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Huatulco

Appropriation, Appreciation, Inspiration: The Taking of Mexican Fashion

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By Deborah Van Hoewyk

On Thursday, October 20, 2022, author and Mexican First Lady Beatriz Gutiérrez Müller Instagrammed American designer Ralph Lauren:

Hey, Ralph, we already knew that you’re a big fan of Mexican designs, above all those that work with our ancestral cultures to preserve textile traditions. However, by copying these designs you commit plagiarism, and as you know, plagiarism is illegal and immoral. At least acknowledge it. And I hope you compensate the damage to the native communities that do this work with love and not for million-dollar profits.

Gutiérrez was calling out Lauren for his use of Mexican serape fabric in a cardigan-style jacket in his current line of clothing; she mentioned specifically the weavers from Contla de Juan Cuamatzi in Jalisco and Saltillo in Coahuila as the “authors” of the textile design of the cardigan.

This was not the first time, either. Ralph Lauren has made a mint by refining the looks of the New England preppie, early-Hollywood glamour, and the rough-and-rustic American West. It was hardly a skip or a jump when his collection for Spring/Summer 2013 was described, by The New York Times, as showing there was “no doubt Ralph Lauren was down Mexico way.” Lauren again showed serapes in his Fall 2014 collection, when he added a Polo Ralph Lauren collection for women that included a Mexican-patterned maxi dress and a serape-fabric jacket.

Cultural Appropriation

Gutiérrez clearly sees Lauren’s use of the serape fabric as cultural appropriation. She identifies his work as plagiarism, i.e., an exact copy, and asserts that it has damaged the indigenous communities, whose work is a labor of love that preserves ancient traditions, because Lauren did not acknowledge or compensate them. Lauren no doubt considered it cultural appreciation – if he considered it at all.

A repeat offender like Lauren, Marant included a cape clearly taken from the Purépecha of Michoacán in her 2020-21 Etoile collection. Alejandra Frausto Guerrero, the Mexican Minister of Culture, sought an explanation:

Some symbols [on the cape] that you took have a profound meaning for this culture. These symbols are very old and have been conserved thanks to the memory of the artisans. I ask you, Ms. Isabel Marant, to publicly explain on what grounds you privatize a collective property … and how its use benefits the creator communities.

In 2021, Frausto Guerrero accused several other fashion brands of wrongly appropriating designs from three Oaxacan towns. US-based Anthropologie took embroidery patterns representing the sun, the mountains, and the maguey cactus preserved by the Mixe of Santa María Tlahuitoltepec, and slapped them on fringe-edged shorts no Mexican woman would ever wear. The Spanish retailer Zara made a light green dress with dark green embroidery patterns unique to the Mixtec weaving cooperatives of San Juan Colorado. Internet-based retailer Patowl was selling blouses with elaborate embroidery characteristic of the Zapotec community in San Antonio Castilla Velasco.

Protecting All Cultural Expression

These events foregrounded the need for legal protection of Mexico’s indigenous cultural heritage from the “plagiarism” of appropriation. According to Andrea Bonifaz of the social justice organization Impacto Social Metropolitan Group, which defends the rights of traditional artisanal communities against cultural appropriation, the underlying problem is that “ancestral expressions, like the serape, are collective.” Laws protecting patrimony cover individuals, not communities. “Who or what the community is,” and therefore who can bring suit, is never defined.

However, some progress has been made. In 2020, following the Herrera resort-wear confrontation, Mexico changed the federal copyright law to specify that native communities – if the community has taken the steps to organize as a collective – own the intellectual property rights to craftwork that expresses cultural and local popular tradition. As owners of their work, they can oppose unauthorized use, even when that use altered the original design. In 2021, the Mexican senate passed a federal law that established penalties for taking – by reproducing, copying, imitating, or otherwise appropriating without prior and proper authorization – the designs that represent indigenous cultural heritage, including that of Afro-Mexicans.

These legislative changes set up a legal framework and a registry to recognize cultural expressions, identify the owners of those expressions, and establish the protocols for owners to authorize any permitted use. Mexico’s Institute of Industrial Property (IMPI, manages patents and trademarks) and the Copyright Office (INDAUTOR) give classes for indigenous communities and individual artisans on intellectual property, explaining how to protect their rights to their work. They also give discounts to the artisans or collectives for registering ownership of their work.

