February 23, 2007, Appreciating new work by Jaime Goded, By Henry Vermillion, Gala 15th anniversary celebration at Galería Izamal, By Henry Vermillion, Artists’ vision transformed by Mexico experience, By Muriel Bevilacqua Logan, Wisniewski comes ''full circle'', Art Opening, Works by Helene Glass, Infinite resistance at Bellas Artes, New group show at Casa Diana, By Carmen Gutiérrez

Jaime Goded is perhaps the most notable man of arts and letters living in San Miguel. The range of his talents and accomplishments is great, but not widely known by the general public. A sampling of his painting, drawing, ceramics and poetry can (and should) be seen at Valerie Mejer’s studio at the Fábrica la Aurora. The space is open Wednesday through Saturday from 11am to 3pm, or by appointment at 152-8978. His show will be up until March 3 and is worth a more than casual visit

Most who know of Jaime Goded have been in his gallery/store, Ono, on the North side of the Jardín, or in Galería Izamal, in which he is a partner. His furniture pieces, boxes and small cabinets of drawers—though these mundane names do not do justice to the bright, ingenious and sometimes fantastic objects he designs—can be seen at Ono. At Galería Izamal he shows mostly drawings and watercolors, but this is work like no other: his touch is immediately recognizable.

However, at the Mejer studio (generously loaned by the artist for this show), Goded shows us the first six sets of an ongoing project called “Una Editorial que Empieze” (The beginning of an editorial project). Louis Almeida is his collaborator. One of the multimedia sets is called “The True Story of Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf.” Suffice it to say it does not end like the usual version. The set consists of the story printed (in Spanish) on quality paper and two high fired celadon plates, which illustrate the tale. These are enclosed in a specially made wooden briefcase (as are all the other five sets). “Little Red Riding Hood” (“Caperucita y el lobo”) comes in an edition of 10, signed and numbered.

At the other end of the scale is “Como no Ver” (How not to see), also an edition of 10. “Como no Ver” is the title of an ambitious poem, expressionist in nature. It’s accompanied by a set of five digital color reproductions of his graphic work. All are enclosed and protected by a handsome wooden portfolio.

These six sets of work are difficult to imagine without seeing them, composed as they are of printed poems on unbound paper, original ceramic pieces and original art on paper, with the whole set fitting inside a hand-made wooden case.

Each element alone is finely crafted, and the whole is a totally original means of presenting them as related parts of the whole.

For those not familiar with his graphic work, Goded draws with pen and ink, watercolor or other paint. His subject is almost always the female figure in its endless permutations. At first glance Miró or Matisse or Picasso, one might think. Great economy, great simplicity, endless variety of shapes and forms within his narrow range of subject matter. Brilliant and fresh colors.

Many are not familiar with his poetry (as I was not). Yet he is considered one of Mexico’s stronger poets. He has published two books of poetry and another of stories with his illustrations. The poems are rich, expressionistic and subjective, as Valeria Mejer (herself a poet) has written. They pile together images and feeling about, as Mejer says, “living in a repressive society with its jails, its soldiers, its masters.” It expresses in allusive and sometimes contradictory ways what it feels like to live as a child, and now as an older man, in the richly textured and contradictory modern world. “Como no Ver” begins with a section about love:

Como no ver annque no quiera la fuente turbio, el alarido reflejo en el cristal de tu amor que me derriba		How not to see though one may not want to, the murky source, the howl reflection in the glass of your love which destroys me.
Later the poem talks of politics:
el Presidente Bush reza, el Papa bendice, y los pedazos de los niños vuelan hasta los brazos de las madres muertas.		President Bush prays the Pope gives his blessing, and pieces of children fly towards the arms arrancados outstretched of dead mothers.

Jaime Goded was born in Mexico City in 1945. He studied film in Prague, sociology in Mexico and mass communication in Paris. He was on the faculty of the Universidad Autónoma de Mexico (UNAM) for 15 years. In addition to his books of poetry, he has published many essays and articles. He moved to San Miguel de Allende in 1983, where he set up a studio/workshop to make wooden furniture, toys, exclusive home decoration items and sculpture. His art is in many important collections, including the prestigious Museum of Modern Art in Mexico City. A traveling collection of his art has circled the globe several times and is still being shown in other countries.

Galeria Izamal celebrates its 15th anniversary with a gala party to thank its friends and the public, including music, new art and more surprises.

