A Visit to Frank Bette Center for the Arts

Frank Bette Center for the Arts in Alameda. CA

Nena Reid, Miguel Guererro, Dick Davis

The Frank Bette Center is recognizable as a lovely yellow Victorian building in the center of Alameda. It was bequeathed to the community by Bette, a local artist and craftsman, as a place for “meetings, readings, showings and other creative doings.” Our mission is to fulfill and build upon Frank’s dream of providing a place to nurture creativity in fine arts, crafts, literary, and musical arts. The Center responds to those wishes in a number of ways.

From November 8 through December 22, 2013 the Frank Bette Center for the Arts in

Golden Gate Bridge Loom

Alameda, California hosted an unusual exhibit of oil paintings.  The paintings themselves were not unusual it was how they happened to be at the Center that is odd.  The artist, is a young Nahuatl man.  He is part of on of the indigenous groups living in the mountains of Mexico.  It's an old story, as opportunities in Mexico have improved the native peoples have been leaving their traditional homes seeking a better life by integrating into the greater Mexican population. 

Their heritage is becoming a casualty of this exodus. Dick Davis has a great love

Displays of Miguel Diaz Guerrero's Oils

for Mexico and its people and has traveled through many small pueblos.  He saw a valuable culture that was worth preserving.  In Popotohuilco he met artist Miguel Díaz Guerrero. He was so impressed with narrative paintings that Miguel was working on.  He was recording the people and events in his village.  He was painting what he new and as such was making a permanent record of the Nahuatl culture before it changed irrevocably.

Miguel's paintings have been exhibited in

Indigenous scene from mountains of Sierra Norte

various venues in the United States.  Sponsored by Dick Davis Fund donations to the Wilmette Arts Guild, Miguel has visited this country numerous times.  In his more recent paintings you will see the influence his exposure to our culture has made on his art. his art. 

Click to visit the Frank Bette Center for the Arts Website