From Appropriation to Appreciation

Is it ever okay to use the cultural assets of another people? Vogue India, prompted by Sarah Jessica Parker’s costume in the “Diwali” episode of And Just Like That, asks “How do you know if you are co-opting cultural connotations or innocuously borrowing an aesthetic?”

It’s a longstanding debate, but the answer, actually, is yes, you can appreciate rather than appropriate (see Brooke O’Connor’s article on page 26). Vogue India came up with a rather narrow answer – you have to avoid “demeaning” the culture from which you have taken something. This is a backward way of saying you have to respect, to recognize, to acknowledge the culture that produced it. Vogue India quotes Kelvin Gonclaves, owner of Elkel, an “avante-garde” boutique in the Soho neighborhood in New York City:

If your action disrespects the original idea because of cultural, religious or other customs, then you’ve gone too far. If you claim it as yours without giving credit, you’ve definitely gone too far. There are a few things that should never be done like blackface or dreadlocks on a white person. With taste and acknowledgement, though, most things can be done.

Gonclaves thinks that all art, fashion included, “borrows inspiration from other cultures [to create] new and wonderful things.”

The Gray Area of Inspiration

The designers Mexico has accused of cultural appropriation have said their work is “inspired” by Mexican “ideas.” That may well be so, but it doesn’t determine whether or not they have created something “new and wonderful.”

Take a look at a sweatshirt recently stocked at both Nordstrom and Gonclaves’ boutique:

Billed as a “Gender Inclusive Keith Haring Witches Print Cotton Blend Sweatshirt,” it’s sold out at Nordstrom. According to Nordstrom, the sweatshirt and matching sweatpants were “produced in collaboration with the Keith Haring Foundation” and “creatively showcases the late artist’s iconic designs.” There is no mention that Haring produced the designs forty years ago, or that they were inspired by ancient Mexican hieroglyphic writings and low-relief sculptures.

Keith Haring (1958-90) was a New York “street artist” whose early work, inspired by the graffiti subculture of the early 1980s, was considered pop art, and Haring was very much a part of the pop art scene. In 1982, he was approached by Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood, who were very much a part of the same scene in England, to prepare designs on the theme of “Witches” for one of McLaren’s albums (Duck Rock) and McLaren/Westwood’s fashion line. By 1983, Haring had produced the Witches series of drawings, but never credited any specific Mexican sources.

Haring was diagnosed with AIDS in 1987; he set up the Keith Haring Foundation to preserve and promote his work, and to raise funds for those affected by AIDS. The Foundation licensed the sweatshirt and pants as a fundraising activity. It can easily be argued that the Witches sweatsuit is “inspired” by Mesoamerican designs, that Keith Haring did not “appropriate” any specific work, and that he created something “new and wonderful.” But a little mention of how he came to use his Mexican inspiration might have been nice.

Huatulco

The Art of Portraying Food in Art

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By Randy Jackson

I was interested to see a recent news story about a restored fresco from Pompeii depicting what the headline billed as an early version of pizza. The fresco shows a flatbread with toppings believed to include pomegranates, dates, and a type of pesto sauce. But what attracted my attention was not an interest in the history of pizza, or even the fascinating discoveries of daily Roman life frozen in time at 79 CE, but our ongoing interest in depicting food in art.

I trace this curiosity to a much younger version of myself wandering around art museums in Europe, and pondering why there were so many paintings of bowls of fruit. What, I wondered, was so great about that? In an attempt to answer that, and to hopefully develop a deeper understanding and appreciation of still-life painting, it helps to have some historical context of food in art.

The Meaning of Food in Art

When food is represented in any human artwork, it always conveys, or intends to convey, some meaning. Some of the earliest depictions of food appear in the Egyptian pyramids. These drawings were thought to hold magical properties that could enable the deceased to have food in the afterlife. Food as sustenance, and in the afterlife, you gotta eat, right?

Centuries later, the ancient Greeks and Romans painted food in their frescos of celebrations. Here, food was portrayed as symbols of wealth and abundance. One thing the Pompeii flatbread painting has taught us is that good quality food was not reserved solely for the elites. The everydayness of the meal, portrayed in the fresco of a house attached to a bakery in Pompeii, demonstrates that a much wider group than the elite enjoyed their meals, and had access to foods prepared, at least in part, for the pleasure of eating.

