An Evening at Mama's Art Café

 

Click here to visit Mamá Art Café website 

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 

Extreme Makeover, Mexican Style

Article and photos by Efren Ulloa

PART ONE

Villagers meet before the roof raising

Sitting at a scenic and breathtaking 9842 ft. among the majestic and towering Sierra Norte Mountains of Mexico lies the tiny but proud indigenous village of Cuacuila.  It is home to roughly 1700 inhabitants. It is one of several indigenous communities sprinkled throughout the Sierra Norte, where Spanish, the national language, and the indigenous tongue Nahuatl are spoken. Incredibly, Cuacuila is one of 58 municipalities that belong to the city Zacatlan De Las Manzanas, about 150 km east of Mexico City. Even though each one

This house must be replaced

of these communities partakes in its own proud customs and traditions, Cuacuila finds itself as the leader of a movement that promises, in time, to benefit and improve many of these communities. Only a few days removed from the urban jungle that is the Chicagoland area, I was overwhelmed by the ubiquity and endlessness of the mountains, whose perpetuity and grandeur emanated tranquility and peace.About a 2-hr drive from Zacatlan, there is no form of public transportation that reaches Cuacuila. It is only accessible by renting or hiring a private car to trek the journey through the various winding and ascending mountain dirt roads. The town is indeed small, housing a small church, a mess hall, a small number of colonial style houses, a presidential palace, and a recently constructed room and board building for the various school children that come to Cuacuila from other communities. The one-floor but roomy building is equipped with numerous bunk beds for the kids who dorm there on weekdays and return

The stone foundation is laid

home to their respective, isolated villages and families on weekends.


Humble as it may seem, what makes Cuacuila a pioneering community amongst its peers is the impressive and respectable work it has done over the past year overseeing and authoring the construction of adobe houses for its people. Along with 16 other indigenous communities, Cuacuila formed an organization called CIUDEMAC (United Indigenous Communities in Defense of Our Corn and Our Culture) dedicated to building respectable and decent homes for its villagers. Although comprised of several communities, Cuacuila has quicklyestablished itself as the heart and soul of the organization.
The organization’s objective is to build using only local materials, such as earth, brick, and stone, abundant materials found in Cuacuila. The benefit of the project is that very little, none in some cases, of material is purchased or adversely affects the environment. 
CIUDEMAC’s reverential respect for the environment, evidenced by its use of natural resources and its globally conscious effort to produce homes in a minimally invasive manner to Mother Earth, is one of its more outstanding qualities. By exclusively using crude earth and local materials, the organization also believes that the villagers themselves become the authors of this MesoAmerican project.

Cultural Preservation Comes to Chicagoland

Mary Carmen - Pedro Martin - Miguel Diaz Guerrero

With a grant from Dick Davis Cultural Preservation Foundation, The Wilmette Arts Guild brought three guests from Mexico to celebrate the Fine Art of Fiber.  They visited the Wilmette Library on November 5th for our monthly "Critique" where they discussed with our members their fibers, their yarns, their weaving and their fabric and garment designs.  Then it was off to the Chicago Botanic Gardens for the Fine Art of Fiber Show.  After that it was off to San Francisco for exhibits of their painting of indigenous scenes and

Pedro Martin Weaving on his loom at Chicago Botanic Gardens

more fiber art.

Chicago Botanic Gardens

Fine Art of Fiber

"Stunning quilts, lovely knitted artwear, woven wonders, and breathtaking beadwork are among the abundant handcrafted items on view and for sale during the Fine Art of Fiber, held at the Garden's Regenstein Center. The area's oldest, largest, and most unique fiber art event, the Fine Art of Fiber is hosted by Illinois Quilters, Inc., North Suburban NeedleArts Guild, and the Weavers Guild of the North Shore."

Pedro Martin imparting skills to other fiber artists

At Chicago Botanic Gardens

Ceja Vineyard

Holy Week Procession Grows into Mexico's Largest such Event

By Margaret Fago  Special to The Catholic Voice May 5, 2014

Las Mujeres con rebozo especial de SLP

   My husband and I have come from Alameda to experience Semana Santa (Holy Week) in San Luis Potosi, Mexico. 



The most elaborate event of the week is the Procession of Silence during the evening of Good Friday. This year marks the 60th anniversary of the procession, which was started by the Carmelite church, El Carmen, in the historic Centro where there are cathedrals on nearly every block.

Cofrades del Encuentro

All week, special altars, each depicting una estacion del Via Crucis, the Stations of the Cross, or Misterio Doloroso del Rosario, Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary, are set up in churches and neighborhoods to be viewed. Some of these altars will be carried on elaborate wooden platforms, called andas, during the procession.

