¡Viva! Art On The Streets

 

Amy and I are artists who spend time together creating art in our wonderful home in a village outside of Oaxaca, Mexico. We go to the city at least three days a week and feel excitement. I always make a new discovery and am surprised by something I have not seen before. Much of it is art on the streets. 

The street art is awesome and mysterious because we assume it is done for free by artists who create masterpieces.

My daughter Sarah during a visit

One group, called Subterreneos, is a collective of artists. They have their own atelier and make woodblock prints, sometimes on a massive scale. Much of the work is of somewhat political nature, making social justice statements. The prints are for sale, but often also are printed on special papers that are then glued with a wheat paste substance on walls around the city. I have seen fantastic works. They deteriorate naturally, but are replaced with something new, often  in a different location. 

Mural being created by the group Subterreneos for a local food market

Artist working on mural

Native culture, heritage, tradition and “raíces,” or roots, all run deep in Oaxaca. Travel and Leisure Magazine has awarded Oaxaca first place in its annual best cities in the world issue⏤more than once. Amy and I chose to live here after an initial visit. We felt a definite allure. When we found our dream house at a price we could not resist, we made the move. It was like holding hands and jumping into the unknown, but trusting something bigger.

We live outside of the big city in a growing community called San Pedro Ixtlahuaca. Not much around but cornfields and rolling hills, but it has a town center with businesses and is not far from a hugely important Mexican archeological site called Monte Alban.

Oaxaca and its charms are all close by.

More about Oaxacan street art

Stop and Take Notice

Certainly, some people don’t like it. It is commonly regarded as vandalism. But that is not true of all the “street” art found in Oaxaca. As an artist, I enjoy graffiti that is well done. Downtown walls in Oaxaca although often brightly painted are humble and plain, except for simple embellishments. All the graffiti gives flavor to the milieu. Oaxaca is one of the world’s printmaking and graphics centers—so it is bound to go out in the streets—especially with revolutionary fervor. Artists in Mexico are traditionally known to be in the vanguard of revolution.
I always carry my Leica camera with me when walking downtown looking for the unusual. It might be a beggar, a child, something thrown in the gutter or a building facade, etc.
Amy, being an artist, likes the wall art as well. Often she will stop in front of a woodblock print, pasted up on a wall and say, Wow! Other times a hand painted cartoon might grab us, such as La Calavera Catrina, lady death made up fancifully.

Yesterday, while we were downtown we walked by a wall with incredible images pasted upon it. An entrance to a restaurant is there, so permission must have been granted. The images were of black slaves in bondage. The pictures were an attempt to remind people that slavery existed in Mexico’s past. The Spaniards brought slaves to work on sugar plantations. I know about slavery in the USA but it is a surprise to learn of it in Mexico too.

Much of the graffiti is making a statement of some kind. So it is meant to provoke. Perhaps tourists and some locals object to this, but when it is done well, I stop and take notice.

Bloom Where You Are Planted

At times in my present nomadic existence, I wonder, who am I now that I do not have a home? The thought might come as I am standing in a shopping line, and people around me are speaking in a language I do not entirely understand, and I realize I have no one but myself to turn to, or while on a bus as it is taking me somewhere in a city half a world away from my native land. Always, the answer comes back to me; I am comfortable in my own skin, and at home wherever I am. During my crazy teen-aged years, during the hippie revolution, I remember reading a slogan that a flower child had painted on a wall, and it has stayed in my consciousness all these years: Bloom where you are planted.

The combination of Frederique’s artistic encouragement and Granada’s creative atmosphere and bravado has resulted in my reaching for a new space in my painting. I am painting closer to my heart, and not thinking of marketability. My self-portrait came out with an edge to it: blurred borders, three hands, and an intense gaze. I have made three other paintings as well, and they all are different from my normal approach when I am painting landscapes.

As usual, I am walking a great deal. Thank God for my Clark shoes, which are holding up under brutal exercise from walking the streets and exploring. I remain intrigued by the graffiti I see splashed everywhere on the walls in Granada. The textures too, are like abstract paintings. I am amassing quite a collection of photographic images. So much, that my hard drive is becoming crowded. I have to burn pictures onto DVD’s for backup and then destroy most of them from off of my computer as I go along.

Frederique is coming to visit. We have such wonderful dialogue and I welcome her presence and willingness to share moments with a nomad, living in THE DREAM.

Flux Of The Street

Polignano, Italy
He appeared with two friends and stood nearby, watching me paint. His friends interest soon waned and they caroused off, but he stayed close by. I continued at my easel, painting a tall narrow house, rising from the foot of a small public square, with a few trees in the foreground. The afternoon light illumined the surroundings under a cloudless sky. He watched in silence only a couple feet away, studying my every move from over my shoulder. After awhile, I felt something unusual was occurring. Breaking the silence, I asked him a couple questions, and learned he was eighteen, liked skateboarding, did a little artwork and originally came from Romania, where he began school late, at eight years old. His handsome look was of the sensitive type. I painted, and noticed feeling slightly uncomfortable at moments, being that my activity was so closely observed without falter and in silence. Other friends arrived, watching, then leaving to play soccer in the streets. The lad’s mother strolled along, spoke in English then disappeared. He did not leave my side, standing motionless for what seemed like an endless sojourn. I felt him become an extension of my being, and was embarrassed if I made a mistake and had to correct myself. Late in the afternoon, he said, “I have to go now.” We smiled, said “ciao,” then he vanished.

I remember him, and I am sure he too remembers me—and our chance encounter in the flux of the street.