It’s been a family affair
By Lou Christine August 15, 2008 San Miguel de Allende

Photo (L to R) Diego Rivera, Enrique Fernández, Dr. Rodriguez Gaona

Instituto Allende was the first to establish itself in the early fifties as one of the big-three multicultural centers in San Miguel. The other two are Bellas Artes and Biblioteca Pública. The hacienda running alongside Ancha de San Antonio, built in 1736, was once the summer home of the prominent De la Canal family during the high-water mark of Mexico’s colonial era.

Over time the landmark deteriorated, until the late forties, when two-time Guanajuato Governor Enrique Fernandez Martinez and his wife, Nell Fernandez Harris, renovated the complex and created Instituto Allende.

The dynamic twosome, along with the American Stirling Dickinson and Peruvian educator Felipe Cosio, realized a joint dream by creating what would become a bellwether art and language school that launched San Miguel as a cultural destination.

The muralists Diego Rivera and David Siqueiros showed works at Instituto. Famed maestro Rufino Tamayo was an artist in residence. Mexican presidents, international movie stars and celebrities visited and took part in the happenings. Hordes of talented students from Europe and the Americas attended. Many stayed on. Scores of its alumni, along with those who taught there, have become the elite of San Miguel’s present-day painters, artisans and craftspersons.

Nell Fernandez, the last survivor of the founders, passed away in 2002. By then, her sons Jaime and Rodolfo were already at the helm with sister Barbara sitting on Instituto’s board of directors. Earlier, Jaime had pursued a career in tourism and politics, first becoming director of tourism for the State of Guanajuato and then mayor of San Miguel. Rodolfo made the Instituto’s educational projects, administration and enrollment his calling. Each brother developed his own focus, not always seeing eye to eye. Eventually they split the real estate between them. Rodolfo moved the art and language departments to another part of the property, while Jaime held onto the more familiar portion, including the main courtyard with its imposing entrance.

What was once the school has been converted into a bevy of activities, while maintaining its ancestral majesty, which includes one of the best views of town, showcasing the Parroquia in all of its splendor. Jaime converted dormant classrooms into shops, galleries and restaurants. He maintains an office dedicated to tourism and guest housing. Instituto Allende hosts the popular art and craft fairs frequented by locals and tourists alike. The property has become widely sought after for gatherings and concerts, with emphasis on full-service weddings.

These days, Jaime’s two daughters, Daniela, 29, and Andrea, 23, have become integral parts of the family business. 

Daniela left San Miguel after attending José Vasconcelos School and enrolled at the Stanstead School in Quebec and in Tours, France. She then attained a degree in sociology at Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia, Arkansas. She earned a minor in international studies in Reading, England, finally going back to Quebec to achieve her master’s degree in sociology at Concordia University.

After returning to San Miguel, she opened Cafesito, a small coffee shop on the periphery of the property, then started up a full-fledged café inside Instituto that’s popular with locals and tourists. Last year, Daniela ventured off to New York City and took courses in catering at the New School, a university founded in 1919. She and sister Andrea have recently began a catering business out of Instituto that they’ve named Magnolia’s.

Andrea has been no slouch. She recently graduated with honors from Johnson and Wales University in Providence, a school renowned for international hotel management. During her studies in Rhode Island, Andrea took a semester to study culinary arts at DCT School in Vitznau, Switzerland. Like sister Daniela, she enrolled for more formal education in Quebec. Due to her credentials, Andrea received a number of tasty offers both in San Miguel and Mexico City, but she’s elected to remain close to the roost, managing dad’s new Mi Casa Restaurant, also situated inside Instituto, while working hand-in-hand with Daniela in the catering and event-planning business. 

Like their parents and grandparents, uncle Rodolfo and aunt Barbara, the girls are major proponents and supporters of San Miguel. They appreciate the importance of the town’s traditions. In 2005, Andrea was chosen to be the Queen of Fiestas Patrias that takes place here each September.

Their mom, Pakina, is somewhere in her youthful forties and an artist herself. She is an Instituto Allende Master of Fine Arts grad and keeps her steady hands in family matters and business. She’s part owner of La Terraza Restaurant off the Jardín, promotes a line of jewelry and is part of a benevolent junta that achieves scholarships and financial assistance for female students here in town. She also runs a household and assists her daughters in various projects. Señora Fernandez balances out the busy family as an encourager and sage, acting as the calming influence when things become too hectic.

What is happening at Instituto Allende is an extension of a dream with deep roots that has always striven for our town’s continued ancestral splendor.

Magenta’s last summer fling
By Rebecca Peterson

Art Opening
Thu, Aug 21, 6–8pm
Magenta Gallery
Mesones 57B, cnr Reloj

The days are still warm and beautiful but fall is in the air, with the light changing every day to that crisper tone we feel on our skin. Magenta Gallery’s members have been making new work to savor these last days of that vacation feeling.

