Category: Mexico

Postcard from San Miguel de Allende: Redirecting Grafitti Artists, Part One

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Several years ago, Colleen Sorenson fell under the spell of a colorful, compact neighborhood of homes, Colonia Guadalupe, increasingly attracting artists priced out of the center of San Miguel de Allende.

She loves it but began to be alarmed by some of what she saw surfacing on buildings all around her. Tagged walls and graffiti attacks on property without permission damage the fabric of a neighborhood.

 

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But Colleen had seen this before in San Antonio, and she knew there were remedies. She was determined to corral the talent behind some of those marred walls, redirecting taggers toward more positive forms of artistic expression.

The gringa transplant with little command of Spanish has made a huge impact on her adopted home in an extremely short time. And, whether working class or artist, everyone on every corner in Colonia Guadalupe seems to know her name.

Some of the results of her efforts, both grassroots and at city hall, will be seen in a series of forthcoming posts.

 

Postcard from San Miguel: Hoping for miracles

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Prayers for miraculous interventions in Mexico often are accompanied by physical demonstrations of the faith behind them – silver milagros, votive candles, written notes, photographs of loved ones – as though the saints above need reminders lest they forget the requests.

Statues of St. Jude Thaddeus attract desperate pleas for hopeless or lost causes, of which there seem to be no shortage of loved ones fitting in this category. But the ones hitting the hardest are photos of children and toys left with prayers to El Nino. The Mister first pointed this out to me decades ago in Guanajuato, as I watched a Chiclet-selling boy longingly eying the toys locked inside a glass case with a statue of El Nino.

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The churches in San Miguel de Allende are filled with similar offerings. These photographs are from the Church of Immaculate Conception, or Las Monjas, in San Miguel de Allende.

Construction of the convent was begun in 1755, funded by Maria Josefa de la Canal as a monumental demonstration of her faith. The crowning dome, inspired by Les Invalides in Paris, was not added until the late 1800s.

Postcard from San Miguel: Things work differently here…

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Need a water tank removed from a rooftop?

Hey, we don’t need no stinking crane.

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Just need a couple of guys with strong backs, some long pieces of wood nailed together on the spot and some rope…

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…Lots of rope because some of it tends to break as the tank is lowered.

No need to block off the street, because who would pass under a couple of boards nailed together on the spot, supporting a heavy tank suspended by a couple of men with strong backs holding onto the ropes – some of which did not break as the tank was lowered?

Only about a dozen or so pedestrians, one couple on a scooter and one bicyclist.

Hey, it was in the sheltering shadow of the Parrochia, surely offering its blessed protection.

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All’s well that end’s well.

Things work differently here.