As European civilizations moved through the Middle Ages, the depictions of food in art no longer reflected food as celebratory, but rather as one of the regular features of daily life. Paintings of the period often showed food preparations for meals and feasts. Christianity was of course a central force running through the Middle Ages and food is an important symbol of devotional Christian practice (bread = the body, wine = the blood of Christ). Probably the best examples of this, in art, were the paintings of the Last Supper, where fish or lamb (both symbols of Christ) were conveyed along with wine and bread.

As European society gradually emerged into the Renaissance, food in art began to represent abundance. There was also a movement in paintings towards detailed realism. Scenes of butcher shops and kitchens (notably in the Italian Baroque) were common, although food did not yet serve as the centerpiece of a painting, often being shown as part of busy crowded scenes in the paintings of the time.

But the attention to detail for everything in the paintings, including the food, was greatly elevated from earlier paintings of the Middle Ages. While food remained a secular object, it was rarely painted without some Christian symbolism.

An interesting side note on food in art in the Renaissance is seen in the work of Italian painter Giuseppi Arcimboldo (1526-93). Arcimboldo’s work is recognizable today for its creative genius – he painted portraits entirely from fruits and vegetables. These food portraits were only part of Arcimboldo’s more conventional body of work; the portraits were understood to be for the amusement of the court (he was a painter for the Habsburg court in Vienna). Arcimboldo’s other paintings, including his religious paintings, have largely been forgotten in the context of better-known Renaissance paintings.

Food in Art in the Dutch Golden Age

The movement towards naturalism and detailed personal observation emerging in Renaissance art provided the underpinning for still-life genre paintings to emerge, culminating in the Dutch Golden Age of the 1600s.

The Dutch Golden Age is thought to cover a good portion of the 17th century. Spurred on by the wealth of overseas trade, the Netherlands emerged to lead Europe in the arts and sciences. Of note in this flourishing is the Dutch Reform movement that shifted the Netherlands away from Catholic-dominated Europe, which then led to independence from the Church in intellectual life, commerce, and the arts. In the Dutch Golden Age, wealth was largely held by the merchant class. As a result, decisions in all aspects of society reflected perspectives and interests different from those of the elites, royalty, or the church, which still shaped most of the rest of Europe. It was the wealthy merchant class who commissioned works of art. This, along with the Renaissance movement towards naturalism and observation of details, motivated Dutch artists to create the genre of still-life paintings.

Dead Game, Red Lobsters, and Bowls of Fruit

To my own youthful question about what is so great about paintings of bowls of fruit, the answer, somewhat clearer from the passing of years, is that attention to detail is a deepening of awareness. Artists can bring a greater awareness to us, the viewer, through their attention to detail and the reproduction of that detail on canvas of texture, light, shadows, and hues. This can, if we apply our own attention to the painting, bring a sense of marvel. Articulating many aspects of the beauty of Food in Art, I recommend the New York Times article titled “A Messy Table, A Map of the World” – an amazingly entertaining tutorial in understanding the social history of art.

Email: box95jackson@gmail.com.

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Spirit of Art 2022

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By Tirza Bonifazi

Spirit of Art 2022 is officially HAPPENING. The second edition of Spirit of Art will be hosted at the Hotel Eden Costa, thanks to the support of entrepreneur Juan Benito García, who invested in the establishment to make it the first Art Boutique Hotel in Huatulco. And what better way to inaugurate his venture, than a collaborative art exhibit?

Four of the pieces that are being shown this year are actually part of Eden Costa, and are the murals of Mexican artists Irving Cano, Edna Guzmán, and Rafael Ortega. But art will flow throughout the property featuring the work of more than 15 artists, between national and international figures coming from different parts of the world.

Also, this year Spirit of Art is having an extra exhibition inside the exhibition. Through the “Exposición de Arte Emocional para niñas y niños” we’re showing the 30 best pieces of art made by kids from Huatulco and Santa María Huatulco, who have been invited to participate through a call made in collaboration with DIF Municipal. The artworks are for sale – half of the proceeds of each piece will go to the kid artist, and the other half to DIF Municipal.

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A Notable Mexican Artist … and a Noble Father

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By Brooke Gazer

In 1951, Vicente Gandía immigrated. with his widowed mother and sisters, from Spain to Mexico. He was just sixteen, but within a few years he enrolled in UNAM to study architecture. After two years, he realized he preferred drawing existing buildings to designing new ones and left to pursue his career as an artist.

