In addition to being beautiful and having a fascinating history, Guanajuato, Mexico is a cultural mecca, with 15 museums, three major theaters, five major plazas, five temples that range from Baroque to a fine example of New Spain’s Churrigueresca architecture style, and a schedule of festivals and special events that rivals any of the world’s great cities.

Mummy Museum

Once again, time constraints made it impossible to visit all the museums. Since Guanajuato was the birthplace of the famous Mexican artist Diego Rivera, the Museo Casa Diego Rivera would have undoubtedly been a good choice. Then again, both the Regional Museum of Guanajuato’s Alhondiga dde Granaditas, site of the battle that launched the Mexican Independence movement, and the Museum of the City of Guanajuato were worthy sites. In the end, with so many possibilities, I decided to concentrate the two quirkiest museums in town, the Museo de las Momias and the Museo Iconografico del Quijote.

The Museo de las Momias (Mummy Museum) is a macabre exposition of mummified bodies that have been exhumed from city graveyards. The collection of 111 bodies of mummified women, men and children in were exhumed from Santa Paula Municipal Cemetery between 1865 and 1989. The corpses are so well preserved that the hair remains on their head and the clothes in which they were buried are almost totally unaffected by decay. While fascinating, the extent of the preservation also has a horrifying side; many of the corpses were victims of the black plague, which often resulted in a coma that doctors misdiagnosed as death, and “scream” expressions on some of the mummified faces prove that they were buried alive.

Mummified remains from other places in the world are the result of religious rituals designed to preserve the cadavers, or result from conditions such as extreme dryness, cold, alkalinity, isolation from the elements or from microorganisms. However, Guanajuato ‘s mummies are unique because they did not undergo any process of preservation or embalmment, and the cause of their state of mummification is a mystery that is still being studied today.

Impromptu concert in the courtyard of Museo Iconografico del Quijote

The Iconographic Museum of Don Quijote, dedicated to one the great literary figures of all time, Don Quijote de la Mancha, has a massive collection of paintings, sculptures and tapestries that were inspired by the figure of Quijote and his faithful sidekick, Sancho Panza, including works by Salvador Dalí, Pablo Picasso, and Mario Orozco Rivera, among others. The museum was spawned by the Festival Internacional Cervantino, an event named in honor of the book’s author, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, which brings together artists of diverse cultural and artistic disciplines in October of each year and has become one of the most important cultural events in Mexico and throughout Latin America.

In between museums, I delighted in the fancy footwork to be found around Guanajuato. Although they are big business in Mexico, I’m not talking about shoes. From a quick-stepping Mariachi band performing for diners in Jardin de la Union to open-air ballroom dancing in Plaza San Fernando, Guanajuato is one very cultural and very fun city!

But as much as I have fallen in love with this exquisite, fun, friendly city, I know I must soon hit the road again. There is so much more of Mexico to see and so little time.

The territory that today comprises the State of Zacatecas was originally inhabited by diverse ethnic groups who left important traces of their presence and cultural development, beginning with its name: Zacatecas is derived from the Nahuatl Indian word “zacate,” which means a place of abundant grass. The present day City of Zacatecas was founded in the sixteenth century when rich silver deposits were discovered in the area. Exploitation of the mines created a new class of aristocrats that rivaled those in Old Spain, and the newly wealthy filled the city center with distinguished colonial and Neo-Classic style buildings designed to reflect their importance. The Centro Historico (downtown, literally historic center) of Zacatecas is one of the best preserved historic cities on the American continent and since 1993, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Today, many of these exquisitely preserved buildings have been converted into museums, all of which are worth a visit. But with no less than nine major museums in the city center alone, there was no way I could possibly visit them all, so I selected two that seemed to be most highly recommended.

Stunning grounds of the Rafael Coronel Mask Museum

The Rafael Coronel Museo de Mascaras Mexicana (Mexican Mask Museum) is perhaps best known, as it is included on every list of top attractions in Zacatecas. In this case, the lists are right; this is one museum that should not be missed, if only to stroll through its amazing, lush grounds. Housed in the former San Francisco Convent, the museum boasts the largest collection of masks in all of Mexico. The main exhibit, “The Face of Mexico,” presents a large portion of the ten thousand authentic masks in the museum’s collection, many of which are still used today by indigenous tribes during festivals and traditional ceremonies. Other exhibits include puppets from the Rosette Aranda Company, pre-Columbian pots and vases, terracotta figurines from colonial Mexico, and other art displays from pre-Hispanic to contemporary times, but the masks are the stars.

Devil masks, part of the 10,000 masks in the collection of Rafael Coronel Mask Museum

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If you look hard enough, you can pierce the phony facade in even the most tourist-choked destinations. In Miami Beach I finally broke through the barrier when I connected with its artist community.

