Journeys of Merry and Mary
By Agnes Olive October 10, 2008 San Miguel de Allende

Lecture
The Creative Journey
Merry Calderoni and Mary Rapp
Tue, Oct 14, 5pm
Teatro Santa Ana
Biblioteca Pública
Insurgentes 25
50 pesos

The Creative Journey series focuses on what inspires us to create, where ideas come from and how artists incorporate them into their work. Artists give visual presentations followed by an informal but informative discussion between the artists and the audience. This is an excellent opportunity to discover what goes on in the minds and hearts of artists and mentally visit with them in their studios.

Our guests for Journey 13 are Merry Calderoni and Mary Rapp. From the age of eight years, Calderoni knew she wanted to be an artist but grew up in what she describes as culturally deprived Odessa, Texas. Fortunately, her family embraced the arts and enrolled her in an after-school art class and years later she was greatly inspired and encouraged by a strong art teacher, Mrs. Brookins, who arrived from New York to teach in junior high. Her studies continued at the University of Texas and in Bellas Artes in Caracas, Venezuela, where she lived for many years. 

After moving to Houston, Calderoni kept busy running her own commercial art and design company supplying art to institutions and hotels. While promoting the company in New York, she decided to have some fun wearing a hand-painted outfit she designed for the occasion.

This was the beginning of another career as a clothing designer that lasted five years. Now more than ready to get back to her first love of abstract painting, she shared studio space with six female artists. Her work gained recognition and led to a scholarship to study at the Glassell Museum of Fine Arts followed by further studies in France and Italy and at the Instituto Allende in San Miguel, where she studied with Jaime Pinto. As happens with many artists, the colors and textures of San Miguel seduced her and 37 years later she returned and was the first artist to set up her dream studio in Fábrica La Aurora. This 100-year-old former textile factory has proven to be perfect for an artist whose passion is surface and texture. Her work often in
corporates found objects, local earth, sand, rusted metals and fragments of actual colonial walls that are ground into pigments and applied to the canvas surface. One can envision warm earth colors, aged patinas and crusty layers. One can glimpse messages and drawings from the past. She calls them “ancient subjects painted in a contemporary style.” Recently Bellas Artes hosted a major exhibition of her work entitled “Mexcavations,” inspired by the murals, drawings and structures of Mexican pyramids. Her journey continues.

Mary Rapp says her work “is a doorway into another level of experience, a way of perceiving the world and my own reactions that I could not have discovered with words.” Rapp also was eight years old when she realized that her greatest love was the time spent drawing. Her mother encouraged this love by taking her to an art program for children at the St. Louis Art Museum.

Her studies included classes at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the Chicago Institute and Washington University and, very important in her journey, the studio of famous German expressionist Max Beckmann. She not only became his student, but modeled for many of his paintings.

Mary married and, like most women of the period, spent many years juggling her art while raising two children and following her husband to new careers. Her first stop was Baltimore, where she worked in advertising to supplement the family income. A year later she was relieved when they moved to Fairhope, Alabama. Here she met more like-minded people and spent eight years helping to form an art association and teaching art classes.

After a move to Memphis, she became a liaison person between the Arts Council, the Museum of Art, the Symphony and the Dance Company. Her own artwork continued to grow and a piece was accepted into a major juried museum exhibition in Memphis.

Then onward to Atlanta, where she built her first real art studio and studied bronze casting at the Atlanta School of Art. Her time was spent in the studio drawing and sculpting portraits. She moved back to Fairhope and received a prestigious commission to sculpt and cast in bronze a bust of Martin Luther King, Jr. installed in a black community center. This commission was followed by an invitation to have a major exhibition in Atlanta and the National Endowment for the Arts offered a grant to participate in a traveling outdoor sculpture exhibition.

Her final move brought her to San Miguel in 1990, where she rented various studio spaces and presented major exhibitions at Temple Gallery, Belles Artes and in Pozos. One day she visited Calderoni in Fábrica La Aurora, fell in love with the space and became the second artist to set up a studio there.

Rapp continues to produce her unique sculptures and monoprints, with new additions of collaged objects and encaustic surfaces. She still recalls the important words of her mentor Max Beckmann, “You must more dare.” Her response is, “If not now, when?” Her work can be found in collections in Mexico, Europe and the US.

The 50-peso admission fee is shared with the Biblioteca’s scholarship fund and the Vickers School for the Blind.

Wild & Wonderful 
By Walter L. Meagher

Lecture
Wild & Wonderful
Walter Meagher
Fri, Oct 17, 5pm
Sala Quetzal
Bibliotca Pública
Insurgentes 25
50 pesos

This slide show/talk takes the audience on a visit to the three habitats that make up the botanical garden El Charco del Ingenio: scrubland, seasonal wetland and the canyon. The three habitats subdivide the landscape, giving it a beauty and richness of plant and animal life singular in the state.

El Charco’s views move our aesthetic sensibility: the grassland trailing over the horizon north of the canyon, the wetland in bloom during summer rains, the deep canyon, shaded and mostly hidden.

