October 26, 2007, Oaxacan folk art ritual and myth, An eclectic eye on the street, By Victor Aguilar, Galería Atotonilco to feature Tonalá ceramics, By Susan Page, Santa Fe Workshops to offer free lectures, By Darcy Schwerin, A nearby cure for the Sunday afternoon itch, By Bob Hesdorfer, Art to make us think, By Barbara Levine

Art Opening
Natividad Amador, Jacobo Mendoza, Blanca Gomez
Sun–Mon, Oct 28–29, 3–7pm
Casa de la Cuesta
Cuesta de San Jose 32
154-4324

The state of Oaxaca is renowned for its native cultural wealth. Sixteen well-defined ethnic groups within the region provide both indigenous unity and incredible diversity. The distinct costumes, ways of life, cuisine, religious practices and festivals are the source of Oaxaca’s extraordinarily rich folklore and art.

Casa de la Cuesta is proud to represent three fine artists from Oaxaca who incorporate their culture and traditions in their work—Natividad Amador, Jacobo Mendoza and Blanca Gomez. Meet the artists and see their work on display and for sale at afternoon receptions October 28–29.

Natividad Amador creates intriguing designs using the same traditional method of stitching that Zapotec women have used to create their textiles for centuries. Using a crochet hook and silk threads, Natividad creates imaginary and fanciful tapestries that are at once provocative and delightful. Texture is created by changing the direction of the brightly colored threads, as well as by using a variety of symbols of nature and ritual.... masks, animals, eyes, flowers and birds bordered by undulating and geometric shapes.

Natividad was born in 1971 in Juchitan, a small town in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec about 50 miles from the border with Chiapas.

Jacobo Mendoza, from Teotitlan del Valle, is a tejedor, a master weaver of Oaxacan rugs. Jacobo is the youngest member of the renowned Mendoza family from this village. He weaves in the traditional style with wool dyed only with natural colors and with patterns passed down through generations. The quality of Jacobo’s weaving is superior using a fine, tightly woven yarn. He weaves all his rugs personally and is willing to take orders for that perfect rug, large or small.

Blanca Estela Gomez Santiago was born in 1978 in the town of San Antonio Arrazola Xoxocotlan. Blanca began painting when she was 11 years old, taught by an artist who had hired her to care for her children.

At age 21 Blanca moved to San Miguel de Allende. Using the traditional technique of painting with dots, she is now creating her own original designs painted on flat wood boards. Blanca’s subjects include colorful paintings of flowers, imaginary animals (Alebrijes), Mexican street scenes and, of course, the traditional calaca (skeleton).

Photography Opening
Mark Alor Powell
Fri, Oct 26, 7pm
Art Print Express
San Francisco 11
Cocktail reception

“Mark Powell’s photographic portraits have a kind of anti-heroic glamour.”

—The New York Times

Mark Powell (b. 1968) is a photographer originally from Detroit now residing in Mexico City. He has worked extensively between these two cities and has recently published his first book of photography, VIP (Diamantina, Mexico City, 2006).

His work has appeared in various exhibits around the world: Gas Gallery (New York 2003); Urbis Museum (Manchester, England 2004); Jack Shainman Gallery (New York 2005); Roebling Hall (New York 2006); 40,000 Gallery (Chicago 2007) and a recent commission from the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (2006).

Powell will teach a digital photography workshop in San Miguel, December 3–7, with limited space available. For more information please contact Michael at Art Print, 152-1575. A percentage of the proceeds from sales will help fund PEASMA (San Miguel’s Environmental Educational Project).

The following was reprinted from an interview on the 2point8 blog, http://2point8.whileseated.org.

What I appreciate most about your images is that they’re decidedly “of the street” but they don’t look like they’re hit and runs; you’re clearly spending time with people. In fact, many of the portraits are indoors, as if you’ve been welcomed inside by these fantastic subjects into these remarkable interiors. There’s a layer of visible trust in the photos. Can you talk a bit about how you go about creating this?

