Creative Journey Series continues with guest artist Ezcurdia

 

Talk/presentation, The Creative Journey with Agnes Olive Guest artist Juan Ezcurdia, Tuesday, October 10, 5pm Teatro Santa Ana, Insurgentes 25, 50-peso donation

The focus of Agnes Olive’s Creative Journey Series continues in the same vein as her earlier presentations, exploring questions of what inspires us to create and where ideas come from and how they manifest themselves in our work.

Guest artist Juan Ezcurdia will begin the evening with a slide presentation of his distinctive, whimsical artwork, which will be followed by the personal film Inspirations by Agnes Olive.

 

Juan Ezcurdia moved to San Miguel from Mexico City in 1996 and immediately captured the attention of art lovers with his brilliant, colorful, childlike figures flying through space. His mythical characters, human and nonhuman, interact in a seemingly comical and, at the same time, serious manner.

He claims to be inspired by Greek and pre-Hispanic mythology and observing children with their sense of abandonment and freedom. It is obvious from the way that his forms sit, stand, float and ride on the canvas that Ezcurdia has a natural talent for form, color and the use of spatial tension. His maternal grandfather and mother were artists, but Juan studied and practiced psychology. To amuse himself, he painted flowers and sold them in the market in colonial Coyoacán in Mexico City. Then, along came a serendipitous suggestion that he illustrate children’s books, which eventually culminated in his receiving the prestigious CONACULTA national prize.

Two years ago, he gave the living room studio back to his wife and two children and moved into a large studio/showroom at Fábrica La Aurora. Fourteen large canvasses have just been sent off for a gallery exhibition in Valle de Bravo, and Ezcurdia now looks forward with childlike anticipation to experimenting with large oil bars new to his collection of materials. Where this will lead waits to be seen, but we can be certain that we will be titillated and excited by whatever and whoever flies off and through the canvases.

 

Ezcurdia’s work can be seen and purchased at his studio in Fábrica La Aurora and Galería Izamal at Mesones 80.

The film Inspirations by Agnes Olive was many years in the making and began as a slide presentation/teaching aid for her workshops at the Sheridan School of Design in Toronto. It was shown a year ago at the Teatro Santa Ana and was the thrust for the Creative Journey Series of presentations. The film includes photos of structures, textures and ancient architecture from her extensive travels to many corners of the world, interspersed with photos of her artwork that are a result of these varied and often subtle inspirations. At times the viewer cannot discern where one natural form ends and the artist’s form begins. Her work ranges from four-foot-tall crone figures to what has been called shamanic art. The influences from other cultures and traditions are obvious in her handmade paper/mixed-media constructions with additions of bone, seeds, grasses and beads.

Olive has been working as a professional artist all her adult life and ran her own art gallery in Ontario, Canada, for 25 years. She has exhibited internationally and more recently in Galería Noir and Galería Art Fotográfico in San Miguel.

Olive’s apartment/showroom at Reloj 31A, Apartment 1, will be open to the public Thursday, October 12, from 11am to 3pm.

There will be a question-and-answer session at the end of the two presentations, and the audience is encouraged to partipate. The donation of 50 pesos supports the girl’s orphanage on calle Sollano.

Columbus Day lecture explores the navigator 

 

Christopher Columbus, by Guillermo Mendez Wednesday, October 11, 3pm, Teatro Santa Ana, Insurgentes 25, 50 pesos

Everybody knows all about Christopher Columbus, right? Here’s a short true-or-false quiz to prove it. (1) Columbus made four voyages to the New World. (2) In 1492, all educated people thought the world was a globe. (3) Columbus fathered a child with a woman he never married. The answer to all three questions is “true.”

Columbus’s first historic voyage was followed by three more in 1493, 1498 and 1502. On the fourth voyage, Columbus arrived at Española (today’s Haiti/Dominican Republic) to find a fleet of about 30 ships preparing to leave for Spain. He sensed that a hurricane was brewing and so informed the governor of the island, Nicolás de Ovando. The governor chose to ignore Columbus’s warning and the fleet departed. The hurricane soon struck and 25 ships and their crews were lost.

After the storm passed, Columbus’s four ships left Española and spent the rest of the voyage exploring the coast of Central America from Honduras to Panama. At the northern end of their route, they encountered what was probably a Maya trading canoe coming from the north, perhaps from the Yucatán peninsula, which was, and still is, Maya territory.

It was the largest canoe ever seen by Europeans. Carved from a single tree trunk, like other native canoes, it was eight feet wide, carried 25 rowers, and was as “long as a galley.” The canoe had a central roofed pavilion that held women, children, baggage and trade goods. They must have had a good look at the canoe. One of the crew members, Hernando Colón, Columbus’s son, would later describe its contents in detail in the biography of his father that he authored.

In late-15th-century Europe, there was no dispute over the shape of the Earth. It had been known since the time of the ancient Greeks that the Earth was a globe. However, there was disagreement over the size of the globe. Of course, no one knew that two continents lay between Europe and Asia to the west.

After his Portuguese wife died, Columbus went to Spain with his young son, Diego. For the next several years he devoted himself to petitioning the Spanish Crown for financing for his “Enterprise of the Indies.” It was during this period that he met Beatriz Enríquez de Arana in the city of Córdoba. They had a relationship that resulted in the birth of a boy, Hernando, who Columbus acknowledged as his own.

More than one historian has suggested that Columbus changed the world more than any other single historical figure. Columbus’s adventures are the subject of a Columbus Day lecture (in English) by Guillermo Mendez, retired professor of Humanities and San Miguel resident.