The invisible web of life—water and nutrient flows, relations of predator and prey—can be disrupted. The desire to protect wildlife arises more strongly in the field. These pictures are meant to move you to come out and see for yourself.

Wayne Colony and I studied and photographed these habitats extensively for Wild & Wonderful: Nature Up Close in the Botanical Garden “El Charco del Ingenio.” I wrote the book’s text and Wayne took the photographs; world-renowned Harvard ecologist Edward O. Wilson graced us with a foreword. It will be on sale at the event for 300 pesos.

(This lecture was rescheduled from September 19 (see longer article in September 12 issue, p. 40).

Figuring out the financial crisis



Lecture
What is the Financial Crisis All About?
Center for Global Justice panel discussion
Wed, Oct 15, 3pm
Teatro Santa Ana
Biblioteca Pública
Insurgentes 25
50 pesos 

What is this financial crisis all about? Financial meltdown? Global depression? The end of capitalism?

 Or one last shock from the Bush administration to fleece the pockets of taxpayers and give hundreds of billions of dollars to their rich friends? 

These are among the many ideas people are considering as we try to make sense of the dramatic events in world financial markets and political responses to them. A panel from the Center for Global Justice will reflect on these and other interpretations. Among the panelists will be Jeff Faux, a founder of the Economic Policy Institute and author of The Global Class War. Joining him will be Bob Stone; Cliff DuRand and Betsy Bowman, founders of the Center for Global Justice; Arturo Yarish, historian; and Marge Allen, union activist. You are invited to join the dialog as we try to figure this thing out and where it is taking us.

Transition from the Iron Age
By Alejandro Negrete

Lecture
Creating a New World
Fourth in the series: “Living from the Heart”
Alejandro Negrete
Tue, Oct 14, 6–7:30pm
Sala Quetzal
Biblioteca Pública
Insurgentes 25
Donation 50 pesos

Hindu Vedas and Mayan calendars affirm that we live in a time of transition from the Iron Age of darkness and ignorance into the Golden Age of harmony, consciousness and peace. The universe needs our collaboration for this transition. If man does not awaken from his dream, and if he does not take responsibility to do what he can to heal the world, then the transition will be more painful and take longer.

But if man works within himself and frees himself from hatred, violence, greed, fear, separation and other destructive factors, then the universe will collaborate so the transition can take place in and through love.

In this class we will consider the issues of universal responsibility and how transforming ourselves can transform the planet. We explore practical forms and meditations to align ourselves with greater clarity with the spiritual current which is transforming the planet.

Alejandro Negrete is a certified facilitator and teacher of the Pneuma System. Information: 120-2179, alepneuma@yahoo.com.  Pneuma System: www.inkarri.org. 

Poems inspired by paintings
By Anthony S. Maulucci

Workshop
Poetry for Painters
Anthony S. Maulucci
Tue, Oct 14, 3–5pm
Sala Quetzal
Biblioteca Pública
Insurgentes 25
Donation 50 pesos

This poetry writing workshop is designed for visual artists and others who would like to explore using verbal images and metaphors to turn a painting into a poem. You don’t need to be a painter to participate, just have a favorite painting in mind. Bring paper and pen or pencil. Beginners are warmly welcome.

Paintings often inspire poetry, and indeed the energy for creating poems and paintings flows from the same source. You could write a poem describing Munch’s The Scream, for example, or write a poem that captures personal anguish and alienation. 

We spend the first hour on fundamentals of poetry and then practice them with a few playful exercises. During the second hour, participants write their own poem inspired by a painting. You can bring a print with you or find an image in a library art book. Alternatively, you might choose a mural or artwork displayed at the library.

Painters might find it interesting to write a poem with the same idea that you used in a painting. The exercise stretches your imagination and helps you see the painting in a new way. Language engages your emotions, opens up unexpected channels in your mind and brings freshness to your perspective.

For more information, contact me at quietcities@gmail.com. 

Anthony S. Maulucci has taught creative writing for two decades and at the Lyme Academy College of Art in Connecticut, he explored the connections between writing and visual art. He is a new arrival in San Miguel. Samples of his work are at www.greentigerproductions.com or www.anthonymaulucci.com, and his book 100 Love Sonnets is available at La Tienda in the Bibiloteca and at Libros El Tecolote.

Next UNAM conference October 11

The next UNAM lecture takes place Saturday, October 11, at noon in Teatro Santa Ana (Reloj 50-A). The talk will be offered by Eduardo Vega, a member of UNAM’s economics faculty who holds a master’s degree in Public Administration and Politics from ITESM and a Ph.D. in History from Universidad Iberoamericana. He also did post-graduate work in environmental studies and has published articles and book chapters on environmental economics. He was director of the Environment Department of Mexico City. The conferences series, titled “Environment, Development and Public Politics,” explores the relationship between economic development and the excessive use of energy, natural resources and biodiversity brought about by it. 

Entrance to the talk costs 100 pesos per person. The funds raised will be used to help the Biblioteca improve its internet and computer infrastructure. 





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