Out and About in Oaxaca

 Some recent arty happening in Oaxaca - highlights from two weeks in March 2017 -

 

Fantastic, as always, show at the textile museum. This show was devoted to examples of the human figure in textiles. A little sampler from the 1800's above.

  Great wheat paste street art from Jose Olvera somewhere near Santa Domingo.

 

A whole show devoted to artist driven floor tiles made at the last factory of its kind in Oaxaca.

  

Hoarders delight in the kitchen of Rodolfo Morales house.

 A start to finish knife making demonstration at the home workshop of the family who made all the swords for the movie Conan the Barabarian, a little tidbit they throw in during the demo.  Cannot say quite how much I loved this. Can't wait to go back.

 A little taste of real culture as we settled into watch a children's dance performance in the patio of an artisan's co-op.  The kids had practiced hard and we were happy to be their adoring audience.

 Another awesome textile show, this time upstairs at the textile musuem. Both floors are not to be missed.

 Always blown away when I spot the work of Cesar Chavez.  He's a great printmaker. In my head I sometimes think of him as the Edvard Munch of Oaxaca.

And always there's a calenda, a street dance with costume and music. Because this is Oaxaca.#realculture

What we'll be doing in 2014

 

Revolutionary at work!

  Young Oaxacan printmaker Cesar Chavez has been kind enough to invite us to visit his printmaking collective in Oaxaca.

Yes please! 

Oaxacan artist Cesar Chavez

Last year, during the tour, as we were wandering back from Humberto Bautista's studio on Porfirio Diaz, Jill stumbled upon the art collective Espacio Zapata and we've wanted to know more ever since.  Well in a small world story that is way too long to go into here, it just so happened that one of the members of the collective, Cesar Chavez was going to be in Eugene speaking at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art.  The musuem director had recently gone down to Oaxaca and purchased ten prints which were on display too. Can we say kismet and manna from heaven in the same breath?   He gave a great talk on working in a collective and the political art scene in Oaxaca.   And the gods were smiling upon us, because as it turns out, we got to spend the afternoon with Cesar and take him around to show him the "art scene" in Eugene.  Pic is of Cesar above wearing one of his t-shirts.  We went to an art supply store, a frame shop, an upscale gallery, and visited the studio of Shanna Trumbly. I hope he had as much fun as we did. And we hope to visit with him again, this time in Oaxaca. The ASARO show is still up in Eugene through most of April.