Those two years were not wasted, however; many of his pieces are grounded by detailed architectural elements like windows, patios, and doors. His work was strongly influenced by the great French impressionist and post-impressionist painters: Manet, Bonnard, Cezanne, and Matisse. This movement is inspired by the concept of capturing the moment. His paintings have a decorative quality with a bold use of color. Organic matter springs to life as landscapes, gardens, and floral arrangements seem to move within the canvas.

Like many artists, he struggled, but by the mid 1970s, Gandía began to achieve international acclaim. His work has appeared in museums and galleries throughout North and South America, as well major cities in Europe. In 1988, the catalogue for the Palacio de Bellas Artes, in Mexico City, stated: “The work of Vicente Gandía is part of the best tradition of Spanish painting. It starts out from real, solid things, and makes them glow from within, as though with the hidden splendor of their true essence.”

I like the work of this artist, but even more, I believe I would have liked the man. He was my friend’s father, and she told me a touching story about him and one of his paintings.

When she was nine years old, Mariana walked into her father’s studio, which was part of their home in Cuernavaca. She’d fallen in love with an enormous canvas titled, Ventana con Magnolias, which he had recently completed. Even as a small child she was frugal and had been saving her pesos. Their Spanish conversation went something like this.

“Pappa, I love this painting and I want to buy it from you.”

“Oh, sweetheart, you don’t have to buy it, you can have it. It is yours.”

“No, this is your work. I want to pay for it, but I can only pay 9000 pesos because this is all I have saved. Will you sell it to me?”

“Of course, my love.”
This was 1985 and 9000 pesos might sound like a lot for a nine-year-old girl to have saved. To Mariana it was, but keep in mind that Mexico suffered a horrific devaluation in the 1980’s, and in 1985 it was the equivalent to about $40 USD.

Vicente was becoming “discovered.” The writer Gabriel García Márquez had heard his name mentioned in art circles, and asked to come to the house to see Vicente´s work. He intended to purchase a piece of this up-and-coming painter. This was a huge opportunity for any aspiring artist and of course Gandía was both honored and excited.

When Garcia arrived at their home, he was immediately drawn to the piece Mariana had purchased. Unaware that it was not for sale, he asked the price. Vicente told him it was not for sale because it belonged to his daughter. The writer’s ego could not accept that this artist, of some small acclaim, was refusing to sell him the piece of his choice. But he was infuriated that the man was withholding it in favor of a mere nine-year-old girl.

Gabriel García Márquez left in a huff, without making a purchase, and never returned. The sale to a famous writer might have advanced Gandía’s career, but to Vicente, a promise to his daughter was more important. This painting, which is currently valued at $50,000 USD, is prominently displayed in Mariana’s Mexico City apartment.

Vicente Gandía passed away in 2009 but both originals and prints can be found online and in several galleries.

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Grasshoppers and Ants: Diligence in the Year of the Ox

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By Randy Jackson

After that major bummer of a year – 2020 – we now have the Chinese Zodiac Year of the Ox for 2021. Not wanting to cast aspersions on the Zodiac animal of last year (the Rat), I think it’s time we moved on. But not so fast: Just what are we supposed to be getting into in this Year of the Ox? The ox is supposed to represent the characteristic of diligence. That makes sense, I guess, from what I imagine of an ox-like character. But is diligence a good thing?

The origin of the word “diligence” was the Latin word diligere, which meant to “value highly” and “take delight in.” Over centuries the English meaning of the word morphed into “careful” and “hardworking.” The word diligence was held in high enough regard in western Europe that it become one of the heavenly virtues of Christianity, along with chastity, temperance, patience, humility, kindness and charity. The seven heavenly virtues were clarified as a balance to the seven deadly sins set out by Pope Gregory I in CE 590 – diligence counterbalanced the sin of “sloth.”

Diligence seems to be the one Christian virtue that isn’t passive. To be diligent implies overtly doing something rather than embodying any (or all) the other virtues in one’s actions. Diligence as a virtue cannot stand by itself as a “good thing” without the other virtues. Otherwise, being diligent while committing a crime would be virtuous. The ambivalence of diligence as a Christian virtue has provided fodder for stories and even paintings over the centuries.

There are a surprising number of fables and fairy tales that deal with diligence. “The Three Little Pigs” is an obvious one. As we know, the third little pig worked diligently on his house of bricks while the other two little pigs spent more time playing, singing, and dancing. We all know how that turns out. The third little pig saves the day, as his house is too strong for the wolf to blow down. The moral of the story: hard work (diligence) wins the day.