During the summer of 1992, Rick Welland, Ed Osman, Manual Lizárraga, Rocio Hoffman, Britt Zaist, I, and some other local painters were meeting for coffee. We were all complaining that the four galleries in town weren’t selling our work as well as it deserved. We decided to open our own cooperative gallery. We would share the rent and the expenses and the daily work, sell for less and make more since we wouldn’t have to pay commission to a gallery owner. So it happened. Galería Izamal opened in 1992 with a big inaugural party in a not-so-big space off the Meson de San José Restaurant patio. Joining us were Julian Fedorak and Estela Macías—eight artists packed into a 15- × 15-foot room! We haggled over prime space, and finally, to avoid bloodshed, rotated each artist’s work each month, half a wall per artist. The name “Izamal” came from Lizárraga, a Yucatán native. Besides being a city in Yucatán, Izamal was a Mayan deity of artisans.

We opened with much enthusiasm and euphoria. It took four or five hours to squeeze the dozens of fresh oranges Manuel insisted we use for the punch. Then, as now, each member made refreshments for the opening.

We soon discovered we had a harder problem than the impenetrable walls: personalities. These is no other way to say it: in our own way, we were eight prima donnas in a very tight space. The only truly organized one of us was Britt. She made sure we had sales receipts, pens and tape. She made sure the rent and light bills were paid.

The rest of us fine artists could not bother ourselves with such details. Within the year, after a series of confrontations, Britt said “enough!” and quit. Fortunately, she returned a month later.

In time, some of the original members left, and others joined, among them Jesús Real, Marion Perlet, Juan Ezcurdia, Javier García, Mathieu Kuhn and, most recently, the watercolor painter Mike Kleimo. We soon added the jeweler Marianna Johansson. In turn, we have featured fine jewelry by Pat Wilds, Michelle Wey and now Maria Bracho. When we have had an empty space, we have featured guest artists such as the “Archie” cartoonist Stan Goldberg, the painter/matador John Fulton, Margaret Galloway, Marilyn Bullivant-Davy (of Literary Cabaret fame), Keith Miller, Peter Leventhal, Miguel Cuanalo, taurine photographer Jason Morgan, Lena Bartula, Sondra Zell, Bob Johnson, Bill Peabody, Jack Hayes and many other fine artists.

We’ve also shown original work of Mexican masters José Luis Cuevas, Rufino Tamayo and Robert Montenegro. In December 1996, the gallery moved to its present more spacious downtown quarters with more than triple the space. Current members are Maria Bracho (jewelry) and the painters Juan Ezcurdia, Jaime Goded, Mike Kleimo, Marion Perlet, Henry

Vermillion and Britt Zaist. One of the strengths of Izamal is the wide range of styles of the member artists. Vermillion and Zaist are the only original members of the cooperative.

Four exciting women artists will exhibit their colorful, Mexico-inspired artwork this weekend. All are artists of many years’ experience, though part-timers in San Miguel, whose current work has been stamped indelibly with the mark of the colors, light and culture of Mexico.

Carol Rufenach taught art in public schools and painted in her studio in Colorado for years, never considering painting en plein air—outdoors, on-site, in front of people—until she came to San Miguel. However, once smitten with San Miguel's colonial architecture, the late-afternoon colors, the huizaches, jacarandas, and bugambilias, and the ruins of Pozos, she now finds it difficult to paint in her studio.

Rufenach shows a selection of her acrylics and some oils. Her paintings have a graphic quality created by a strong, sure palette of colors, often with contrasting dark edges—certainly representational, but never photographically realistic. The viewer will notice a favorite red oxide color with which she primes her canvases, so that it peeks out here and there and creates a satisfying cohesiveness.

“Some of my most memorable art experiences have come from venturing out into the countryside with some of San Miguel's finest painters. I'm grateful for the atmosphere of support and encouragement within the art community of San Miguel and for the opportunity to study with such accomplished artists as Jim Giampaoli, Margaret Dawit and Frank Gardner. Every year when I return to Colorado, I take with me the impressions of Mexico and the influence of the many fine artists in San Miguel,” she says.

Sandra Speight, a San Miguel/Sacramento, California, artist, began her training in 1969 in Wiesbaden, Germany, first in watercolor and then in oils. However, when she first saw San Miguel four years ago, she says, the sheer “luminosity of color” overwhelmed her and required a lighter medium than oil.

So, she began experimenting with watercolor again. She was drawn by its translucency and its ability to be layered, allowing patches of underlying color to be seen, as she explains, “much like one can glimpse the color history of these weathered colonial buildings and of the cobblestones as the layers wear away.” The 20 watercolors she will show all reflect her new love for and focus on Mexico and its people, capturing the architectural elements and human participants nearly as faithfully as with a photograph, only with more depth of texture and gentleness.

