The Maestros del Arte fair in Ajijic

Recently the fifth annual Maestros del Art fair took place in Ajijic. This is a wonderful event, put on by a non-profit organization with a large group of volunteers, for the purpose of keeping Mexican folk art alive. Many traditional techniques are at risk of dying out as people seek work in the cities or in other lands.

The artists and artisans come from all over the country. I saw quite a few from Oaxaca in the south, and the famous pottery village of Mata Ortiz in Chihuahua (which I love) also had representatives. In between south and north, I chatted with artists from Guanajuato, Queretaro, and Michoacan. Many other regions were represented too.

The organizers arrange that the traveling artists can stay in the homes of Mexican families and have two meals a day there. For some of the more rural, traditional artists, this may be the first time they have left their own community. They keep everything they earn; no fees or percentages are charged to them. (There was a 20 peso entry fee to the event which helped cover expenses.)

I was feeling a bit frugal after my recent folk art purchases in Colima, so I only got a couple of things at this event. I'll blog about them with a photo or two soon. Next year, though, who knows?

It takes place in November, for three days. A great time to visit Ajijic and the Lake Chapala area! Travel light and fill your bags with incredibly lovely treasures! You can see more at the website of the Maestros del Arte fair.

Las Brisas de Chapala: 2

Here are a few more pictures from Las Brisas de Chapala. The first two show a couple of For Sale signs:




There are maybe half a dozen horses that graze on the unbuilt lots and roam freely. Some of the people in Las Brisas feed them. By the way, Tormenta (the name of the street) means 'storm.'


I took this picture out of my bedroom window. There are a lot more cattle than horses here.
I meant to get more photos of some of the lovely homes in this area, but now Kelly and I are back home. Las Brisas de Chapala is a nice place, very quiet, with friendly people. It wouldn't be my cup of tea long term because you really do need a car to go anywhere and I don't care for that. But I'm glad to have had my time there!

Las Brisas de Chapala: 1

I am staying with friends in Las Brisas de Chapala while my husband Kelly is out of the country. Recently I took my camera with me on a walk, to capture something of the feeling of this area.

Not unlike the Baca Grande area of Crestone, Colorado, where I come from most recently, Las Brisas has a lot of natural beauty, some lovely homes, some unfinished ones, both land and homes for sale, and a lot of dogs. It seems to have been developed about thirty years ago. (My dog Larry is enjoying his stay here less than I am due to the personalities of some loose dogs in the neighborhood.) Las Brisas is much smaller than the Baca, though. We regularly walk a loop around its upper part in about 20 minutes.

It seems that more foreigners than Mexicans live here, though on weekends some Mexicans come out to their second homes, from Guadalajara. It's a friendly place, above the highway from Chapala to Guadalajara, across the highway from a similar, larger development called Chapala Hacienda. While I am quite happy here for a while, greatly enjoying how quiet it is, you do need to have a car to go anywhere from these suburban enclaves. It's not a long drive to either Chapala or Ajijic.

I'll do a couple of blog posts about Las Brisas, as I have more photos beyond these. This one, taken on an overcast day, shows the rolling hills and then the city of Chapala with Lake Chapala behind it.



At this time of year, with the rainy season about over, the wildflowers are everywhere:


We think this is a tamarind tree:

Triptico de Tonanzintla

I didn't realize it at the time I bought this triptych, but it is painted by the same man who did the photos in the book on Colima pottery dogs: Alejandro Rangel Hidalgo. This was in the same shop in Colima where I got the book and pottery, and the owners of the shop spoke of this artist with great respect.

What I bought was a reproduction, mounted cleanly on three attached pieces of sturdy cardboard. Here's the whole thing, its colors dimmed somewhat by my turning off my flash to get a picture of the whole thing. You can get an idea of the size by knowing the tiles on my floor are about a foot square.



It came with a page in English and Spanish, explaining the triptych. This bit describes the picture below it:

The tanned Virgin, the Virgin of Tonantzin, is surrounded by the excellent Indian offerings, fruits from these lands [of the Colima region]: guavas, pitahayas, white sapota fruits, tamarinds, tangerines, figs, oranges, coconutes, pineapples, papayas, mammee furit, melons, jicamas, pears, bananas, grapes, pomegranates, sweet limes, watermelon, mangoes, prickly pears, and avacadoes.

Dogs in the Tombs of Colima

While in Colima, I bought a large art book called Perros en las tumbas de Colima. With text by several writers, all in Spanish, English, and French, and a selection of photos of the dogs, it's quite nicely done, published by the University of Colima Press in 1998. I don't know if it's still in print, but when I did a google search to try to find out, I did notice that copies turn up on eBay at times.

Here are sections of three photos from it. These were taken by a renowned photographer, Alejandro Rangel Hidalgo. Two dogs dancing, like this pair, are the symbol of the city of Colima and are seen as statues in various places.



This captures something of the lives of people and dogs together:



This mother has a busy bunch of puppies!

