Artesania in San Miguel de Allende

Artesania: Behind the Scenes in San Miguel de Allende and Guanajuato

Admit it. Next to simmering on the beach or sunning poolside slathered in oil, you visit Mexico to shop. In fact, if you’re a real shopper you bypass beach resorts altogether. On at least one trip each year, you head into the interior, into cities such as Guadalajara, Guanajuato, Morelia, San Miguel de Allende, and […]

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Raul Ybarra: Embryography of a Mexican jeweler

Embryography of a jeweler Raúl Ybarra

It is perhaps only in the “advanced” civilizations that artists are elevated above craftsmen, with the former thought to be leading the cultural vanguard while the latter are only practicing traditional folk crafts. This attitude often separates the artistic talent from the technical prowess of art. There is nothing wrong with a painter who relies […]

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Bronze dog effigies

A Chapala treasure: ceramic artisan Javier Degollado, creator of pre-Columbian reproductions

Feria Maestros del Arte has been called a “heart” show and not just another “art” show because the artists pay nothing to attend — no booth fee, no percentage of sales. We find local families willing to house them for the three days they are here and we feed them while they are at the show. […]

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Javier Vasquez: Jazzamoart, the jazz painter of Mexico Cit

Javier Vasquez – Jazzamoart- The Jazz Painter Of Mexico City

For the Mexican painter Javier Vasquez, painting is performance – a performance done to jazz. As he paints, his hand and brush flash across the canvas, echoing and replicating in paint the rhythms and riffs of the music. He works with the intensity and spontaneity of the action painters of the 1950’s, but for him […]

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Detail of relief on the Pyramid of the Serpents

Did you know? Mexico’s ancient astronomers had sophisticated calendars

Several ancient civilizations developed astonishingly accurate calendars. Even so, occasional adjustments were needed to bring the calendar back in line with solar events. Archaeologists studying the site of Xochicalco, just outside the city of Cuernavaca in central Mexico, believe that a major conference of astronomers was held there in the eighth century A.D. in order […]

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Encruzados Processing

Silver, saints, and sinners™: Semana Santa in Taxco, Mexico

If you have heard of the picturesque, old colonial Mexican town of Taxco at all, you probably associate it with that precious metal so characteristic of Mexico – silver. If you had asked Cortés about Taxco almost 500 years ago, he would have made the same association. In fact, the silver and other minerals from […]

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Jesus Garcia

Famous Mexicans on their stamps – Jesus Garcia

There are all kinds of heroes, from the international arena to the local, and in one’s own neighborhood or family. Most heroes are defined by courageous or exemplary behavior while facing extreme adversity or challenge. Each profession has heroes, too those who make significant contribution to advancing its purpose or goals. This is the story […]

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