Ellen Johnson, a ceramic artist, is already well known to San Miguel audiences and those in her other home of New Mexico. She presents vessels, assemblages and wallpieces, all of which bear witness to her interest in ancient cultures. Drawing from historical references, her work combines the images from various cultures with surfaces reminiscent of old walls or frescoes.

The vessels, recalling Neolithic ceramics, are constructed by coiling, the oldest method of clay construction. They are fired several times, ending in a raku firing where they are removed from the kiln and placed in a chamber to smoke the surface and crackle the glaze. Afterwards, multiple layers of color, markings and collage are worked and reworked. The wallpieces are clay slabs that receive similar treatment and are designed to be hung alone or in a vertical or horizontal grouping. The assemblages incorporate metal, wood and paper. Her palette of reds, oranges, yellows and creams places these works right at home in their San Miguel environment.

Ann Luce has been coming to San Miguel to paint for the last 10 years. After quite a hiatus from painting, San Miguel got her started again. Luce finds San Miguel a magical place but is most particularly drawn to the market, where with pen and watercolor she sketches the ladies selling their vegetables, even dodging the occasional piece of cauliflower thrown at her. She then returns to her studio in Colorado to transpose these sketches into oil paintings—large, free-form, narrative canvases brimming with the life and people of Mexico.

Luce has been selected to exhibit for many consecutive years in Boulder’s major annual juried event, the Open Studio Tour,as well as in many other exhibitions around Colorado.

A 40-year retrospective of the art of Nina Wisniewski includes paintings and drawings selected for this show, which demonstrate the artist’s search for honest expression and clarity in subject and style. Wisniewski’s drawings are bold and gestural, giving the viewer a physical experience of the human form. Her paintings range from figurative-narrative pieces to multi-patterned abstractions, all with a strong approach to color and a refined compositional sensibility.

Her work throughout the decades has been based on her connection to the creative process and displays her maturing use of materials and technique, resulting in an ever-evolving body of work. Beginning to paint at the age of four, Wisniewski received early recognition and extensive training throughout her youth. She holds a BFA and MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in San Francisco, California. She has been teaching art for over 30 years and has exhibited her work professionally in the US, Mexico and Central America.

Nina recalls, “I have always felt I was a vehicle for my art to come through me into the world. I believe a painter is a visual recorder of her/his time, place and experience.

You end up painting what you come to know. To create one’s vision authentically is the challenge and the blessing of making art. The process is never-ending. You have to come full circle!”

The exhibit runs through March 12. For more information call Casa de la Cultura, 154-5670.

Art Opening

Works by Helene Glass
Sun, Feb 25, 12–3pm
Galería Atenea, Jesús 2

Helene Glass watercolors and batik

Helene Glass, a Connecticut artist, has drawn experience for her paintings from having lived in Tennessee, North Carolina, Iowa, California and Germany and from her extensive travels.

This award winning watercolorist has had six one-woman shows. Her work can be seen in permanent museum collections and in corporate and private collections in the United States.

Infinite resistance at Bellas Artes

Photography exhibit
“Resistance” by Danilo de Marco
Through April 15
Bellas Artes

The Cultural Center Ignacio Ramirez “El Nigromante” is showing the photographs of Italian artist Danilo de Marco through mid-April. This project delves into our shared political and cultural history by centering itself on the diverse forms of resistance by which individuals and society have opposed forces of disruption in their lives. In the exhibit, a series of images portrays the faces of survivors of the civil resistance to the German occupation of Italy during World War II. Consisting of three parts—Achtung, Banditi and Infinite Resistance—de Marco’s work establishes an intertextual dialogue of great intensity and dramatic quality. Panels of explanatory text accompany the images.

In the Sala de Arte Mexicano and the Sala Principal, de Marco’s “Infinite Resistance” is further elaborated by photographs of diverse countries such as Sri Lanka, Uganda, the Congo, India, Haiti, Kurdistan and Mexico. Social and cultural issues such as guerilla warfare, AIDS and poverty are explored.

Galería Casa Diana will inaugurate a new group exhibition with a cocktail reception on February 27. The exhibit features a large number of watercolors from New York-based artist Trudy Frank and a series of oils by Andrew Rogers, along with recent work by the Gallery’s permanent artists—Pedro Friedeberg, Deborah Turbeville, Carmen Gutiérrez, Miguel Ángel Morales, Cyr Casas, Meta, Magdiel Pérez and Sam Seeman.

Frank, who is fascinated by the relationship of shapes, textures and patterns, is known for her intricate pattern-on-pattern still lifes. Frank continues to explore unusual juxtapositions of flowers, fruit, vegetables, household objects and patterned fabrics.

Andrew Rogers, an English artist, presents a group of oils on paper never shown before. He is a sophisticated painter whose work has a force and quality that captures the viewer.