Postcard from San Miguel de Allende: Redirecting Graffiti Artists, Part Three

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Part One

Part Two

The murals completed during this past year as part of Muros en Blanco have altered the appearance of the neighborhood, increased the sense of shared community and possibly changed the lives of some of participating youths.

Tourists traditionally have remained in the Centro Historico of San Miguel de Allende or ventured only as far out as Fabrica la Aurora. Some of them now stroll into the heart of Colonia Guadalupe in search of the murals and studios of artists working in the neighborhood. The dining rooms of Via Organica are packed.

And, most importantly, there is an added layer of communal interaction among expats living there and Mexicans whose families have resided in Colonia Guadalupe for generations.

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And more murals are on the way this month as part of the second festival. But this spring’s festival is about more than art. Part Four will be posted soon.

San Antonio Book Festival: Lifting authors from book jackets into your Library

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The quotes on the back of the book are from Dan Rather, Ken Burns, Jim Lehrer and Bob Schieffer. Pretty impressive for a story about a San Antonio family.

harnessmaker_cover_smThe lives of everyone are interesting, but most take their untold stories with them to their graves.

The Kallison family, however, was fortunate to count a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist among its offspring – Nick Kotz. His book, The Harness Maker’s Dream: Nathan Kallison and the Rise of South Texas, was published by TCU Press in 2013.

The harness maker, who had emigrated to Chicago to escape persecution in the Ukraine in 1890, sensed the automobile would soon begin to dramatically impact his business. Nathan Kallison and his wife Anna were uncertain what direction to head until an older couple assured them that, in San Antonio, “the weather is mild, and there are more horses than people.” So, in 1899, the family moved to South Flores Street and opened a saddlery shop, increasingly expanding to cater to the diverse needs of South Texas farmers and ranchers.

As I struggle to encompass the families of the Coker Settlement into the confines of a book, I picked up Kotz’s book last week to see how someone who devoted years to honing his journalistic skills handles a regional story of one family while making it applicable to the experiences of others. Although I am not yet finished, the San Antonio Public Library Foundation is giving me the opportunity to hear from Kotz firsthand on Saturday.

play-ballAs part of the San Antonio Book Festival, Kotz will appear on a panel with Ignacio Garcia, author of When Mexicans Could Play Ball: Basketball, Race and Identity in San Antonio, 1928-1945, with Gilbert Garcia of the San Antonio Express-News serving as their moderator. The topic they will discuss from noon to 1 p.m. in the Auditorium of the Central Library is Our Town: Stories that Shaped San Antonio.

More than 90 authors will be featured during the one-day Book Festival, and, amazingly, it’s admission-free. Decision-making about which sessions to attend is the dilemma. But this year, mapping out strategies is simplified by the user-friendly schedule on the Library Foundation’s website and a great free app. Go to Event Base in your app store; download it; then click on the “San Antonio Book Festival” tab.

Just happened to have written recently about two other authors appearing during the festival – Mary Margaret McAllen and Duncan Tonatiuh. And, from several years ago, a post about the wonderful tales Jake Silverstein spins in Nothing Happened and Then It Did.

And, although there is a small fee, the Literary Death Match sounds as though it should be a stimulating way to end the day. The Library Foundation website describes the event:

Literary Death Match marries the literary and performative aspects of Def Poetry Jam, rapier-witted quips of American Idol’s judging (without any meanness), and the ridiculousness and hilarity of Double Dare. Each episode of this competitive, humor-centric reading series features a thrilling mix of four famous and emerging authors (all representing a literary publication, press or concern — online, in print or live) who perform their most electric writing in seven minutes or less before a lively audience and a panel of three all-star judges.

After each pair of readings, the judges — focused on literary merit, performance and intangibles — take turns spouting hilarious, off-the-wall commentary about each story, then select their favorite to advance to the finals.The two finalists then compete in the Literary Death Match finale, which trades in the show’s literary sensibility for an absurd and comical climax to determine who takes home the Literary Death Match crown.

It may sound like a circus — and that’s half the point. Literary Death Match is passionate about inspecting new and innovative ways to present text off the page, and the most fascinating part about the LDM is how seriously attentive the audience is during each reading. We’ve called this the great literary ruse: an audacious and inviting title, a harebrained finale, but in-between the judging creates a relationship with the viewer as a judge themselves.

litarary-death-matchHey, when a musical group with a name like Cryin D.T. Buffkin and the Bad Breath performs, you know you don’t want to miss it.

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

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(Link to Part One)

Blank walls are magnets for graffiti, but treating those walls as a canvas for public art projects commands respect even among taggers.

To try to halt the spread of random graffiti and alter the urban landscape, Colleen Sorenson joined with Federico Vega to launch Muros en Blanco in San Miguel de Allende. They met with city leaders, including Mayor Mauricio Trejo Pureco, and convinced them to establish Colonia Guadalupe as the city’s first arts district.

Enthusiasm was so high, they were given virtually no time to throw together the new arts district’s first event and public art projects in March of 2013. First, the pair had to identify walls appropriate for the murals and obtain permission from property owners for the project. Then they turned to the internet to solicit lead artists from throughout Mexico and beyond – Germany, Argentina, the United States. The chosen artists were housed with neighbors, neighbors who also rose to the occasion to prepare potluck feasts spread out as buffets for the starving teams of artists who gathered for meals in Colleen’s patio. Youths of the community were given the opportunity to join and work under the tutelage of more experienced artists.

Here are some of the results:

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Look for more photos of murals in Colonia Guadalupe in Part Three.