The San Luis Potosi Procession of Silence has grown from a small event to act out the catechesis of Via Crucis in devotion to Our Lady of Solitude by a guild of bullfighters from El Carmen Church in

Los Costaleros del Cristo Roto

1961, to become the largest and only procession in Mexico to include Altars for all the stations of the cross and the sorrowful mysteries of the Rosary.
 

Twenty-four guilds from the communities and churches in San Luis Potosi participate with so many members in the procession that it takes two hours to pass through El Carmen Church. All ages participate from young to old, on a four hour walk in solemn slow steps to the drum beats and bugles through the streets of the historic Centro. 


 
Each guild, dressed in its distinctive colors, carries their special “anda,” adorned with

Los Costaleros del Cristo Roto

fresh flowers. It can weigh up to 500 kilos (1,100 pounds). Local artists have carved some and others were imported from Seville Spain, where the traditions for the procession originated. 



Crowds gather hours before the procession starts. Many streets are closed to cars and are lined with rows of chairs for the viewers. Vendors with food stands, toys and other goods pop up in the streets and plazas. A festive, but somber mood pervades the area. 


 
At 8 o'clock the church bells ring, then a bugler calls. Charros (cowboys) on horseback begin the procession of walkers. Drums beat out the slow measured steps. Women, wearing Potosino shawls, carry candles. Men called cofrades who have covered faces carry lighted staffs, drums or horns. The andas are carried by up to 30 men called costaleros (bearers). Horquilleros carry the forked poles placed to hold the anda during the stops. It is a moving sight.

Los costaleros del Tlaxcala con El Cirineo ayuda a Jesus

Museum of Contemporary Art - San Luis Potosi

 

Click here to visit the museum's website.

Cultural Preservation: De Colores p.1

Cultural Preservation: De Colores p.2

Cultural Preservation: De Colores p.3

Cultural Preservation: Morismas de Bracho

Zacatlan, Mexico

Wilmette Arts Guild, Wilmette, IL, engaged George Olney, an artist, teacher and photographer, a resident of San Luis Potosi, Mexico, to photograph the Morismas, a magnificent 4-day spectacle, considered a re-enactment of the Christian Reconquest of Spain, held annually in Zacatecas, Mexico. Local brotherhoods don uniforms, form platoons and challenge one another in mock battles. Blasting blunderbusses emit sonic booms; percussion jolts the enemy and black smoke billows into clouds that obscure the Moor’s castle on a hill. This celebration of Christian victory has a 188-year old official, recorded history in Zacatecas, and I was told it could be traced back four hundred years.

I met with George; we agreed I’d write the commentary and text that would fill the white spaces between George’s photos.

George is a fearless photographer. He once roped himself to a church tower, hung over the edge and took a bird’s eye view of indigenous performers. He has a penchant for “seeing from above.” At the Morismas, this perspective was granted from atop a telephone pole while 3 policemen yelled for George to come down, and when George answered calmly, taking their pictures and parachuting his press credentials, which fluttered down to the Mexican police, he was given, “two minutes” to photograph the mock battling armies.

The results are here, fine, expressive photos, views from above, up close, in among the troops, the marchers, capturing the broad panorama and the intimate personal participation. Although the battles were mock, the injuries were real. The Red Cross was active. At least three ambulances were called out, driving into the droves of Christians and Moors on the hillside, to take the injured to hospitals, and there were many minor injuries, cuts and bruises, some from gunfire recoil, others from falls.


Background and Overview: Morismas de Bracho, Zacatecas, 1992

In 1992 I drove to the Morismas and I hadn't been back since. My impression then was akin to a reenactment of the Civil War, Blue vs. Gray, but this time I saw the entire spectacle, 11,000 participants. The principal actors are now wired with clear loud speakers delivering their speeches. It's far more than a Blue-Gray confrontation! Historic epics, 1st, 8th, 16th, 19th centuries are intertwined, rolled into one story, representative of people, historic figures, and places, and my interpretation is that there are subtexts, resistance to domination and syncretic concealment of indigenous practices.

                           
Armies marched, challenged each other, platoon after platoon, or I should say groups of Brotherhoods that are organized, taking sides. Insults flew, Christians disparaged Moors, and Moors defied Christians. Charlemagne declared the superiority of his Savior and the Christian religion. Argel Osmán, the Moor, answered, cackling, ''Ha, ha, ha, ha." Moors took over the Christian's hill, forming a crescent and star, very visible, red uniforms stood out against the green hill. Each side blasted the other with homemade firearms, the closest thing would be a blunderbuss, but the guns were not flared. And blast they did! Pointed at the sky, thank heavens, the guns roared and my ears rang. I now know how the bell felt when Quasimodo pulled the cord and why he was deaf. The percussion felt like the “Big One” had hit, that is, the expected California earthquake, and black smoke obscured the Moors' castle. 

