 1911, Brooks moved to Canada as a baby with his family, grew up in Toronto and began painting there as a boy. In the 1930s he was recognized as a superb artist of the Canadian countryside. In 1938 he was elected to the Royal Academy of the Arts. After serving with the Royal Navy as a war artist during World War II, Brooks and his wife, Reva, a native of Toronto, moved to San Miguel in 1947. Many of Brooks’s paintings of war-torn London, sailors peeling potatoes on a corvette in a mid-Atlantic convoy and others, now hang with the work of other wartime artists in the War Museum of Canada in Ottawa.

Brooks came to study art under an 11-month program with the art school established by Stirling Dickinson in what has become Bellas Artes. California writer MacKinley Helm, an expert on Mexican art, wrote, “Leonard Brooks entered into the life of Mexico as few foreign painters seem to have done in my time. I do not know any other foreigner who has painted Mexico as the Mexicans paint it.” The master muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros wrote glowingly of Brooks’s work. In 1957, Brooks signed a contract to write the first of eight books on art, Watercolor: A Challenge. Each would become a bestseller.

In San Miguel, where Brooks taught young Mexican children to play violin and viola, he became the director of music at Bellas Artes, without salary, while continuing his painting. Brooks continued to work with young musicians and arranged for the Fine Arts Quartet of Chicago to perform in San Miguel, thus initiating the Festival de Música de Camara in 1979.

In 1965, he was invited to hang a one-man show at the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes in Mexico City, the ultimate reward in a country that holds its painters in the highest esteem. 

You can learn more about Leonard Brooks and his work at his new website: www.leonardbrooksartist.com. 

Sandra Homberg, president of the Mexican watercolor society, opening a large Leonard Brooks exhibit at the Museo Nacional de la Acuarela:

“Probably he is the only artist able to show us the evolution of watercolor painting. The long road he has traveled with watercolor takes us from the pure use of water with pigments, the use of casein, the combination of various water media, the integration of acrylics, always with watercolor as a main medium. Considering the themes that he has approached, he has also wandered through landscapes, people and abstract paintings, always expressing the deepest feelings.”

Collages, collectibles and assemblages
By Rebecca Peterson

Art Opening Sat, Dec 15, 6–8pm Magenta Gallery Umarán 32 154-5987

The gallery collective will highlight work by most recent members, printmaker Gary Berkowitz and photographer Jo Brenzo, who are collaborating on a series of corn-husk and bamboo eyeglasses. These sculptural assemblages, made of natural materials, are inspired by the art of the Radish Festival (Noche de Rabanos) at Christmastime in Oaxaca. Jo and Gary lead photography trips to this region, and some years ago they encountered this fanciful art form at the Noche de Rabanos. Jo and Gary could not forget these images, and, unable to locate the original Oaxacan artist after she got married and started raising a family, they finally decided to make their own.

Each pair of “glasses” is individual and unique, dyed with colorful tones combined with natural colors. This is seeing the world through an unusual pair of glasses, or as Jo says, everything is polarized with light.

Bits and pieces of San Miguel make up Victoria Pierce’s new little canvas pieces. Being an avid collector of ‘junk,’ Victoria uses her collected pieces to make small suitcase-size original works of art. The 6 x 6 inch mixed-media paintings are embedded with a variety of rusty metal off the street, collaged paper, beeswax, string, and Victorias’s original photos of San Miguel. To see more of Victoria’s work please check out her website www.VictoriaPierce.com. 

The founding members of the art collective Magenta, still going strong in its third year, will show new work including a colorful teapot collection by ceramicist Rosa Torres. Rosa collects her clay from the outskirts of San Miguel and mixes her own glazes.

Her newest pieces, including bowls and platters, express free-flowing designs in blues, purples, yellows, as she experiments with form and color in these pleasant and playful ceramic functional artworks. 

For this holiday show, Bonnie Griffith—creator of Collaged Clothing, one-of-a-kind art pieces created from various ready-made apparel—shows a collection of black and red clothing for the holidays.

