A grand event and a great sculptor
By Peter Leventhal

Fifth Anniversary
Champagne, Chocolate, Music and More
Sat, Feb 7, 6–9pm
Fábrica La Aurora
Calzada de la Aurora

In 1994, I tried several times to enter Fábrica La Aurora to ask for possible studio space and never could gain entry. I gave up.

In 2003, I became the third artist to have a studio in the complex; Merri Calderoni and Mary Rapp preceded me. My studio space had been the lunch room of the factory, El Comedor. Its five concrete tables remained as silent horizontal sentinels to its past glory.

In a remarkably short time, Aurora has become a premier art and design center, one of the major attractions of San Miguel and the place where artwork of exceptional quality can be seen regularly.

When you are in El Charco botanical garden, you always notice the rusted pipe stretched along the canyon wall that once brought water to the factory to drive its turbines that ran the machines making muslin. That pipe is my Proustian madeleine, reminding me of time, memory and transformation.


Twice each year Aurora invites the community to a fiesta. This spring’s salute and celebration has become a tradition, with champagne and chocolate served at various locales.

An artist of rich and varied sensibility 

This celebration coincides with the inauguration at Al Quimia Gallery of eight major new pieces by the notable Chilean sculptor Victor Hugo Nuñez. Now in his mid-sixties, Nuñez has created these pieces of remarkable strength and dexterity to show at the Aurora gallery of Jorge Corro.

I first saw Nuñez’s sculpture when Al Quimia opened in the small space now occupied by La Deriva bookshop. Entranced by my encounter with such lively and accomplished work, I bought one piece, “Little Pervert,” and to my everlasting regret I vacillated about another piece in clay and it went to someone else.

What I recognized is the presence of an artist of rich and varied sensibility working with enormous skill and complexity. In matters of treatment of shape and surface, polish, and equilibrium in variations of size and shape I have seen no one to surpass Nuñez. He simply has no equal in the working of a variety of materials, the endless invention of combination and placement of precious and rough surfaces, whether the pieces are abstract or figurative. In his abstraction these formal qualities are prominent, but when Nuñez works figuratively his Dionysiac demon orchestrates and unfolds an endless riddle of forms, less risqué than sensibly observed and shaped in pertinent metaphors of human behavior.

The new pieces in a figurative mode elaborate the deliciously inventive ensembles of their predecessors, with the delicate workmanship entwined in a rough manipulative vigor, which along with the organic irregularities and the precision of these volumes, gives a glorious tonic presence to each object.

What do I see here? First the narrative, and the consummate artistry in the reconciliation of order and chance, balance and motion—an urge toward perfection along with a faith in letting nature; the nature of material and the chance of the kinetics of his hands; and his own character having its own way.

That an artist of this stature, working at the top of his game, shows his work at Aurora alone, as they say, is worth the price of admission.

A consummate craftsman with the brush

Recently opened, the gallery of Santiago Corral should be seen just for the elegance and fit of the space for displaying his work. Corral has moved his work into a more poetic vein, one that reminds me of the sensibility coming out of 17th-century French poetry. His paintings cover an underlying ardor that is then expressed with just the right manner of touch, color and virtuosity to enhance its urgency while repressing its urgency. It may seem peculiar to say this about paintings, some of which are of plates of pasta, and we can see it clearer in the portrait of Pilar. Here, order and restraint prevail, and yet passion and intensity simmer just below the surface. Even in the still-lifes, the cool elegance of the handling of the surface allows us enough insight to reflect on time and appetite.

Swift, Gutiérrez and Rapp

In a very different mode, a word or two on the work of Edward Swift. I have in my collection several small boxes he made several years ago.

His work keeps expanding and morphing into new forms, and his use of found materials is exquisitely unique. Also unique is his sense of humor, which finds its way into all he does. His newer boxes such as the “Ultima cena de las momias de Guanajuato” and the “Aprentices del museo de las momias de Guanajuato” are droll and affecting. The manner in which he uses rough materials is like a comedy of manners meeting art brut.