My first view of the art of Karim Ghidinelli was from a second floor balcony at the Art Center/South Florida, looking down into his open cubicle. The artist sat in the center of the room, hunched over a cell phone, surrounded by massive oil on tin paintings. Initially, the flamboyant colors splayed across each piece held my attention. But I was even more fascinated when I realized that a giant thumbprint had been etched into the center of each metal canvas. I had to see them up close.

Ghidinelli in his studio, surrounded by huge canvases

The intense young man welcomed me into his studio and studied me with dark, brooding eyes as I examined his paintings up close. Each fingerprint whorl was formed by words, some readable and some not, spiraling in toward the center. I read snatches:

“…the most natural pressure is fear…”

“…all the traits that make the self do not come from the self so how do we claim…”

“…fall under the omnipresent post-modern theory of everything…”

“…fearless encounter…”

The artist's intensity is reflected in his workk

I asked Ghidinelli if the concept of fear was central to his work. “We all strive for stability but never achieve it,” he explained. Ghidinelli is no stranger to this struggle; like most artists he never knows when Read the rest of this entry »

Although I don’t pretend to understand the surreal images of distorted females and melting clocks that pervade the art of Salvador Dali, his work had always intrigued me. I simply assumed the symbolism was an unknowable product of a demented mind. So I was surprised when the docent at the Salvador Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida commented, “Luckily, Dali spoke and wrote voluminously about the meaning of his artwork while he was alive, thus we understand what each piece is meant to represent.”

Fascinated, I followed the docent around the gallery as she related the history behind each piece and explained what the artist was trying to convey in his bizarre landscapes. With its 96 oils created between 1917-1970, the Salvador Dalí Museum is the permanent home of the world’s most comprehensive collection of the renowned Spanish artist’s work, including the Impressionist and Cubist styles of his early period, abstract work from his transition to Surrealism, the famous surrealist canvases for which he is best known, and examples of his preoccupation with religion and science during his classic period.

The tour ended at a sunken gallery where half a dozen of Dali’s enormous religious canvases hung. At the suggestion of our guide, we stood above and looked down on these floor-to-ceiling pieces in order to have a wider view. This was a different Dali – one that I had never experienced. “Look closely – what do you see?” our guide asked, gesturing toward the oil titled, “Halucinogenic Toreador.”

"Halucinogenic Toreador" - What do you see in the painting?

I’d spotted the most obvious of the double images even before she asked, but was astonished when she began pointing out dozens of double images secreted throughout the painting. Almost everyone in the room could see the two male toreadors emerging from the two main Venus de Milo statues. Most could discern the Dalmatian dog hidden at the bottom of the painting and the head of the slain bull, with its pool of blood represented as a blue lagoon. But I had to get up close to see the smaller hidden images. The panting is littered with Venus de Milo statues and each one, no matter how tiny, contains the hidden image of a toreador’s face.

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Metal angel sculptures line pathways in wildflower choked Northerly Island, previous home of Meigs Field. The old runway, now a mowed grassy strip, is still visible in the background.

During my recent trip to Chicago, I took an afternoon stroll around Northerly Island, located just behind the downtown Museum Campus on the lakefront. This narrow peninsula was once home to Meigs Field, a tiny airport that opened on December 10, 1948 and by 1955 was the busiest single-strip airfield in the country. In its latter years, the airfield served mostly private planes, but I have a vivid recollection of landing at Meigs in a prop engine puddle-jumper many years ago, so commercial airlines must have used the field at one time. Landing and taking off from Meigs Field was a scary proposition. The runway was short and dead-ended into Lake Michigan; my first landing was my last – purposely. I was certain my plane was going into the drink.

In 1994, Chicago’s Mayor Daley announced plans to close the airport and build a park in its place. Nine years of legal battles ensued until, in a controversial move on March 30, 2003, the Mayor ordered private crews to destroy the runway in the middle of the night, bulldozing large X-shaped gouges into the runway surface. Daley subsequently excused his actions, insisting that post-9/11 risks of terrorist-controlled aircraft attacking the downtown waterfront necessitated the closing of Meigs Field.

Closeup of sculpture on Northerly Island

These days, Northerly Island is strewn with wildflowers. Metallic angel sculptures rise amidst blossoms, pointing the way down narrow asphalt paths winding between the Adler Planetarium and the old air tower. Butterflies drift from bloom to bloom and songbirds warble melodies from nests secreted in tall grasses. Eerily, concrete runway markers – the only remnant of the once busy airfield – poke their heads above thick vegetation growing on the old landing strip. Walking through this idyllic park, it is hard to imagine that it may soon undergo yet another radical transformation. Read the rest of this entry »

In the world of museums it would seem unlikely if not downright preposterous to find circus artifacts mingled with fine art, yet that is precisely what visitors find at the John and Mabel Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, Florida. With a name like Ringling, the circus connection is not surprising – the benefactors of the museum are the famed couple who owned and operated the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus for many years. What does surprise is the impressive collection of European, Asian and American paintings and sculptures.