I try to make people feel good about themselves. I like to tell little white lies to get into situations, using compliments and stuff. I just try to make people feel comfortable. I use anything to keep the focus off being photographed. I’ll tell people that I love their necklace or their shirt, or the painting on their wall, or say I got a pet just like theirs, or tell them about my uncle back home, I got to take a picture for my uncle, please, he has to see this. I’ve found that when a picture is meant for someone else, people seem to think it is all right for you to take it. Recently, I’ve been answering ads in classified listings and pretending to buy whatever they are selling, just to get inside places that would be impossible to discover otherwise. If I can’t make an impression right off, I suppose I could fall on traditional approaches, introduce myself, take no pictures, ask formal permission. I could always go back. People are always happier to see you a second time, right? Surprisingly I rarely go back, it just wasn’t meant to be. Though, if I can make a picture the first time, I like to go back and explore more. I really try not to force matters and just go with the flow.

Last year, Bob Dylan said he doesn’t give away his secrets. All of us have particular ways of working, and some of those we keep close to our chests. Your images stand out because they’re so different from 99 percent of what’s out there. What do you think you’re doing differently from everyone else?

I don’t think I have any secrets, but what I do have is passion and a craving curiosity for adventure. I think the kind of photography I’m doing is fueled by my own personality. It becomes less about technique and more about expression and experiences. Everybody has their own deep choices they make while photographing.

Victor Aguilar has lived in San Miguel since 1994 and is a professional photographer.

The Galería Atotonilco is presenting antique country furniture; photographs of nineteenth-century Mexico; colorful old serapes (impeccably woven and many in mint condition); the highest quality Huichol jewelry (in fashion colors); Huichol yarn paintings (with a yarn painter at work); spectacular Arrazola wood carvings by the Ojeda family (the Galería is their exclusive San Miguel representative); and a wide variety of folk art.

The traditional potters of Tonalá are spotlighted at Galería Atotonilco’s festive First Anniversary Open House and Sale, November 3 and 4. Refreshments will be served.

“We try to emphasize items not widely available elsewhere in San Miguel,” said gallery owner Mayer Shacter. “On a recent trip, we filled our van with unusual items from the states of Mexico, Puebla, Oaxaca and Chiapas.” Selected items from all these areas will be sale-priced only during the Open House.

A ceramic artist himself for 27 years, Shacter has a keen eye for the best of the folk potters working today, and loves to support those who are still active. “The tradition of ceramics in Tonalá goes back more than 1000 years,” said Shacter. “Potters in that area near Guadalajara were making brunido or burnished pieces when the Spanish arrived, and they are still creating it today.”

“When I visited Tonalá more than 40 years ago,” continued Shacter, “it was a small town outside of Guadalajara. Traditional pottery was everywhere—on the sidewalks, in the street markets, in shops—and many families were working in the local traditions. Today, Tonalá is a freeway exit within Guadalajara, and though the town is a commercial center for manufactured decorative arts, traditional potters are nowhere to be seen. The 20 or so families still creating the area’s distinctive pottery work in obscure studios and may not even show their work in town. The introduction of commercial ceramics and inexpensive plastics has contributed to the demise of much of the unique work.”

Tonalá pottery is traditional clay items like platters, urns and tiles decorated with masterfully painted scenes using indigenous iconography like nahuals (shapeshifters), mermaids (symbols of the duality of land and sea, hence of the universe), skeletons, angels, devils, cactus, cowboys and burros. In addition to brunido, or burnishing, some Tonalá potters use a method called petatillo, a meticulous cross-hatch decoration filling the negative space.

“I love the work being done now,” says Shacter, “because it is better than it has ever been. The potters are working at a very high standard, producing exquisitely crafted and wonderfully imaginative works of art. If they were paintings, they would be thousands of dollars, but ceramics are still reasonably priced. Though the work remains solidly within the tradition of the area, some artists are giving it contemporary innovations.” Galería Atotonilco carries a large selection of Tonalá pottery and represents many of the area’s artists.

Close to Tonalá is the small town of Santa Cruz del las Huertas, where four families are still working in clay. Originally, this town produced handmade sewer pipe and roof tiles. But the Ortega and Medrano families realized they could have more fun with the area’s rich clay and began creating exuberant figures and scenes, often with a humorous edge, like pregnant chickens, people riding in the back of a pick-up truck, a man wearing a removable mask, or a fat little mermaid. In contrast to the finer glazed art of Tonala, this work is more sculptural and is brightly painted. “Forty years ago,” said Shacter, “these potters were burning old tires in simple brick kilns. Today, many them have modern gas-fueled, fiber-lined kilns.”