Judit Gimbel, one of this art collective’s newest members, has been happily and productively painting away from her beautiful rooftop studio where she also teaches painting and drawing to adults and children (or to the child in the adult). Her San Miguel landscapes are a vibrant and expressive reflection of the colors surrounding us and her palette now reflects the change from spring into late summer. A direct painter, Gimbel allows her compositions to unfold spontaneously, painting in bright colors which express a sense of joy.

Rosa Torres’s trademarks are brightly glazed platters and mugs, and she continues this theme by adding cows and sheep to her menagerie, with newly designed goats and dogs. Add to your collection of these popular high-quality ceramic pieces, or branch out with one of her new sculptural vessels as she continues experimenting with form.

One of these newest vessels is interestingly torqued and twisted at its base and then rounded as it extends upward. These art objects are layered in swirling colors in “cold ceramic paints” (not fired).

Jo Brenzo will exhibit new photographs in a continuation of the Island of the Dolls project, an eccentric outsider art installation in Xochimilco, the floating gardens in the south of Mexico City. The longtime interest led to a documentary book with Brenzo’s photos and text by Eva Hunter. Brenzo presents an installation of her own, highlighting large-format photos from some of her recent trips to the island. She also teaches digital photography and Photoshop, and leads traveling workshops to Xochimilco and Oaxaca.

Elvia Montibeller shows new sculpture in her carved, layered and sensuous forms in wood which reflect roundness, curving movement and the repetitive shapes which are also found in her strong expressionist paintings. She also shows a new series of smaller works on paper in bright colors, reds and oranges as a striking theme. She relates her work to the sounds of jazz; this is what movement and sound might look like if these ephemera were captured on canvas or sculpted in wood. 

Gary Berkowitz makes Ray-Maiz, bamboo and corn-husk eyeglasses based on a Oaxacan tradition. He and his wife Jo Brenzo have been making this fantastical fine craft for about a year now, and their pieces have evolved into birds, marine creatures and lately, brides and grooms with the entire wedding party. Berkowitz also is working on a series of new etchings related to the eyeglass characters, some of which evoke folkloric masks.

Margarita Burbidge’s elegant jewelry is made from finely crafted silver and chunky beads of stones such as agate, sea glass, Tibetan amulets, seed pods and jade. This unique and affordable one-of-a-kind wearable art is available only through the end of August at Magenta (or wait months until her return this winter). 

I continue a series of embellished nichos (tin boxes with a glass door) on nature themes, having moved from insects (walking stick, praying mantis) to birds (themes of nesting, shelter, incubation and hatching). I now incorporate roots, seed pods and other natural objects found in the backyard or on walks around town, in addition to more exotic sticks and seeds found in the high pine forest.

These earth tones, burnished with bronzes, coppers and reds, express a dreamlike sensibility, a true “window to the soul” (the title of my art class).

Magenta Gallery is in the same courtyard as China Palace restaurant and next to Border Crossings. Gallery hours are 11am–6pm, Sundays 10:30am–3pm, closed Tuesdays (154-5366).

Antique silver, exquisite stones

Art Opening
Joseph Birdsong jewelry
Sun, Aug 17, noon–2pm
Galería Casa Diana
Recreo 48

Galería Casa Diana holds a one-day jewelry trunk show of antique Tibetan pendants and beads crafted into jewelry by Joseph Birdsong. A sculptor, painter and designer, Birdsong was born in San Francisco and has shown his work throughout California, the Southwest and Mexico, and was at one time a San Miguel resident.

He says, “While living in the Bay Area, I met a wonderful and extraordinary woman from a small village in Tibet. She had been trying to save her home village by bringing antique silver, exquisitely crafted pendants, beads, rings and bracelets, and selling them to save her neighbors and family from starvation. I began collecting these and am now crafting the unique components, combined with red coral, turquoise, carnelian, amber, amethyst and other exquisite stones, into necklaces, bracelets and earrings.”

Check out the serapes
By Susan Page

Gallery Open House
Historic serape collection
Sat–Sun, Aug 16–17, 11am–5pm
Mini-lecture
Mayer Shacter
Noon & 3pm both days
Galería Atotonilco
For directions, 185-2225

Mexico’s finest collection of historic serapes can be seen right here in San Miguel. A ceramic artist and antique dealer, Mayer Shacter collected his first textile when he was 19 and now has over 200 serapes. Currently, 17 of his pieces are on display at the new Museo del Sarape y Trages Regionales (Museum of the Serape and Regional Costumes) in Saltillo, the very first of the museum’s changing exhibitions.

A serape is a piece of Mexican history, a window into an era that vanished, a souvenir of times and places that can no longer be visited because they no longer exist. Would it be an exaggeration to say that serapes are the Fabergé eggs of Mexico?

Learn more about the history and regional differences of the serapes, how they have evolved over time and how the serape reflects the history of Mexico itself at the lectures by Shacter over the weekend.

Susan Page is the founder and coordinator of the San Miguel Authors’ Sala.