Pottery dogs of Colima

The other day, some friends were going to the city of Colima overnight on business and I went along. It's about a two-and-a-half hour trip, mostly on good toll roads. We dropped a lot in elevation, as Colima is at about 2,000 feet, compared to the 5,000 here by Lake Chapala. Only an hour or so from the beaches of Manzanillo, it was hot and muggy. It's a prosperous modern city.

And I was a happy camper, because two of my passions coincided: dogs and Mexican pottery.

In pre-Columbian times, the people in this part of Mexico created pottery that celebrated the simple joys of life. And in their tombs, they often put statues of fat little dogs. The pottery dogs we saw are generally quite happy, and they are described in a book I read as having a sense of humor.

(The people also ate the dogs at times, after fattening them with corn. You have to recognize the exigencies of their lives to accept this, I guess. It took me a little while, but the love of the dogs shines through the pottery.)

There happened to be a very nice artesania store in the next block to our hotel, the Maria Isabella. I chatted a long time with the owners, in English and Spanish. Among other things, they had two sections of modern copies of the Colima dogs. Both were imitations of actual centuries-old pieces, but the better ones were handmade and the poorer ones made from molds.

I bought two of the handmade ones, and then went back the next morning and got a third one I kept thinking about. Here's one, where the dog is wearing a human mask. This would be put in the grave with the newly dead person, so the dog would guide the person into the next world.

Nice local blog with photos

Gary posted a comment on my last entry which included mention of his blog. I just took a look and it's a lot of fun. He's actually living in my town of San Juan Cosala, but I'm not there and I haven't met him yet. (I just got back from a short trip to the city of Colima, less than 3 hours from here by car. More about that eventually when I catch up with things.)

He's traveling in a motorhome, meeting people, taking photos -- much as Kelly and I were doing before we settled here.

Reading several entries in my blog reminds me that you shouldn't believe everything you read in blogs -- including mine! He had a few small things that I disagreed with. Hey, that's natural, and they aren't a big enough deal for me to write about them.

I like his photos. You can get to On the Road with Gary by clicking on the title of this entry.

Stumbling on the Day of the Dead

A couple of days ago Kelly flew to San Francisco from Guadalajara, and he will be gone for a good part of November; more about his trip later. I'm staying with Crestone friends John and Amanda and their tiny daughter, near the town of Chapala, maybe half an hour from our house in San Juan Cosala. People in the neighborhood will be feeding our cats, and I'll go home at times. It's a nice arrangement, and is keeping me much more cheerful than if I were alone.

Our dog Larry is staying with me. He's already discovered the joys of scrounging under a high chair, where Cheerios, cheese, bits of tangerine we've picked fresh from the tree outside, and other treasures may be found.

Yesterday had a great flow to it. Amanda has been working on her Ph.D. dissertation for years and I've been helping her lately with occasional editing and discussion. Well, yesterday morning it looked as though she might finish it before lunch, so she and I decided that if she did we would go out to lunch.

She didn't make that deadline, but she got the thing emailed off about six in the evening. We whooped and hollered and high-fived a bit, then she, John, the baby, and I drove into Ajijic for a celebratory dinner out. We went to Pedro's, which has a really delicious international menu, and we had excellent dinners in a lovely setting. We admired a fine exhibit of artwork related to the Day of the Dead, which was yesterday and today in Mexico. That's what Amanda is standing in front of in the photo.

The restaurant is not too far from the Ajijic cemetery, so we drove over there after dinner to see what was going on. I hadn't been in the western part of Ajijic, between the highway and the lake, and was pleased to see that for many blocks it was a typical Mexican town. Here and there along the cobblestone street we saw memorials that people had constructed on the sidewalks, with candles, flowers, and photos of the dead.

The street was blocked right opposite the cemetery, and a carnival was set up. How very Mexican! There were a few rides, with kids on some of them, along with other carnival-type booths and several food booths.

People were coming and going at the cemetery entrance, and I noticed one woman in tears. Nobody seemed to think it strange when we went in too. The dark cemetery was illuminated by candles placed on many of the graves, but we were glad of the moonlight to help us pick our way through the closely spaced graves. If there were actual paths, I didn't see them.

One raised grave had a lot of candles. The name of the person was there on a hand-written sign, along with the dates: he was born March 3 and died April 26. Since no year was given, I guessed he was an infant. The dirt of the grave had a group of little skeleton dolls newly arranged on it, on a neat little path. It was a very sweet memorial.

We wandered for quite a while. Many of the graves just had candles on them, others had streamers or decorations of various kinds. From bits we overheard, it seemed that people would be back today. I heard one guy asking his wife if she had remembered the Chiclets. I believe that people are having picnics in the cemetery today with their dead.

It was a very moving scene. From time to time, we would pass close to a Mexican and exchange a quiet "Buenas Noches" greeting. As we walked, I thought of my own dead grandparents, parents, dogs, and friends. How good it was that Amanda's work took all day and we ended up with this walk.