Next to Edward Swift’s gallery is the Galería Factoría. A young artist, David Gutiérrez, shows some lovely paintings whose semiotics are as obscure as they are beautiful. Note a painting titled “El Circo de la Tierra” and one titled “Caravana de la Tierra.”

Some distance from there, in time and space, Mary Rapp works in her gallery taller and at the age of 84 has just produced some pungently entrancing pictures in which the mystery of existence and the dreamlike mesh into provocative color and form. In these formidable paintings the theatre of unconscious behavior and the drama of the soul play out in gorgeous color. Two paintings struck me with the same tremble that I feel in front of the work of Rapp’s former mentor Max Beckmann: “Mardi Gras I” and “Mardi Gras II.” Here, the magic of reality and the mystery of being synthesize in lovely, joyous color that is illuminated as from within. Divine, but not benign, a sense of a will to exist even through our less-consoling dreams emanates.

Be an angel … Help make dreams come true
By Tony Cervantez

On February 7, Fábrica La Aurora once again will be transformed into a fiesta of bubbly beverages and chocolate treats. For the second year, the Angels of La Aurora, owners and tenants of the popular Center of Art and Design, are inviting friends, clients and guests of their fifth anniversary celebration to join with them in supporting “Mexiquito,” Santuario Hogar Guadalupano, a casa hogar for homeless boys.

Volunteer greeters will welcome everyone to the fiesta and offer opportunities to make a donation of any amount to help make some of the dreams of the boys and their Madres come true. Information about the casa hogar and wish lists will be available at two showcase tables located inside Aurora.

Since 1978, Mexiquito has been the home for nearly 30 boys from infancy to late teens and their caregivers, the Madres of the Dominican order. Although the location is also a Guadalupan sanctuary and the destination of annual pilgrimages, it receives no monetary support from the church to cover operating expenses.

Local organizations such as Feed the Hungry and the San Miguel Community Foundation provide support for some meals and special projects. Other individuals, small groups and organizations are active in helping to provide programs to support the work of the Madres and for the benefit of the development of the boys who live at Mexiquito. Many of the boys are not orphans, but rather have been rescued from family situations that have been deemed unsafe or unhealthy.

For many of us, having a dream come true might mean receiving something that is a luxury. For the Madres and the boys of Mexiquito, their wish list includes things that most of us would consider necessities: cleaning supplies, their first water heater, warm blankets, tools for the gardener and handyman, salaries for these and other workers to assist the nuns and—even more basic—food.

Last year, private donations built and furnished a new dormitory for the older boys. This year, one of the dreams is to have a ruin on the property renovated to provide space for the eldest boys. At this time, most of the older boys are forced to relocate to another city because of lack of accommodations at Mexiquito. This constitutes yet another disruption in their fragmented lives and is one we would like to help avoid, or at least delay a few years.

Those of us fortunate enough to live in comfort in San Miguel, attend fiestas and celebrate with abundant food and wine, might consider sharing some of what we have with those in greater need. We look forward to seeing you at Aurora and invite you to consider sharing with the boys and Madres of Mexiquito by tossing coins into our wishing well fountain in the main patio as well as making a donation with one of our volunteers throughout the evening. The Angels of La Aurora would love you to join us in helping wishes come true. Milagro is Spanish for miracle. Everyone making a donation will receive a milagro-adorned ribbon to wear proudly to show others that you care and believe in miracles.

For more information or to make a direct contribution, contact Brian Care at 152-8178 or write to jbcare2learn@aol.com.  

Birds of a feather 
By Edward Swift 

Art Opening
Birds, Birds and More Birds
Edward Swift Gallery
Sat, Feb 7, 6–9pm
Fábrica la Aurora
Calzada de la Aurora

A few months ago, San Miguel resident Andrian Ross walked into my gallery with a box full of papier-mâché birds. He makes them himself, starting with a balloon as the basic shape, which he covers with several layers of paper and glue. Then he cuts each feather from various newspapers and magazines and layers them on. It’s a painstaking process that requires patience as well as a sharp pair of scissors, nimble fingers and a large pot of glue. “Do you think you can sell these?” he asked. “Of course,” I said. “I’ve never seen anything like them.”

