Stalking the Muse in San Miguel de Allende, MX
David Mendoza at Los Milagros
I've been in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico for the better part of a month now. Here to facilitate the First Annual Art Retreat for Women (I can say that now that I've committed to #2!), I stayed on because I love it here. This is my fourth visit. Each one has brought me closer to the place and its people. Thanks to my Duolingo app and GoogleTranslate, I can even stumble through the purchase of an exprimidor de limon, or a cinto de metro at the local mercado.
One of the things I enjoy most about being in Mexico is the music—it's everywhere. In the evening, in the Plaza Principal, also known as the Jardin, you can hear full-throated albeit sometime off-key mariachis serenade listeners with popular folk tunes which the locals all know and sing along to with gusto. You might go in a restaurant, as I did one Sunday afternoon on my first visit in February, 2015, and find a classically trained guitarist in casual concert in a pizza place. I bought a CD that day featuring the artist Severo and local music hero Gil Guttierez that is a mainstay of my painting practice.(I play it over and over again until I'm in the "zone").
In November, 2016, Roo and I were dining in Los Milagros, a large restaurant near the Jardin, when two young brothers who go by the name Media Luna, happened to be playing their guitars, Nuevo Flamenco-style. We immediately became fans of their energetic music and followed them to Bistro Mi Casa where they performed, sometimes with Gil Guttierez and other times, with a full band of their own. When we first arrived for this visit, we headed straight to Mi Casa where we'd last seen Media Luna in May of last year. We were disappointed, however, to learn that the brothers had moved to the beach at Puerta Vallarta where, according to Gil, they were having a good time chasing girls. Oh well!
Disappointment soon turned to something else entirely when we heard Gil with his new accompaniment, what he refers to as his "musical family," now a self-taught bass player named Ruben Olvera and a trained violinist by the name of David Mendoza. Ruben is wonderful, as is Gil. But David's music can only be described as sublime. I've been to Mi Casa three times to see him play. The morning after the second concert there—a group of women from the Art Retreat joined me this time—I happened to walk from Casa de la Noche, the retreat venue, to the Jardin; as I turned the corner from Calle Hidalgo, there was soulful violin music coming from Los Milagros 2. Unbelievably, at 10:00 a.m., having completed two intensely beautiful and energetic sets only about 12 hours before, David Mendoza was busking in a local restaurant!
I took the picture here this morning when Roo and I went to Los Milagros for the breakfast concert (my third!). (Turns out David routinely plays there on Wednesday and Thursdays from 10 a.m. to noon.) Feeling rather ambivalent about our imminent departure, not sure if I'd painted well while here, wondering what it's all about Alfie, I found myself listening to David play and I started to cry. It was like listening to God sing—David is one of the clearest channels of deep spirit I've ever been blessed to experience. He is so not a performer. He doesn't perform, he delivers the goods he has to give with everything he's got and more he probably doesn't even know about. I watched as passers-by were drawn in by his music and was pleased to see his propinas cup begin to fill.
My first impulse is to want others to hear him, to bring him to the States, to Michigan, to Interlochen Center for the Arts, for starters. But my second, and perhaps wiser, impulse is to simply allow myself to be inspired now by the presence of this virtuoso. And to do so in paint.
I've painted "live" before—two years ago I had the privilege of playing "live" several times with Jason McKinney's Manitou Winds Ensemble
—and it was a thrilling experience. (One we'll do again later this summer at the Oliver Art Center!) As my time in San Miguel draws to a close on Friday, I'm going to see what happens if I set up my easel within earshot of David's music tomorrow morning. As I did with the Manitou Winds, I will aim to simply respond to what I hear. Not thinking, just being—with brush and paint.
To say I feel inadequate to the task is a large understatement. However, when I "friended" David on Facebook (yes, I am acting a lot like a stalker), I wrote "I want to paint the way you play violin." He kindly replied, "I'm sure you will do that." I'll let you know how it goes .... Because, perhaps, one day, if "I" gets out of the way, I actually will.
Update: I was there this morning for a very enjoyable painting and cultural experience. Here's a pic of the painting as it came into being as I painted to David's music.
