Good Neighbor

There are several people who have made a big difference to Amy and I since we moved to San Pedro Ixtlahuaca, the village outside of Oaxaca, Mexico. We arrived in March of this year. Mayolo Galindo was one of the first people we made a good connection with. He liked us and we liked him immediately—we are all artists. Mayolo knows about as much English as I do Spanish, that is, almost none. But Amy knows enough Spanish to get us by.

Mayolo helped design and then made our wonderful stairway banister in the front hall. He made curving curtain rods to go above our arched windows in the master bedroom. And he attached deer heads at the top. Our home is called “Dos Venados," or Two Deers. The railing has two deer heads attached. On my birthday, he gifted us a wonderful tin framed mirror, complete with pounded embellishments and two deer heads with roses. 

It is very difficult to get the art materials I am accustomed to in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA. Mayolo said he could build me frames, so I decided to give him a chance. He said he could make something out of tin. I have never framed with this material. I had some doubts. We talked about the design. He is a master with metal and delivered a wonderful frame. 

It now adorns my portrait of Frida Kahlo.  

“The good neighbor looks beyond the external accidents and discerns those inner qualities that make all men human and, therefore, brothers.”        —Martin Luther King, Jr.