Since then, I’ve sold a lot of them. All my customers marvel at the expressions on the birds’ faces as well as their precisely cut “feathers.”

Then I got the idea to do a “Bird Exhibition” for Fábrica La Aurora’s fifth anniversary “Champagne and Chocolate” celebration. The theme in my gallery, however, will be “birds, birds and more birds.”

 I have invited numerous Aurora artists to show bird prints, paintings, sculptures and drawings. The list of participants includes Leah Feldon, Edgardo Kerlegand, Fidelio Herrera, James Harvey (who is threatening to release live birds in the gallery), Edina Sagert, Mary Rapp and Suzee MacDougall, who will be showing one of her tapestries that measures 8 by 4 feet. Surely you’ve seen Suzee at the loom at Bellas Artes, or maybe you even own one of her rugs or knitted sweaters. She is a genius with thread.

Since the work of most of these artists is well known in San Miguel, I will, for the sake of space, focus on the debut artists, of which Leah Feldon is one. She will exhibit photos of San Miguel walls with stains and blotches that resemble birds or flapping wings.

She has been involved in the arts, in one form or another, all her adult life. As a New York fashion stylist throughout the seventies and early eighties, she designed clothes and accessories that appeared in the pages of Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar and worked alongside some of the world’s top photographers to create award-winning ads and editorials. After some of her own photos were exhibited at New York’s Cooper-Hewitt Museum and made into popular greeting cards, she turned to writing and television. She is the author of nine books (including the Oprah-featured Does This Make Me Look Fat? and Book-of-the-Month Club perennial bestseller Dressing Rich). She was a longtime People magazine reporter, a Today Show correspondent, a regular on shows like Ent
ertainment Tonight and Extra and host of her own show, Simply Style, on The Learning Channel. 

Feldon’s latest collection of photographs, four of which are included in this exhibition, focuses on the richness of San Miguel’s walls. “To me, the ever-changing walls are some of the real treasures of San Miguel,” she says. “There’s an amazing array of colors, textures and shapes everywhere you look.” For this show, she stretched her imagination to see intriguing and beautiful bird-like shapes where others might see only peeling paint.

As an added attraction, for the first time I am exhibiting the decorated envelopes created by the actress/writer Ronnie Claire Edwards.

She played Corabeth on The Waltons for over 10 years, and because Corabeth was the only nasty, rude and spiteful character on the program, she developed quite a following of devoted fans who loved to hate her. Ronnie Claire hails from Oklahoma City. Her father was a trial lawyer, her mother a Milton scholar. Her first job at the age of 16 was as a knife thrower’s assistant. Yes, she stood there perfectly still while knives were hurled her way without a scrape. Now, she lives in an old church in Dallas, where she reads several newspapers a day and sends me envelopes stuffed with clippings. The envelopes are decorated with photographs cut from magazines and they generally follow a theme: dwarfs, circus freaks, two-headed animals, Siamese twins, apes, exotic plants, insects, reptiles and birds. All the people at La Conexión know Ronnie Claire by her envelope art, and now the ti
me has come to put her on display.

To close, I must throw my credentials in your face: I am more than qualified to host a bird exhibition because I lived with a parrot named Gulliver for more than 20 years. Now Gulliver lives in a hatchery in Florida and I, happily, live alone. Moreover, I am one of the few people in the world who has seen in the wild the legendary ivory-billed woodpecker. So there!

Edward Swift is an author and visual artist. In another life he was a Great Blue Heron. 

Ed Osman retrospective at Galería Atelier
By Melanie Harris de Maycotte

Art Exhibit
Ed Osman retrospective
Sat, Feb 7, 6–9pm
Galería Atelier
Fábrica la Aurora
Calzada de la Aurora

After representing the work of Edward Osman Janovcik (aka Ed Osman) for nearly five years, it is clear he is one of the quintessential San Miguel artists of the past 50 years.

A long-time admirer of Osman’s work, it wasn’t until recently that I had the pleasure of spending time with him. Ed is a walking history book and has a vivid family history. He is a multi-faceted, highly opinionated, passionate man who brings everything to his paintings.

