Jalisco, Mexico (Day 1)

2008, April 24 (Michigan to Mexico Day One and Two)

I’ve written way too much so I’ll have to break this into a few posts (not that anyone is going to read them anyway!)

I traveled to the state of Jalisco, Mexico last week. I visited the city of Zapopan near Guadalajara with José R., Assistant to the City Manager of Grand Rapids, Michigan. We were there to select some art work for an exhibition taking place in July that will coincide with the signing of an order declaring Zapopan and Grand Rapids as sister cities. While the trip was for selecting artwork and making arrangements for their travel I welcomed the opportunity to revisit my parents’ homeland and get to know more of Mexico.

Wednesday morning was spent looking over the potential exhibit space in Grand Rapids and making notes about what needed to be done to get the space prepared for exhibiting. The exhibit will hang in what used to be the Grand Rapids Art Museum before they moved to their new building. The Zapopan exhibit will share space with the annual Festival of the Arts exhibit. Festival organizers were gracious enough to spare us a space to hang some work. After checking the site José and I caught our flight arriving in Guadalajara late in the evening.

Thursday was my birthday. I hope the travel and new experiences I was about to encounter are signs of good things to come. We caught a great breakfast in the hotel that gave a whole new angle to the term “buffet”. Only in Mexico could you find chilaquiles, pozole, menudo, chorizo and pan dulce along side eggs, potatoes, bagels and yogurt. A very nice and talkative woman named Teresa made us some hot tortillas from freshly ground corn. The rest of the morning was spent meeting representatives from the city of Zapopan and arranging meetings with artists and curators. In the afternoon we headed to the heart of Zapopan and met up with Luis Macias, an artist José had met on a previous visit. Luis took us around to the cathedral and the Huichol museum that is housed right next door. I quickly purchased a couple of brightly colored beaded animal forms for my boys just as the gift shop was closing up.



As we walked around the plaza we noticed a rally of protestors and armed police in front of the city building. I tried to take some discreet pictures as we walked passed them to enter the building where an exhibit we wanted to see was hanging. The exhibit “Trazos de Una Vida” (Strokes of a Life), lithograph prints of Mexican women by Raúl Anguiano was displayed on the second floor atrium of the building. Mr. Anguiano was one of the founding members of the Taller de Grafíca Popular. We walked around the area taking in the sights as Luis made calls to various friends to lock in times to see their art. Before continuing on we took a break from the heat of the day by having a couple of Indio, a tasty dark Mexican beer, at a corner bar.






We next visited Hospicio de las Cabañas where I was able to view works by two of my favorite Mexican masters, José Clemente Orozco and Alejandro Colunga. (http://www.galenfrysinger.com/orozco_murals_hospicio_cabanas_gradalajara.htm) Colunga’s magical bronze chairs decorate the plaza just outside the Cabañas. Luis informed us that he and his father had created the bronzes according to Colunga’s specifications. It turns out that Luis’ father was the official church sculptor for Guadalajara. Luis had worked closely with his father from age 14 on. Once inside the Hospicio Cabañas I was pleasantly surprised to see the intense murals by Orozco. I don’t know how it had slipped my mind that the iconic Hombre En Fuego was in Guadalajara. We chanced upon a very animated and informative tour guide who walked a small group around the space. I found his rapid-fire explanations of various aspects of the imagery and tricky perspective insightful and very well thought out. I particularly liked the minimalist description of the LosTres Grandes: “Rivera was a communist who liked the fine things, Siquieros a red and black socialist, Orozco was…a Humanist.” I lay on the cool stone floor of this former church and children’s orphanage to take in the frescos on the ceiling and snap some pictures.


By the time we got to the mercado we were starting to wear down. It was 4 p.m. – lunch time in Mexico. Luis recommended a food post that would have something we could all eat. I don’t eat any land flesh, which can make eating in foreign meat loving lands like Mexico a bit of a challenge. In addition to my personal eating choices we were being cautious to avoid any chances of becoming host to any opportunist intestinal critters. I was a bit worried about Luis’ choice at first but threw caution to the wind as he ordered up three bowls of spicy fish soup and corn tortillas for the three of us. The soup hit the spot in all the right ways (and luckily not the wrong ways). After lunch José and I parted ways with Luis and the mercado feeling invigorated.

José and I were anxious to check out a fair we had read about in the paper called Zapopum. In a cab headed north I took in the sights and smells of Guadalajara rush hour traffic while José made conversation with the driver. I noticed how the smell of mesquite smoke took me back to the earliest times I had visited Mexico with my family. Upon arriving at our destination we purchased entry to Zapopum for the very agreeable price of about $1.50 American. The fair turned out to be less than what we expected but what had caught our attention in the paper was not. A group by the name Architects of Air had a display entitled Levity III (http://www.architects-of-air.com/main.html). The inflatable vinyl structure with its minimal design and soundscape soundtrack was a welcome break from the sensory overload of the day in the city. The translucent quality of the material the structure is built from creates a mesmerizing sensation within a colorful labyrinth of womblike tunnels. Inside it felt like we were being bathed in the light of a stained glass cathedral.


When we emerged from the cool calm oasis of the sculpture we noticed a darkening sky and what we thought were dark rain clouds. We later found out that the clouds (and the smoke I had smelled earlier) were billowing from the arsonist set burning of a forest nearby. 40% of the forest burned that day. We’re told that this a customary occurrence by shady developers that are tired of waiting for building permits.


It was late by the time we got back to our hotel and freshened up. We decided to find a bar nearby where we could kick back and enjoy a few birthday drinks. We skipped the loud and trendy bar full of youngsters because of the awful music selection and the absence of Indio. Instead, we opted for a smaller open bar that had a young hipster bartending. We drank the last two of the Indio beers he had and then moved on to something else that I can’t recall now. Sobering thought for the day: Watching tv coverage of the burning forest while being surrounded by a group of four little girls that looked to be from 1 1/2 – 7 years old. They were begging for money in exchange for some gum packets. We gave them money and told them to keep the gum for someone else. This idea seemed strange to them and they kept trying to leave the gum. José and I sat stunned with probably the same thing running through our minds “those kids our our kids’ ages.”