“The Ant and the Grasshopper” is another fable dealing with diligence. However, this fable has inspired different interpretations on how diligence can be viewed. Originally, the hard-working ant who saved up for the winter was seen as cruel and miserly when he refused the more whimsical grasshopper’s (usually depicted as a musician) request for food in the winter. The diligent ant was seen as lacking in Christian charity.

In the Victorian era, French artist Gustave Doré produced a painting titled “The Ant and the Grasshopper.” The painting depicts a young woman musician with head bowed at the door of a house.

Two children from the house are looking up with sympathy at the young woman. There is a lack of pity shown by the lady of the house as portrayed by her knitting. This is a reference to the French tricoteuses – women who knitted and jeered as the guillotine lopped off the heads of the French aristocrats during the French Revolution.

“The Ant and the Grasshopper” poses two important philosophical questions: should hard work be valued over the enjoyment of life? And, what responsibility do the “haves” bear for the “have nots”? In the United States, Walt Disney’s original cartoon portrayal of ‘The Ant and Grasshopper” (1934) was a political statement against the New Deal as proposed by Franklin D. Roosevelt. In the cartoon the impertinent grasshopper sang the song “Oh the World Owes Me a Living,” expressing a sentiment that many Americans held at the time – they saw the New Deal as giving something to people who did nothing to deserve it.

In literature and film, “The Ant and the Grasshopper” fable has inspired a large number of stories exploring differences between the life of someone who is diligent and hardworking, and someone who mostly seeks the enjoyments of life. In Somerset Maugham’s story “The Ant and the Grasshopper,” there are two brothers, one diligent and hard-working, the other carefree yet likeable. In this story, the carefree brother lucks out in the end (much to the chagrin of the diligent brother) by marrying a rich widow (who then dies and leaves him a fortune). For those familiar with Maugham’s most famous work, On Human Bondage (thought to be largely autobiographical), the main character, Philip Carey, is grasshopper-like, living a bohemian lifestyle against the wishes of his strict and diligent guardian uncle.

John Updike’s short story “Brother Grasshopper,” which specifically references the original fable, contrasts the characters of two brothers-in-law. One is diligent, hard-working and socially awkward. The other is charming, carefree and extravagant, but struggles with money. In the end the diligent man comes to realize the carefree man had enriched his otherwise restricted life of diligence.

Another, and different, angle on the concept of diligence, ironically, is the Japanese concept of inemuri – referring to sleeping on the job. This cultural phenomenon is more nuanced than just having a nap at work. A better translation would be “sleeping while being present.” It refers to diligent hard-working employees that are so busy and working such long hours they need a little inemuri to keep going: inemuri is thus seen as an indicator of diligence. In the west we might refer to this as a “power nap,” but without any notion that diligence is involved.

As for diligence as a characteristic of the Year of the Ox, there is no ambivalence, it’s only a good thing. The Zodiac predictions are for a year of advancement and success in 2021. After 2020, we can all use some of that. Happy New Year.

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Treasured Trash

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By Marcia Chaiken and Jan Chaiken

The year 2020 has indeed been trashy. Almost everyone’s plans have been trashed by COVID-19. The lockdown of restaurants for onsite dining was partially solved by converting to takeout service, but this led to a proliferation of boxes and bags, many of which cannot be recycled. Over the last decades, hills of trash have grown throughout the world – author Louis Alberto Urrea graphically describes the phenomenon in Mexico – and the situation has been aggravated this year by the COVID crisis and its accompanying lockdown of people in their homes, where they receive home delivery in bags.

Trash, for most of us, consists of items and materials we consider to have no value. In fact, we actually pay for tons of trash to be removed from our homes. Even if we are ardent proponents of recycling, we convert only a small amount into compost for our gardens, and the rest we carefully sort into bins for plastic, metal, paper, and glass. We rarely think about where those who are hired to remove the assorted bags actually haul them, and what happens next.

But for some people, our discards may have considerable value. Who has not noticed the omnipresent trash-pickers or dumpster-divers in urban areas around the world, including U.S. and Mexican cities. Some of them are hungry individuals who exist on a diet of food tossed away by markets and restaurants. For them, trashed, slightly-bruised or over-ripe fruit that would be rejected by regular shoppers is a great find. If they discover sandwiches or baked goods that were dumped for exceeding their expiration date, it is as if they have found gold.