She has also created amazing three-dimensional red and black crystal earrings varying in size from the tiny tasteful to the gigantic outrageous sculptural jewelry that she is known for. Primarily a painter, she will also exhibit two new large scale oils, also in red and black.

Rebecca Peterson presents a series of “little altars,” tin boxes embellished with images ranging from the sacred—rays of light through clouds or on a golden field of grain, combined with an animal ally or companion (woodpecker, reindeer), to the whimsical—hot pink and fluorescent green pom-poms, colored wire, chess pieces, glass beads.

So come meet friends, enjoy the Christmas lights and decorations of downtown San Miguel, and visit Magenta gallery, just a short walk from the Jardín, at Umaran 32.

Rebecca Peterson lives in San Miguel full-time. She has a private practice in counseling and art therapy and teaches art to adults and children.

Embracing the spirit of nature
By Cyr Casas Derrien

Art Opening
Spirit of Nature
Fri, Dec 14, 7pm
Presidencia Municipal
Across from Jardín Principal

Fifteen visual artists of distinct style and background are presenting their individual interpretation of the meaning of “Spirit of Nature.” This is the title of the show that opens the new Museum of Contemporary Art in the old Presidencia building on the Jardín this weekend.

Five of the participating artists come from elsewhere in Mexico, while the other ten artists are formal residents of this town and sanmiguelenses at heart.

The maestro of Mexican art, Rolando Arjona was born in the city of Mérida, Yucatán in1920. His Byzantine mosaic murals are famous and have been for many years. He acted as chief director of the National Art School “La Esmeralda” in Mexico City and has been receiving national attention in recent years for his long career.

Javier del Cueto is from Mexico City and a ceramist of high temperature materials. His work is often related to world famous artists such as Oteiza’s and Chillida’s. He plays with the clay until he obtains complex structural forms with the material.

Luc Flores is French and teaches monumental sculpture in the National Center for the Arts (C.N.A) in Mexico City. He grew up in the Republic of Congo, on the western coast of Africa, which sharpened his creative aesthetic. His sculptures made of natural feathers are assembled in a symbolic fashion, resulting in a formal “installation.”

Ana Lilia Maciel lives in Mexico City, but her family is originally from Guanajuato. She is also a teacher in C.N.A.

Luís Espiridión Villanueva splits his time between Guadalajara and Puerto Vallarta. His bronzes representing whimsical animals with human elements reveal the artist’s mocking sense of humor and his sensual delight.

Gustavo Fernández is a photographer that recently relocated to San Miguel. He reorganizes the landscape at his will and then captures his new creation with his camera.

Miguel Ángel Morales is originally from Monterrey but has been leaving here for many years. This talented artist is an alchemist of cement and metal, creating an uncommon technical style.

Mariló Carral lives in San Miguel and is a painter. Her preferred themes are classical and include landscapes and flowers, but her style and color mastery gives them life, strength and symphonic unity.

Cyr Casas is both French and Mexican, and lives in San Miguel. For this occasion, he is interested in the subtle world of the “elementals,” the primal subjects that are found in nature.

David Kestembaum, unrivaled master of bronze in San Miguel, plays here with the natural shapes of trees and wood and transforms them into ecological sculptures, inspired in the traditional Mexican landscaping.

Carlos Muro also lives in San Miguel and turned his photographic focus on the natural process of living and dying.

Magdiel Pérez is from Hidalgo, but without doubt, is one of many influential artists in San Miguel’s panorama. He leads us into his world of pre-hispanic gods using his sculptures and canvases.

Juan Ordóñez, from San Miguel, is a painter and takes us back in time to when humans were still living in caves and were not yet as detached from the animal world.

Mai Onno was born in Estonia in 1927, has been living here for decades. Her powerful brush strokes strengthen the imprinted colors of nature.

Magaly Padilla lives between San Miguel and Cancún. This exhibition is her initiative. 