Ceramic art is not the only special collection of Galería Atotonilco. The gallery has the largest private collection of Saltillo serapes, 1885 to 1950, anywhere in Mexico. Shacter has been invited to exhibit part of his historic collection at the inauguration of a new Museum of Mexican textiles in the town of Saltillo. But many of the serapes are available for purchase. “You can decorate your home with a piece of Mexican history,” says Shacter. Though the serapes acquired their name because they were sold at a major annual trade fair in Saltillo, in fact they were made in weaving towns all over Mexico, including San Miguel de Allende, various areas identifiable by distinctive patterns in the weave.

The gallery also represents an important collection of photographs of Mexico at the turn of the century by J.P. Thresher. The original “internegatives” of these images were recently purchased by the Bancroft Library in Los Angeles to augment their Thresher collection. Galería Atotonilco now sells digitally remastered archival prints. “They capture the Mexico of yesteryear,” says Shacter, “men buying carnitas from a street vendor with dogs hoping for a discarded scrap; women in rebozos waiting outside the church; the monument in Querétero where Maximillian was executed, being visited by tourists of a later day.” That scene no longer exists because a church was built on the site.

Galería Atotonilco has expanded by creating an annex inside the home where Shacter and his wife Susan Page live. An unusual Mexican modern home by architects Steven and Cathi House, it contains the Shacter’s collection of folk art and contemporary American ceramics. The home was recently featured in Phoenix Home and Garden magazine with a 12-page spread.

Galería Atotonilco is located five miles north of San Miguel near the historic church of Atotonilco. Combine your visit to the gallery with a trip to the spectacular church. Breakfast or dinner at nearby Casa de Aves would be well advised, also,

Except for this sale and open house, the gallery is open by appointment only by phoning 185-2225 or 044-415-153-5365.

To get to the gallery, drive north on the Dolores Highway five miles from the Libramiento intersection. Following signs to Casa de Aves, turn left at the giant Pepsi billboard. Go a short way and turn left where the main road turns left. Drive a half mile on the bumpy dirt road to a white house and yellow house together on the right. Turn right between these houses, and follow the long, curvy driveway to the red gallery building.

Susan Page is the founder of the San Miguel Authors’ Sala and the author of six books including her latest, Why Talking is Not Enough: Eight Loving Actions That Will Transform Your Marriage.

Santa Fe Workshops to offer free lectures
By Darcy Schwerin

Lectures
Santa Fe Workshops Lecture Series
Mon, Oct 29–Wed, Nov 14, 7:30pm
Teatro Ángela Peralta
Hernández Macías 62
Free

A piece from presenter Jock Sturges

Seasoned and novice photographers searching for inspiration and solid hands-on training need look no further. Santa Fe Workshops announces the sixth season in the charming colonial town of San Miguel de Allende beginning October 28 and running through November 17.

“The Workshops continue to be the place to learn the craft of photography, to explore one’s passion for the art, and to network with a creative community of peers…and what a better place to do that than San Miguel,” says a representative of the Workshops.

Once again the Santa Fe Photographic Workshops is thrilled to be having evening photographic presentations with such well-known instructors as Jock Sturges, David Alan Harvey and many others. The Workshops cordially invites the public to attend these free lectures at the Teatro Ángela Peralta at 7:30pm on Monday and Wednesday nights from October 29–November 17.

The line up for the season is listed below.

WEEK 1:

Monday, October 29
Antonio Vizcaino
Raul Touzon

Tuesday, October 30, 2007 (Due to Day of the Dead)
Jock Sturges
David Alan Harvey

WEEK 2:

Monday, November 5
Sebastian Belaustegui (Sukie)
Ralph Lee Hopkins

Wednesday, November 7
Eddie Soloway
Bob Sacha

WEEK 3:

Monday, November 12
Marcela Taboada
Arthur Meyerson

Wednesday, November 14
Vidal Berrones
Bob Sacha

The Santa Fe Workshops, an inspirational resource for image makers for the past 17 years, is a year-round educational center covering a wide range of topics in digital, black-and-white and color photography as well as year-round digital imaging programs. Each season, image makers of every kind travel to Santa Fe to engage their imaginations and rekindle their passions for photography. To find out more, call (505) 983-1400, log onto www.santafeworkshops.com , or email info@santafeworkshops.com .