But hungry individual trash pickers are only the tip of a whole underground trash industry. Many of the people you see diving into dumpsters or surveying city dumps are long-time professionals who earn subsistence wages by knowing where and to whom they can sell specific trashed items such bike parts, motorcycle parts, electrical components, clothes, and glass bottles, not to mention items that display a deposit-back label.

Sometimes it’s difficult to distinguish impoverished trash-pickers from artists hunting for the perfect tossed item for their collages, found-art pieces, or installations. Some works of art worth tens of thousands of pesos are hard to distinguish from a trash pile – unless of course you happen to encounter the artwork in a gallery or museum. During a music and art weekend festival at a university, an acclaimed contemporary artist who will remain nameless had displayed his masterpieces around the campus. Early Monday morning after the festival, the janitorial staff hauled away the trash left after the Sunday night jazz concert, including the masterpieces that they assumed were piles of junk.

Do you think this was a mistake of the uneducated? The next time you head for one of the plethora of contemporary art galleries or museums in Mexico, for example Museo del Objeto in the Roma section of Mexico City, imagine how you would regard some of the displayed works of art if you found them abandoned on a city street.

Among those who collect and resell items from trash piles are those who reap relatively high amounts of money for items that are marketed as vintage, “retro,” or collectible. Flea markets in cities all over the world are outdoor environments for selling and buying treasured clothes, shoes, accessories, bric-a-brac, old kitchen and dining ware, used books, vinyl records, crafts, and artwork of dubious vintage. One person’s trash is another’s must-have item. While spending a winter in Buenos Aires, in one of the enormous Sunday flea markets I found a black shawl shot with gold and elaborated with long silky fringes; it turns a simple black dress into ageless elegance. Even now I can almost hear the sounds of a tango whenever I wrap this shawl around my shoulders. At that same flea market, friends visiting from Mexico filled bags with objects that were common in Argentina but exotic gifts for friends in Guanajuato.

Some stores also provide venues for shopping for other people’s throw-aways. While used clothing stores may be déclassé, vintage clothes stores are definitely sought after by young women seeking a certain look. The piles of old vinyl records and old comic books that filled closets and attics and used to be tossed when parents grew old can now be found in specialty stores. And some dishes and glasses that grandma discarded can be delivered to an antique store where they sell for a pretty penny.

One doesn’t need to visit flea markets to paw through mounds of other people’s castoffs to find the perfect whatever. The internet has created international online flea markets such as Craigslist and eBay, both operating in Mexico. The prices for stuff people want to offload can be minimal, but some are high when marketed by someone who is savvy and sells online for a commission.

A ballgown I wore once and would never have the occasion to wear again was sold on eBay by such a savvy entrepreneur, and even after she took her cut I received twice as much as I paid for the dress. Several neighbors who have more money than they can spend in their lifetime buy old cars for fortunes from people who rescue them from junk yards, and then they spend time or money to restore them to their previous shining glory.

Archeologists often spend large portions of their careers sifting through ancient garbage. Last March in the Yucatán, a cave containing more than 150 objects that hadn’t been unearthed for over 1000 years was discovered in the pre-Columbian Mayan city of Chichen Itza. By studying this veritable treasure of Mayan detritus, the archeologists hope to rewrite the whole history of these inhabitants.

We are fortunate enough to have truly creative people around the world reworking the essence of trash and demonstrating that “worthless” trash can be turned into treasured items. In New York City, two artists made a matching gown and tuxedo out of used masks and paraded around town all day displaying their “wear.” We were delighted, when visiting a bookstore in San Cristóbal in Chiapas, to receive our purchases in a beautiful yellow and white patterned bag – washable and practically indestructible – woven out of trashed plastic grocery bags. One kibbutz we visited in the Negev of Israel has no concept of trash – everything left over by kibbutz members, including human waste, is recycled and reused. If you are interested in pursuing this idea further, the website Pinterest.com has hundreds of creative recycling ideas submitted by people from around the globe.

Hopefully, we will emerge from this pandemic with the realization that we are reaping what we sow. By sowing mountains of refuse, we are literally trashing the world. But by creatively treasuring trash, we can save the globe.

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The Muralists of Huatulco

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By Julie Etra

Most of us are familiar with the most well-known Mexican muralists of the 1920s, and the associated political movements: Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, and David Alfaro Siqueiros. But here in Huatulco there are murals everywhere, on public and private spaces, for example the market Tres de Mayo as you drive into La Crucecita on Guamuchil. Those of us who frequent Xipol, a popular corner restaurant and bar on the zócalo in La Crucecita, or even just pass by, can’t help but notice the outstanding murals by Irving Cano depicting Mexican women of all ages. Another well-known excellent local artist, although not strictly a muralist since he also works in other media, is Hergon Hernandez Gonzalez, known as Heriberto.