It was a magnificent, costumed, energetic, action spectacle! There were indigenous dances, Catholic rituals, and baptisms. Moors and Christians took communion together.
There were decapitations, prisoners taken and rescued, and there were subtexts (my interpretation) of political and religious resistance to invaders. Like masks, the Morismas festival both concealed and revealed.

Comeuppance: Sunday, Christians, thousands charged, endlessly, from nowhere (other side of the hill) unseen until they arrived marching, massively, in formation, brotherhoods forming a cross, "In this sign you will conquer," retake their hill, defeat the Moors and decapitate the Grand Turk Argel Osmán.... in this case in the rain.

The Morismas is spectacle, folk theater, ritual, and performance art, on what must be the world's largest stage, two hills, parade grounds, upper and lower, the open air atrium in front of St. John the Baptist’s chapel and Zacatecas’s city streets. Drums rolled and bugles sounded, and the marching column was so long the vanguard met the rearguard looping Zacatecas’ city center.

Flower Festival - Zacatlan

About Dick Davis

About Dick Davis and Cultural Preservation

Dick Davis is retired stockbroker who has lived, taught and traveled throughout Mexico and is the author of Bus Journey Across Mexico.

As Mexico emerges as an industrialized and oil based economy, many of the old ways will disappear.  In a search for a "better" life, indigenous cultures are losing their young people to jobs in the big cities.   With a concern for art and indigenous cultures Dick was inspired to record and hopefully preserve some of the ancient cultures so that generations to come will know their heritage.

Over the last few years, Dick has sponsored reporters, photographers and artists to capture the many traditional local Mexican events such as the annual Flower Festival, Easter Procession of Silence, Morismas de Bracho, Apple Festival and Adobe Makeover Projects.  He arranges for knowledgeable local guides to point these chroniclers of history to the heart of each ceremony.  What they have come back with is in many of the pages on this site.  

He has also encouraged cultural exchanges and specific art projects which will appear in synopsis on the following pages.

 

A Bus Journey Across Mexico

A review by prominent columnist Everett Campbell

Bus Journey Across Mexico

The Book

The Bus

     Dick Davis has a new book out, Bus Journey Across Mexico, which chronicles a day by day odyssey by bus from Tijuana to Guatemala.This book differs from most travelogues in that each leg of the trip is an independent adventure, not simply a stop on the way to a final destination. Every day a new town is chosen in a somewhat arbitrary manner. It will depend on what insights someone has given him about a new place to visit and what bus schedule is convenient. There is no grand design, rather it is all about proving that you can

The Street Car

go absolutely anywhere in Mexico by bus, safely. A corollary might be that almost anywhere you go will be worth the trip.
     Dick starts in Tijuana, gets a ticket for bus to Mexicali and is on the road. He tells us all about the bus, food, people he meets and the sights along the way. There are photos galore, lots of photos which are a major source of enjoyment in reading this book. Lots of homely info such as what they mean by “refrigeration” when he asks if the hotel has air conditioning. Every chapter begins with title “Day 1”, “Day 2” etc. and ends with an accounting of expenses for hotel, meals, tours. Every town has new things to see and do and he makes

The Hotel

friends with all sorts of folks along the way. Judging by there encounters it seems that getting to know all there people is half of the pleasure in each town. There was Mary Carmen the tourist director in Zacatlan, who invited him to the Apple Fair and to write an article about it. There was Daniel Cid the archeologist in Yanga who showed him the museum and invited him to his home. There were many chance encounters that may have lasted less than an hour each but altogether make a real impression of being engaged with the local people. All of these jaunts hither and yon finally take him down to Cancun where he abandons the bus and flies back to San Francisco. Thirty eight days all told. From start to finish it is a good description of how to have a great tour of Mexico . Afterwards you may find yourself going back and dipping in at random to enjoy photos and descriptions of Zacatecas, Tlaxcala , poly-chromed missions , archeological sites, or most any other stop on the trip.
     At the end of the book are several appendices detailing bibliography of history and literature, information about holidays, music and culture and a frankly tongue in cheek way to learn Spanish: namely by knowing a few words and phrases combined with facial expressions and hand gestures.
     All in all a great read. The only thing missing in this peripatetic adventure is a trusty

The Young Ladies

sidekick. Think about other travel sagas: Don Quixote had Sancho Panza, Huck Finn had Jim, the Lone Ranger had Tonto, Jack Kerouac had Dean Moriarity--------------so where is the Dick Davis sidekick? Answer: it is you ! Yes, it's you the reader whom he takes along sharing every confidence, giving you his own unvarnished thoughts and opinions about lots of people and places you will probably never know; but you could. You could easily make the same journey yourself. That is what makes this a very individual book
     Write to him at dickwdavis@gmail.com  He'll write back. You can preview the book at Amazon.com