Mexico!

Mexico is an amazing country. Bountiful in resources, culture, geography, historical wealth, countless places of interest, but most important, its people. I have been to Mexico three times and every time I return in love with Mexicans: they are friendly, helpful, generous and resourceful. It breaks my heart the violence resulting from drug traffiquing, corruption in political figures, and greed in corporations such as banks and industrial compounds who profit well from chaos. How to change that? I can only offer what I do: art.

Thanks to efficient friends in Mexico who contacted me with arts organizations, I was able to give four workshops. Different groups were interested, two in Oaxaca and two in Mexico City. The workshops I designed for them was based on chine-collé, a mixed media technique in printmaking. I carried a Pin Press and Akua inks, they provided the rest. The participants were print makers and art students from different organizations. As payment each group brought homemade Mexican food to share with the group. Each workshop was different and enriching. I am truly grateful for having had the opportunity to contribute and learn so much!

In Oaxaca the workshops took place at La Curtiduria and at Universidad Autonoma Benito Juarez:

La Curtiduría
Espacio Contemporáneo para las Artes

Universidad Autonoma Benito Juarez
departamento de Artes Gráficas

In Mexico City I was fortunate to run workshops at the following Arts Organizations.

Escuela de Iniciación Artística de Mexico
escuela numero 1

La Clinica
Artist Run Centre in Mexico City

Transformers

I have been working on mono-prints but I am not quite happy with them.  So I decided today to play transformers, and to turn the five prints I did as prep work for the trip to Mexico, into paintings.  I glued them on wooden boards and waxed them, which gave them a different quality.  This enabled me to work on them a bit more, and it looks like they are going to work fine this way.  Here a sample of the five prep-mono-prints transformed into paintings.