One of numerous galleries displaying the impressive collection of Baroque paintings amassed by John and Mabel Ringling

With the great fortune amassed through their circus, John and Mabel Ringling traveled extensively throughout Europe. In Italy, especially, they developed a passion for fine art, which led to John becoming a regular at New York and London art auctions during the 1920′s. He purchased masterpieces by Rubens, Titian, Velazquez, Hals, Van Dyck, and Gainesborough, as well as a collection of Cypriot, Greek and Roman antiquities from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. By 1931, Ringling had built a museum designed after the Renaissance and Baroque palaces and museums of Italy to house their ever-growing collection.

"The Triumph of Divine Love," one of eleven enormous canvases painted by Peter Paul Rubens for his series "The Triumph of the Eucharist"

Immediately inside the front doors of the museum hang five enormous paintings by Peter Paul Rubens from the series titled The Triumph of the Eucharist. At a time when the Catholic Church was losing membership to the newer Protestant denomination, Isabella Clara Eugenia, a devout Catholic and daughter of King Philip II of Spain, commissioned Rubens to paint a set of 11 scenes depicting the Catholic celebration of Eucharist or Mass. The paintings were produced for weavers of the day, who used them as templates to create tapestries that hung on the walls of royal palaces and homes of the wealthy. After Eugenia’s death in 1633, the paintings were dispersed throughout Europe. Four of the originals were destroyed in a fire, two eventually landed in the Louvre Museum in Paris; the remaining five were purchased by the Ringlings in 1926, becoming the only large-scale painting cycle by Rubens outside of Europe. Read the rest of this entry »

If the old wife’s tale is true – that an apple a day keeps the doctor away – folks in Hendersonville, North Carolina should be the healthiest in the state. North Carolina is the 7th largest apple-producing state in the nation and Henderson County is the largest apple-producing county in North Carolina. This was news to me. Although I lived in North Carolina for years and had passed through Hendersonville on occasion, I was unaware that apples were such an important part of the economy.

Downtown Hendersonville's cute Main Street

I am here quite by accident. Keeping my NC real estate license on active status requires me to take eight hours of continuing education each year. I chose to attend classes in Hendersonville because it is a day’s drive from Sarasota, Florida.

Giant apple decorates sidewalk in front of Hendersn County Courthouse

The classes were painful – eight hours trapped in a conference room with a hundred other agents who didn’t want to be there either – but once the disagreeable deed was done, I regained my sanity by investigating this lovely town, nestled in the heart of the Blue Ridge National Heritage Area at the southern end of the Smoky Mountains.

Shaking off the drudgery of the classes, I strolled the length of Hendersonville’s historic Main Street, enjoying this charming downtown that wanders up and down gently rolling hills, with views to the not-too-distant mountains. At the Henderson County Courthouse I paused to examine the curious giant hand-painted apple on the sidewalk. Soon I realized that these apple sculptures were scattered throughout downtown. This program of public art on display, appropriately named “A Slice of Hendersonville,” showcases apples decorated with images of bluegrass musicians, mountains, valley orchards, sheet music, maps, and even a scene from “Alice In Wonderland.” The local goldsmith Read the rest of this entry »

Historical photo of Stanley Papio, welder and artist

Like many artists, Stanley Papio was never fully appreciated until after his death. A former boxer, horse groom, and Army veteran, Papio made his way to Key Largo in the 1940′s and settled on a cheap piece of land right next to the highway, where he built a salvage and welding business. In those early years no one cared that he filled his front yard with junk. The Keys had not yet been discovered and Papio’s nearest neighbor lived 15 miles away. But when developers arrived the surrounding property sprouted with fancy homes and residents began to complain about the old washing machines, cars, toilet bowls, and scrap metal heaped in piles around his plot. All that “junk” at the entrance to Key Largo was an eyesore. No one cared that Papio had been there first.

The town hounded him to remove the junk and bring his property up to code. He refused to comply, instead creating sculptures welded together from his treasured junk and displaying them in his front yard. Papio considered his Read the rest of this entry »

There are things I love about Key West. The weather is awesome – my skin absolutely glows in the tropics. It is a small, eminently walkable island (only seven miles around). Key West is one of the safest places I have ever visited; I can walk home alone at any hour of the night without worry. Vegetarian food is abundant; in fact one of the best vegetarian restaurants I have ever been to – The Cafe – is located in Key West. The beaches are lovely and within walking distance. A strong arts culture ensures there is always some event going on, whether it be a gallery showing, an arts film, or a display of sculpture in the public parks.

The beach at Fort Zachary Taylor is my favorite - a lovely sheltered cove, pure white sand, and no tourists

But for all this, Key West unsettles me. After being here a few days I start to feel uncomfortable in my skin. I know that it is a real place with real people who live here year round; the problem is that the real people are overshadowed by the Read the rest of this entry »