A Funny Story

Yesterday was the opening of the exhibition of paintings from the painting classes at the Casa de la Cultura.

Over time I have been working on a 3 painting series of Blue Doors from photos I had taken over the years.  Two of the doors were from old buildings in Old Town Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA, the other one was of the door of the building that used to house the museum here in Guaymas.

The new Arts and Culture director for Guaymas opened the exhibition after the classes and various dignitaries were introduced and then snacks were served.

While everyone was chatting my teacher came over to me and asked where the one door I had painted was from, was it in Guaymas?  I said yes, it was and explained to him where it was.  He then told me that the new director had asked him who had painted it as he wanted to meet them.  The teacher took me over to him and introduced us and we began chatting.

It turned out that at some point in the directors life he had removed the air conditioner and re- concreted the wall, on the painting I had put in this detail as it showed as a rectangle of a different texture and colour on the photo.  He had also painted the door blue.

What a coincidence!!  He said that he recognized the building and wanted to meet me and tell me about it.  He was surprised when I knew it had been the museum and had visited it before the flood ruined it.

Really odd the things that happen sometimes, to me that was a one in a million chance that anyone would recognize the building or even know anything about it.  Just shows what a small world it is.

This is the painting of the door.  Oil on canvas.

Size: 12 x 15 x 2 in. or 31 x 38 x 5 cm. ssizei

Exhibition At The Casa De La Cultura

Tonight was the wrap up exhibition for the classes at the Casa de la Cultura.  The paintings were all displayed and the musicians all set to play and show off what they have learned.
Roy and I took one of the landlords grandsons with us to the exhibition as he is thinking that he might take a summer class at the Casa de la Cultura and I thought it would be nice for him to see what had been done during the past classes.  He seemed to enjoy it and still seems interested in taking a class so we will see if his mom goes and signs him up.  I told her I could take him with me on the bus to the class and bring him home with me also.
Here are photos of some of the art displayed and a few of the performers also.  We were sitting near the back and I couldn't see over heads to take pictures of the smaller children, I didn't want to stand up and block other peoples views so less pictures.  No big deal.  The people taking classes range in age from about 6 or 7 yrs. old and up to older than me.  A very diverse group to teach and my hat is off to all the teachers for the job they do.
The summer class starts on the 4 th of July so I will have a busy month as I think we can attend class 4 times a week.  We also will have our paintings displayed during the Ruta de Arte for the festival Mar Bermejo.  The paintings will be displayed at the new art gallery close to the City Hall.
Looks like a hot, busy month coming up.

Singing group.

Rock group.

Guitar class.

Older group of guitar players and singers.

The Art Exhibition At The Casa De La Cultura

I mentioned that the Casa de la Cultura had an art exhibition of the work of the students from the last classes.
There was a beginners class, which I took, and an advanced class, which I am taking this semester.
When I went to the first class of the new semester today I took my camera and tried to take some photos of the exhibit.  They didn't come out very well as they are exhibited in the patio and the sun was coming in and reflecting on the glass of the paintings.
Anyway according to what I understood the teacher to say, the beginners class was to focus on the effects of shadows/shading and the advanced class was to focus on the effects of light.
So here are the pictures, which I said are not very good.

The top one is a lady with a veil and it is great, unfortunately the photo is not good of it because of the glare on the glass, this was done by one of the advanced class members.

I think this is one of my favorites, the red flowers on the black.  This was also one of the advanced class members.  There were others; but the photos were really bad.

I was also given my certificate of participation in the class today.  They always hand these out after you take a class there.