One of the perks of staying overnight at my small college on the hill is that I get to attend activities that I would otherwise miss if I had to face a 50-plus-miles commute in the dark through mostly country roads.
But having an apartment in the woods (which is becoming more and more attractive each week), allows me to say "yes" when I'm invited by colleagues or students to do things in The Village.
This week, I had the privilege of meeting a Chicana artist, Kim Martínez, who absolutely rocks. Not only is her art provocative and smart, but she's un encanto de mujer. She's politically active, a born teacher and she's funny and engaging, not at all like the Anglo tortured-soul artists I've known.
During her evening talk, she presented a series of paintings based on her experiences in the Utah penal system. They were impressive and disturbing. Ms. Martínez works at a grand scale, with huge canvases, and in a style that merges the real with the surreal and then veers away into the abstract for another of her series. No series of paintings is like another, which I found fascinating because many artists tend to have a main leitmotif that makes their works very similar.
Take a look at her prison series here.
After seeing her presentation and then enjoying a quick hot chocolate while she had her morning coffee, I couldn't get over the glee of being back in college again. Except that this time, decades removed from the first go-around, I definitely have the ability, the maturity and the presence of mind to take advantage of all that the privilege entails.
3 comments:
Thanks for sharing this with those of us who couldn't be there. The paintings are indeed powerful and moving. I admire their directness, which I suspect translates even more powerfully in person.
Nunca es tarde si la dicha es buena y lo importante es darse cuenta de las oportunidades que nos da la vida y agradecerlas..
¡Por fin pudiste poner un comentario! ¡Yeiiii!
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