Our good friends Doreen and Larry Woelfel commissioned local artists to paint the dome at their residence in Conejos with native birds common to the area, and what a wonderful job they did. I was lucky enough to contact one of the muralists, Marco Daniel Galguera Perez, known as Daniel, and learn a little bit about him and his subjects.

Daniel reminds me that “My artist name is ‘Xants,’ in reference to my village in the mother language of my people. I am from the community of [Santiago] Xanika in the Sierra Madre Sur de Oaxaca. I am 22 years old, and began my studies as an artist at age 15.

“I had a somewhat limited life in art as a younger person, for family reasons, as they did not appreciate that I was passionate about art. It was why I left home at that age, the teacher who mentored me was José Ángel Del Signó, he gave me direction in art. Then the Colectivo Tilcoatle opened, where I developed a bit artistically, and lived in Huatulco for three years. Before starting to live as an artist, I worked with a monitoring network of professionals monitoring medium and large mammals in the Sierra Madre Sur.

“At age 19 the doors opened for me to study at the university in Huatulco [UMAR], but where I only studied for 2-and-a-half years, since for economic reasons I could not continue, but there I worked on what is known as screen printing, plastic arts [in Spanish, the “plastic arts” can refer to all the visual arts], graphics. I specialized in el huecograbado [in which an image is engraved into the printing plate or cylinder], and began developing the skills of mural painting and handmade paper.

“I recently completed a mural at the Laguna Manialtepec [west of Puerto Escondido]). Now I’m traveling along the coast leaving large format paintings (murals) in public spaces. About a month ago I started murals documenting customs and social groups in the Mixtec region of Oaxaca.”

Those of us lucky enough to have a surface worthy of their work should consider supporting these local artists by commissioning a personal work of art.

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Look to the Walls

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By Kary Vannice

One of the things you’ll notice when traveling in Latin America is that you don’t have to look far to find out what’s on the minds of the people who live there. All you have to do is read the walls.

By definition, graffiti is “a form of visual communication, usually illegal, involving the unauthorized marking of public space by an individual or group.” But graffiti is more and more becoming understood as an expressive art form as well. And municipalities here in Mexico are using it to send messages of public health and safety, encouragement and acknowledgement during the current global pandemic.

San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, has recently sponsored a movement of young artists to create larger-than-life murals to encourage its citizens to mask up and take precautions in an effort to stop the spread of the deadly coronavirus. The Director of Culture and Traditions invited local street artists between the ages of 14 and 25 to participate in a city-wide muralist workshop. Various buildings and walls were designated in strategic areas throughout San Miguel to serve as their canvas for creating powerful PSAs for the people living near them or passing by.

The workshop featured two well-known and accomplished graffiti artists who designed the murals and then acted as mentors to younger artists who apprenticed under them, perfecting their technique while bringing the designs to life.

Luckily for San Miguel residents, the two have very different artistic styles, which makes the murals distinct and meaningful in their own unique ways. One artist, Juce, focused on honoring the many men and women who have contributed to the safety and well-being of all Mexicans, by featuring health care workers, supply-chain employees carrying boxes of safety equipment and even the general public wearing masks. He named the work “The triumph of society and work over a pandemic.”

The other artist, Persak, choose a more artistic approach, literally, designing three enormous murals of the Mona Lisa, Van Gogh and even Mexico’s own Frida Kahlo, all wearing masks.

San Miguel is not alone in leveraging street art as a public and popular way of encouraging Mexicans to participate in the effort to slow the coronavirus. Recently the news outlet El Universal featured Sergio Morales, known as Applezman, a Mexico City street artist who has also been spraying his visual messages along the city’s metro lines. One huge mural features Capitan America, Iron Man, Batman and Spiderman, all flanking a Mexican female nurse in scrubs and a mask. The tagline above it reads A Las Héroes de Verdad, Gracias (To the real heroes, thank you). It is significant in Spanish that the artist wrote “Las” Héroes and not “Los” Héroes. By using the feminine article (las) he is speaking about women, in this case nurses, as the true heroes of the pandemic here in Mexico.