The last show the gallery held for Ed was in 2006. Most of the paintings in that show had been completed a couple of years before; he had been recovering from a bout with pneumonia for almost a full year. The show was a great success, and it lifted his spirits immensely. He was unable to attend, but the love of his previous students and admirers got him well again.

The road to recovery has not been easy. He still stays at home to prevent exposure to respiratory viruses. His studio has been moved into his house, but it takes all his effort to make it over to his easel to paint. For a man who was so prolific and such a dedicated painter, this has not been an easy thing to face or to weather financially.

This latest show of Ed’s work is a retrospective and includes some of his best pieces that he has been saving for himself and his family. Faced with the prospect of not having a way to support himself or his family, he has decided to part with these prized, sacred relics of his past.

 Surely with the support from his admirers it won’t be long until the fire is rekindled and Ed will be back to work.

The exhibit coincides with La Aurora’s fifth anniversary party.

Love is a dialogue with the world
By Krishna Villena

Art Opening
Amor es Amor/Love’s Renaissance 
Shannon Reece
Thu, Feb 12, 7pm
Atelier de Flor Acosta
Tata Nacho 8, 154-5953
Colonia Guadalupe 

After finishing a bachelor’s degree in visual arts in Vancouver, Shannon Reece decided to do something different. “In 1993, I got interested in the photography workshops at Bellas Artes, and thought, why not? I decided to try this discipline, which I had studied before coming to San Miguel, but only a little bit and focused on serigraphy.”

Reece arrived in town alone and without knowing the language, which wasn’t an obstacle for her. She immediately started taking photography classes and working as an assistant at Jo Bresso’s darkroom. For six years of changing chemicals and washing trays, she had the chance “to work on my ideas and learn about what a darkroom really is.” 

In Vancouver, she experimented with visual and acoustic arts and remembers, “I created a whole environment in a room, with things, sculpture, music, lights…there’s few chances to do that, because it’s not for sale, just to document.” Reece confessed she’s passionate about surroundings and environments.

Reece feels more comfortable and free without labels and explains, “In order to communicate my ideas, I look for a means of expression” that allows her to experiment with materials to achieve what goes better with her idea. “For me, it’s the need of a space, a means, something like a language that others can see or experiment with in some way, not completely nor as an imposition.”

The spectator has the chance to understand, through unique pieces, what Reece really is: a complete artist who captures herself by means of her photography. In Reece’s work, each piece is an intersection of disciplines that transforms the piece into an art object. “In Canada, they call this work photo-based art, but it’s really art based in photography,” she said.

In “Amor es Amor/Love’s Renaissance,” Reece presents “15 to 20 pieces that represent, in a lineal way, poems placed in the photography.” Her exhibition is something more than simple images because, “I love to use oil painting on them, or chalk or pencil…and to feel how it glides, how it looks like something so sensual…that’s how it makes me feel.” She thinks love regularly, “Wakes up the five senses, it totally activates them all.”

As a photography teacher, Reece always shows her students that the first thing is “to pose the look from inside, with the heart” and although “there are other mental mechanisms working while you’re taking a photo, what you really need is to communicate what you feel and what is your position before this image.”

She makes photos the analog way using archival fiber paper without resins. The high quality materials allow her to create absolute and unique photographic pieces. For Reece, part of the photographic process is “being in the darkroom, touching the paper, smelling the chemicals, moving myself, dancing while I wait for the fixative...and other ideas are coming to me.”

The colors and the light of San Miguel made her think it made no sense to take black & white photos, but later she understood, “I should consider tone and light, not color, because colors allow you to correct mistakes, but black & white shows directly if a composition of tone, light and environment is not working well.”

The learning is in the process and herself, says Reece and invites people to be part of the “dialogue” that she has directed to her family, friends and her community because, she thinks, “Love is a dialogue between oneself and the rest of the world.”