Do you ever experience “Sunday afternoon itch,” when you’re just a bit jaded with San Miguel and long for something different to be discovered, explored or enjoyed?

Nearby Guanajuato has just what the doctor ordered. It’s the Casa Museo Gene Byron, in the colonia of Marfil, just minutes from the bus station by taxi and easily accessed by car—about a one-hour drive from San Miguel.

Each Sunday throughout the year at 1pm, the museum offers a concert in an intimate space with superb acoustics, where you can also enjoy a changing art exhibit. Lasting about an hour, the varied performances can range from a flute trio to a vocal recital to a concert by a string ensemble.

Immediately following each performance, the audience is invited to enjoy tempting botanas and a convivial glass of wine outdoors in the beautiful historic ex-hacienda gardens, as well as to converse with the musicians, make new friends, perhaps learn a little more about the fascinating capital city.

Casa Museo Gene Byron is open weekdays for guided tours, in English and Spanish, of the spacious historic house dating back to the silver-mining era.

Gene Byron, the late wife of present hacienda owner Dr. Virgilio Fernández, was a superb painter, many of whose works are on display at the museum.

For further information and to receive advance notice of upcoming concerts, email:

genebyron@prodigy.net.mx. Entrance to the museum is 20 pesos and concerts are 100 pesos (50 percent off with INSEN).

Bob Hesdorfer, a former Denver advertising agency owner and graphic designer, is a 14-year resident of San Miguel. He served for two years as president of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of SMA.

Karen Karabasz exhibits “Twenty-Nine Elegies” at the Icons Gallery through November 20. The exhibition of elegantly rendered paintings and drawings is unlike anything you will see in San Miguel. The subject of Karabasz’s new work is the Iraq war.

Nearly four years ago Karabasz, who at that time was painting Mexican icons, read an Associated Press article about the looting of cultural artifacts from the Iraqi National Museum. As she puts it, “Not only were civilians and soldiers dying, but the war was also placing in jeopardy the artistic legacy of a culture that is part of the cradle of civilization.”

The impact of the article galvanized Karabasz to redirect her focus to the iconography of Mesopotamia (known today as Iraq).

The result of her research on Middle Eastern imagery and the channeling of her anger is a series of memorials to an ancient culture that is also a lens through which one views the cultural similarities between East and West.

In her drawings entitled, “The Colors of War,” Karabasz juxtaposes fragments of ancient sculpture such as the Lady of Uruk with stars representing the 13 original American colonies. In the works “In God We Trust” and “Federal Reserve,” she juxtaposes the Assyrian winged figure (known in Iraqi culture as a protective spirit) with the bald eagle and text found on American currency. Karabasz’s pieces are small, delicate and handsomely rendered in graphite and a restricted palette of greens, reds and blues. Despite their size and restraint, the works comment powerfully on the hypocrisy of using imagery from a culture that is under siege.

In conversation with the artist, she says, “As an American citizen, I feel like there is little I can do about the war, and the only place I can deal with my concerns about political decisions and their outcomes is to speak through my art. When I began my research, it occurred to me that the sacred objects from Iraq would no longer be available for future generations. I wanted to honor the spirit of these artifacts. As a result of making this new body of work, I feel all sacred images need to be seen, protected and respected.”

In “Twenty-Nine Elegies,” Karabasz rigorously and elegantly gives voice through her artwork to subjects that concern us all. If you have any doubts about this, hold a dollar bill in your hand and really look at it.

Barbara Levine runs project b, an international exhibition and curatorial services company. She was formerly director of exhibitions at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and deputy director of the Contemporary Jewish Museum. Her latest book, Around the World: The Grand Tour in Photo Albums, has just been released by Princeton Architectural Press.