San Miguel, Mexico

I've barely returned to my senses after my amazing trip to San Miguel and am now off for the weekend to our fall art retreat. Thought I'd make a stab at my way-too-many pictures before I go.

San Miguel is a beautiful colonial town set in the mountains about three hours north of Mexico City. It reaffirmed how magnificent that country is for me and how deeply it moves me aesthetically.

This gorgeous church is the centerpiece of the town:

And inside:
I thought I was heading out for a quiet sketching vacation, but was quickly disillusioned on our first night by the 4:00 A. M. fireworks and ringing of church bells. Turns out we were there during Mexico's bi-centennial celebration as well as San Miguel's patron saint's day. I got very little sketching done as we ran to keep up with all the festivities.

Huge, beautiful shrines made of marigolds and a sort of palm leaf were carried in parades and then displayed around the church.

And oh the parades! Dancers, each group in different native costumes, came from all over the country:

My favorite part of the parades were the giant paper mache figures, mojigangas. Cynthia turned out to be a fabulous tour guide for us and arranged to get us into the studio where they were made where we could talk to the artist:

Another grand tour she set up for us was a visit to outsider artist Anado MacLachlan's wonderful mosaic and found object home. His mosaics cover almost every surface:

He uses a lot of old bottles. These are set in old box springs:

And these surround a lovely bathtub shrine:

His plaque sums it up nicely:

I'll be posting more soon after my retreat. You can also check out Paula and Cynthia's blogs for more photos.

And don't miss the great give away over at Portland Art Collective this month. Tory Brokenshire is giving away one of her chandelier glass journals and they are to die for!