Wood sculpture exhibition in Bellas Artes

Vladimir Cora, Mexican painter and sculptor, presents an exhibition in Bellas Artes during February. His favorite material is wood, though he has sculpted some works in bronze. He prefers hardwoods, such as palo fierro or huanacaxtle, from his birthplace in Nayarit. He sculpts tri-dimensional human figures, with marked and stylized features of unquestionable originality. A remarkable female presence in his work, mainly breasts and hips, symbols of woman’s procreation and fertility potential, is attached to torsos, most of the time absent legs and arms. Cora’s work also includes several representations of heads, with multiple intentions—image, anthropological, or celebrative—in which the variety of headdresses is outstanding. 

Chromatic explosions and twilight glimpses 
By Carmen Gutiérrez

Art Opening
Marco Beteta and Harriet Ballard
Thu, Feb 12, 5–8pm
Galería Casa Diana
Recreo 48

Galería Casa Diana inaugurates a collective exhibition introducing two new painters, Marco Beteta and Harriet Ballard.

Beteta was born and lives in Mexico City. He is the grandson of the great watercolorist General Ignacio Beteta, with whom Marco, from his earliest childhood, shared trips, teachings and personal experiences. Besides studying under the tutelage of Rolando Belfay, Marco Albarran and Raymundo Sesma, he has attended workshops in Europe at ateliers Giorgio Upiglio and Mario Bendetti.

He presents a series of encaustic oil paintings in which two diverging tendencies can be perceived. One is based on a sober and neutral palette and geometric compositions. The other is a chromatic explosion within a complex organization of the pictorial space. Beteta’s very successful last exhibit was held at the Societé Generale Bank in Monaco, Monte Carlo. This is his first show in San Miguel.

Harriet Ballard, a part-time San Miguel resident, presents a series of oils on canvas. Her work, highly acclaimed in her hometown of Cleveland, Ohio, has been described thus: “Every painting is a balancing act performed on the monkey bars of color and composition. And equally, each is assembled, puzzle-like, from bits and pieces of an artist’s life. In Harriet Ballard’s complex, richly layered, ultimately mysterious paintings, the events of a life and the actions of painting float together, as if on or just below the surface of a clear stream. Her barely outlined pictorial elements are like objects glimpsed in a room at twilight, just as the shadows of things mix with intimations of transcendent form.”

Also on display are recent watercolors from the world-renowned surrealist painter Pedro Friedeberg and recent work by the gallery’s director, Carmen Gutiérrez.

Polymer workshop returns to Instituto
By Jaime Fernández

Polymer Clay Workshop
Tue–Thu, Feb 10–12, 9am–1:30pm
Instituto Allende
Ancha de San Antonio 20
US$150

Polymer Clay is a newer material, most recently used by modern artists with possibilities that are endless. The clay has a texture that can imitate and take on the appearance of natural substances such as stone, ivory and wood. It is also possible to transfer images directly onto the surface of this type of clay.

Myriam Bardoul, a visiting instructor at Instituto Allende, returns most winters to give a workshop on the uses of this medium. She teaches mixed media jewelry at The Visual Art Institute in Montreal, Canada and has been working with clay for over 10 years. Her artwork is prominent in and around Montreal and Toronto, yet many of her pieces are hidden away in private collections. 

The workshop will teach basic techniques using polymer clay. Students will be shown how to manipulate, condition and work with clay to produce a look that can take on the appearance of ivory, jade, turquoise, amber or coral. Students will be shown how to prepare and produce broaches or pendants and beads. Students should bring a ceramic tile or piece of glass as a surface to work on and an X-acto knife.

For further information, visit Instituto Allende or call 152-0226. 

Galactic love
By Laksmi Devi

Art Opening
Ether: Hearts in Space
Nancy Nugent 
Sat, Feb 7, 12–2pm
St. Paul’s Church
Cardo 6

Beginning in February, the month of romantic love, Nancy Nugent will show new paintings titled “Ether: Hearts in Space.” The large figurative oils feature the element Air, as Nugent continues her exploration on the theme begun with “The Elements” and followed by “Water, the Sacred Element.” Several more new, larger landscapes of the Water series have been added for this exhibit.

Nugent, a long-term San Miguel resident, attended New York’s Art Students League for five years, concentrating on life drawing and classical oil painting. She has worked in various media since for 30 years and has exhibited at Instituto Allende, Galería Ra Luz and Galería San Miguel, among others.