The art opening takes place this Friday, December the 14 at 7pm, with the participation of the prehispanic musical group Venado Azul (Blue Deer) from Mineral de Pozos that will perform a ritual dance dedicated to Mother Nature. 

The show will remain open from December 14, 2007 to January 14, 2008.

Cyr Casas Derrien is one of the many artists participating in the opening of The Spirit of Nature.

Whimsical San Miguel
By William Panzer

Art Opening
William Panzer
Sat, Dec 15, 5–(N)8pm
Bordello Galería
Órganos 19

December 15 marks the date for the opening reception of this show at the Bordello Galería in the infamous guest house, Madam la Turck’s Casa de la Noche.

The work in this show, which hangs from December thru the first week of January, is bright, colorful and fun. Many were painted by the artist while in San Miguel de Allende.

There are also some works which are influenced by northern New Mexico. The artist actually operated the Contemporary Today Fine Art Gallery/ Studio this past summer in the shadows of the famous Saint Francis Church in Ranchos de Taos. He now is planning an opening in Santa Fe for early summer of 2008.

Much of the colors of this artist’s acrylic paintings are inspired by visits to San Miguel over the past 35 years. The deep visual depth in the paintings comes from multiple washes of acrylic paint.

Many of the pieces in the exhibit are shown at www.williampanzer.com. A private viewing can be arranged by calling William at 113-4676 or 154-5570.

Also you can meet with the artist at the Bordello Gallery on December 19 at 4pm for a discussion on contemporary painting.

If you need a little brightness in your day, you will be glad you attended this event.

Reinventing beauty in the classic forms

Art Opening
Rocío Gordillo
The Beauty of the Void
Sat, Dec 15, 7–9pm
Kunsthaus Santa Fe
Santa Fe 22A

In this exhibition “The Beauty of the Void,” Rocío Gordillo is continuing her research on the portrait. With the idea of building a person’s face, Rocío captured her friends with her camera. After the photos were printed on paper, she crumpled the pieces into balls that were followed through to the painted final product. The face of the person is transformed into something grotesque and funny. You will never find anything complete—there is always a cut, a fold, or a distortion. Through these paintings weaves a fantastic new character with smiles, eyes, cheeks, mouths, hair, everything has changed and has different proportions.

The opening is on Saturday, December 15 and will remain open until January 30 of next year.

Molinos de Viento: An artists’ collective

Art Opening
Molinos de Viento
Fri, Dec 14, 7pm
Mesones 79

Inspired by Don Quixote’s windmills, Molinos de Viento represents the culmination of the dreams of a young pair of art lovers and jewelry designers, Mira Silverman and Marcel Manuel. They envision it as “a place to share their skills with those in the community with limited means, opportunities or abilities.”

With a tight budget and high standards, the couple found the perfect location, a house with a central patio right in the heart of town. The idea was to invite a group of artists and artisans to participate by showing their creations and in some cases, teaching their trade.

The list of artists and artisans who immediately responded to the couple’s idea is impressive:

Amella Boudreau, Cili, David Godinez, Isabel Goode-Deblanc, Javier Hernandez, Enrique Loza, Joe Miller, Jenny Norman, Federico Rebis, Alejandra Riquer, Alifie Rojas, Rommy, Alan Tarbell, Lamine Thiam, Tosco, and Nina Wisniewski.

The exhibition spaces all will be open for the December 14 reception, and so will the cafè.

Finding imagination in nature

Art Opening
Rivelino
La Búsqueda del Interior
Sat, Dec 15, 6pm
Florence Riestra Gallery
Fábrica la Aurora

The Florencia Riestra Gallery is pleased to invite you to the Rivelino exhibition, entitled “La Búsqueda del Interior.”

In Rivelino, one always finds a contemporary artist, a creator of figures and images that we recognize, because his explanation in his sculptures always relates back to his inspirations in nature. We identify them because of his background in zoology and his roots in anthropology. Then, the effect of his figures stimulates us to think about the inspiration of the future to the next concept and idea.

This show opens December 15 at 6pm in the Gallery Florencia Riestra in Fábrica la Aurora.