When asked about the mural, Applezman said, “The image is of the nurse because they are the ones who are protecting us, not the National Guard or the Army; they will do so at their due time, but now, the honor is for these doctors and nurses, and everyone who is fighting.”

When questioned about how he hopes his art is affecting the people of Mexico City, he said, “Sometimes we think seeing is believing, but I only tell them to take care of themselves because sometimes those who don’t believe are the ones who fall. We know that everyone can get infected, ourselves, or our colleagues; that’s why I ask people to follow the rules. There are people who are against the system but that is not a reason to not take care of their own health and their families.”

An interesting message from a graffiti artist, someone many in our society would see as “against the system” himself.

It seems, in the time of coronavirus, factions who would have once stood against each other, municipalities and graffiti artists, have found a way to come together to send a message of hope, encouragement and gratitude. And at the same time made our bleak world more colorful and our outlook for the future a bit brighter.

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An Artistic Pair

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By Eva López García

Editor’s Note:
Mateo López and Chely García are a dynamic and artistic couple who live in Puerto Angel. They have two daughters, one of who is Eva López García (the author of this article). Mateo López is also the grandfather of my daughter Frances. I am a fan of their art work and if you have come to Café Juanita or my cooking school you will have seen some of their work on display. To see more of their paintings and what is available for purchase you can contact their daughter Eva: evartlines@gmail.com

Mateo López

Mateo López Rodríguez, the seventh son of twelve, was born in Puerto Angel, Oaxaca, on September 21, 1948. His mother was assisted by a Zapotec midwife who cut Mateo’s umbilical cord with a machete.

In the modern world, life developed, but in Puerto Angel there were still no colours for a child with artistic aspirations. He began his first mural at the age of fifteen on a wall of the old house that his father had built. With charcoal chalks from his mother’s fire pit, he drew a compass that his father had taught him so as never to lose his way.

Mateo, who has Mixtec and Kuna ancestors who had sailed the sea; this influenced his identity and his art. He began a life at sea as a diver and has never stopped swimming and exercising. For Mateo painting counts as spiritual and mental exercise. Throughout his life he has collected knowledge and experiences that he captures in his oil painting and writing poetry.

Throughout his career he has produced more than 500 art works. Many of them are in different countries; currently he is trying to collect photographs of the works that he does not possess.

Mateo López has four children. He tries, through art, to give a little of his heart to each of them, either by giving them his portrait or by showing them his lifestyle on the path of painting, as he says “I only had primary education. Only six years of schooling in the small school in the Puerto Angel of 1955, and after that I had the best school – life.”

His forms of expression are writing and painting; his style evinces the patience he imposes in pointillism and his lyrical artistic roots. Mateo describes his painting as the technique of inner awakening; knowing yourself is a full-body window to happiness and the realization of the spirit.

Chely García

Araceli García García (Chely) was born November 12, 1976, in San Pedro Pochutla, Oaxaca, a market town that served as a distribution center for mountain coffee beans that would be exported from Puerto Angel. She was the eleventh daugther of twelve children; her family comes from the Oaxaca Valley, which has traditions and customs rooted in the cultivation of the land and the harvest. She spent part of her childhood with her family on a coffee plantation in San Pedro el Alto, high in the mountains north of Pluma Hidalgo.

As a child, she had artistic aspirations for painting. Her work today embodies her experience in that beautiful mountain landscape; flowers and exotic fruits with bright colours, the work of harvesting coffee, the horses and all the energy that producing a cup of coffee entails, the expressive faces of women who were the first to awaken each day to prepare the comal, tortillas, salsa, egg and coffee to feed the men who left on the long day of harvest.

Chely now lives facing the sea. She has dedicated herself to observing it very closely and paints it as a magical and mysterious world. Her magical surreal style with bright colours always has the distinct feeling of Mexico as it is lived in Oaxaca, often showing landscapes of small towns. Her work depicts times of sowing, of traditions like Todos Santos, when cempasúchil (marigolds), Saint Teresa and archwood flowers are harvested to elaborate our altars. Women are Chely’s favorite subjects; she captures them with different expressions, according to their memories or feelings. Angels also figure prominently in her works, they are her dreams and longings.

Chely has been dedicated to painting for 25 years. Instilling in her family the patience and inspiration that comes with a painter’s lifestyle, she is a disciplined, flexible, loving and sensitive mother. Her motto is “I paint because I feel, I am sensitive, and sensitivity is not a weakness is a gift.”