I asked Nancy, “Why represent beautiful bodies floating in outer space? Do they represent dream lovers or our anima/animus?” “I began to get ideas about what this air is that we breathe...that breathes us, and I feel it is love; universal unconditional love.

Next came images of different qualities of love— eternal, sensual, playful, soulful, ecstatic and their archetypes, weightlessly suspended in the ether in deep space. Perhaps they could be our past-life soul-mates or future partners or dream lovers? It’s up to the viewer.”

Certainly these are unusual, arresting and dramatic oils, in both series. They will be on view all month, Monday–Saturday, 11am–2pm.

Paintings and poetry by A. S. Maulucci 

Art Opening
The Double Image
Thu, Feb 12, 2:30–4:30pm 
Café de la Luz
Calzada de la Luz 42

Café de la Luz, opened by the Center for Global Justice, hosts an exhibit February 10–21 of recent works by poet and painter A.S. Maulucci titled “The Double Image.” Café de la Luz is open Tuesday–Saturday, 9am–3pm. Maulucci has paired poems with his paintings and will read some of the matching poems at the opening reception. He had his first solo exhibit in Connecticut in 2006.

His work was featured in 2008 in Chicago’s Amici Journal, and he has just been invited to participate in the Biennale 2009 held in Sienna, Italy. Maulucci’s poetry has been widely published in print and online.

An author of fiction and poetry for many years, Maulucci took up his brushes again after a long hiatus during which he worked as a college English teacher, arts journalist, book publisher and theater professional. He holds a master’s degree in liberal studies from Wesleyan University and taught writing at Connecticut’s Lyme Academy College of Art, where he discovered the symbiotic relationship between the visual image and the written word. His “Poetry for Painters” writing workshop was held recently in San Miguel.

“Writing fiction and poetry have been central to my life for the last 40 years, and the demands of a career as an English professor forced me to neglect my love for art,” Maulucci states. “I have worked as a visual artist only intermittently during the years I pursued literary success and while writing and publishing books of fiction and poetry. My training since high school has been sporadic, and, although I’e taken the occasional drawing class, I’d have to say I’m primarily self-taught.”

Maulucci describes himself as a Fugitive Artist, for whom “imagination is everything. The Fugitive Artist assigns himself the role of iconoclast. He embraces the life of the fugitive, i.e., the outsider, but he is not a passive observer of life; he is not the man on the outside looking in. He is an active participant in life, he interacts with the world through his imagination by taking in impressions and processing them by reflecting and analyzing, weighing and judging. He is in flight from the ordinary way of seeing the world. He has no fealty to any place, country or culture, but draws his strength and inspiration from whatever strikes him in the external reality. But more powerful than reality is the vision of his spirit and imagination combined.” 

Maulucci has been a resident of Mexico since July 2007. He lived in Zacatecas for one year prior to his move to San Miguel, where he is now a full-time resident. Read poems and see samples of his artwork at www.anthonymaulucci.com.

Exhibit honors Alfonso Castillo 

Art Exhibit
Memorial for Alfonso Castillo
Galería Indigo
76 Mesones
Mon–Sat, 11:30am–3:30pm & 6:30–8:30pm
Sun, 12–4pm

Galería Indigo welcomes all to an exhibit in celebration of the life of Alfonso Castillo, who recently died. Castillo and his family created some of the most celebrated artworks in Mexico's history, and they were honored with the National Arts and Science Award in 1990.

Art Exhibit

Women of the World 
Sallie Latch
Café de la Luz
Calzada de la Luz 45 
Through February 7
Restaurant/gallery hours: Mon-Fri 9am–3pm, Sat 8am–3pm

Women of the World by Sallie Latch includes images inspired by her travels. “My Children are Hungry” was motivated by her trips to the campo, deeply moved by the struggling women she saw. Another, “War without End,” comes from her direct contact with victims of Agent Orange. This painting is used by the Vietnam Agent Orange Relief and Responsibility Campaign, working to bring justice to Agent Orange victims. 

The exhibit has been extended to February 7.