LOOK AT WHAT I FOUND!

Art student, Cerrito Art School

I started this post 2 days ago and can't manage to finish it! Between work, art classes and many concerts downtown, it's hard to do anything else. Today we're going to go see a series of rock bands in concert, including one which plays "original Mayan rock," and which I'm very curious to check out. How cool is that? Traditional Mayan music fusioned with rock!

Monday night another concert by well-known artists in La Bodeguita del Centro, a pub and arts epicenter downtown. One of many, that is. La Bodeguita is more the "beatnik" type, settled in an old downtown house. I'll post pics of these events. I must add that the symphony here is very good too, and they offer many free concerts. I've gone to some and always leave very impressed.

The main reason for today's post, however, is to write about an amazing and obscure library I found. It is open to the public and a great repository of historic and literary research material. I will get to that presently, since I also want to post on the thriving art scene going on in downtown Guatemala. Starting with art schools (will post more on other aspects in the future). And ... I want you to meet Javi. More on this later.

Art students and instructors exhibit their work in El Cerrito's gardens

Signing up for 4 art classes while on the last legs of a dissertation wasn't the best idea in the world. Add to that helping manage an inn (I'm not much help, I'm afraid), preparing to return to teaching next year and a very active social life with local friends and those from abroad. The latter I like to consider as part of work. That way I don't feel like such a wastrel.

Anyway, one soon realizes that this kind of schedule was much easier to handle some (ahem!) 15 to 20 years ago.

In my defense, I'll say that anybody can sign up in open art schools here, locals and foreigners alike. For the same fee. It's just too tempting. I started with one class: The open art school at Cerrito del Carmen (Little Hill of El Carmen), which is a hill topped by the oldest church in Guatemala City, built before the city was even planned.

Music students from El Cerrito's academy in concert
Historic Center, Guatemala

This is sponsored by the City, free of charge. Well-respected instructors teach nature and portrait drawing, and watercolors. There is tai-chi, guitar and chess classes, all free.

Old man at El Cerrito watching art students and listening to guitars

On Sundays artists hang their wares on the rails of the church gardens. Many people go by to jog, read, walk their dogs, people-watch. Children love to roll down the hill and there's a kiddie park. The church has catacombs, a museum, a food stall and clean public bathrooms.

Two small problems: Guatemalans don't pick up after their dogs (the place has staff which keeps it clean enough, but still) and the hill is safe, but the surrounding blocks are a hangout for prostitutes. The latter, though, keep quietly to doorsteps or shadowy corners. I've taken to saying buenos días when I walk by them, and they reply in kind.

Everybody's gotta make a living, y'all!

Students, policeman y passers-by looking at art in El Cerrito

So up to a point, the art classes at El Cerrito were merely an excuse for a Sunday walk and some relaxation under the trees while listening to birds and guitar players.

One day, while visiting the Centro Cultural Metropolitano just to see it from the inside--a lovely palace which used to be the Post Office and is now an art complex managed by the City--I registered in a drawing class at the Municipal School of Art and Painting there. Pretty much on impulse.

Music students at practice, Centro Cultural Metropolitano

They're good enough, except there are many classes going on at the same time, too many students in each, which makes it too noisy. But for US$3 a month, who's complaining about crowding! Especially because some of the students are amazingly talented, and we all learn from each other.

Walking around downtown with an iPod is "asking to be robbed," so to speak, so taking an iPod to class isn't an option. Nothing to do but get used to the din. I do see some students bring in their iPods strapped to an arm or hidden under a hoodie, but I'd rather play it safer.

El Cafetalito, Zona 1

Eventually one makes friends and we all go to El Cafetalito right across the street, a sort of Starbuck's chain. Their pastries, however, are often stale, as if they are an afterthought to the coffee. So I stick to their coffee, which is good.

This is the day hangout. Afternoons and evenings, it is Bar Central, a bar at an art gallery called Ex-Céntrico which is sponsored by the Embassy of Spain's Cultural Attaché. Very cool place. Always full of bohemian and artsy locals and foreigners, across the street from Centro Cultural Metropolitano.

Printmaking instruction, Printmaking & Engraving Workshop

With all this going on, I also signed for printmaking classes at the printing and engraving workshop of La Torana collective, located at Centro Cultural Metropolitano too.

Woodblocks carved by printmaking students.
These are inked-up and used to make prints.

Because the instructors in this workshop are all internationally-trained and award-winning artists, and many instructors visit from Europe and Mexico to give short workshops, these are more expensive and go for US$30 a month.

These classes are much smaller (due to the steeper cost) and very labor intensive. We carve woodblocks and copper plates for printing by hand. Hands full of blisters now and forget about polished nails! My nails are inky all the time.

Carving of my drawing titled "Apostles of What"

I stick to pencil/ink drawing (no painting for me) and to a type of printmaking based on woodcarving called Xilography. Printmaking, though, includes silkscreening, copper, silver or glass etching, batik, and many other.

The carving above left my hands in stumps, but below you can see the printed product. It is still a work in progress, though. I want to add a wash of sepia ink or watercolor once the prints dry.

Print of "Apostles of What."

I first visited El Paraninfo months ago. It's one of the most beautiful buildings Guatemala City has to offer. Built in French Art Nouveau style in 1890, it used to be the School of Medicine. One of my previous posts has a series of photographs from this place.

The Paraninfo is today a museum and a functioning art school, an extension of Universidad San Carlos. They offer great concerts and art exhibits, and events like the European Film Festival, with lots of contemporary films during all of October.

Staircase, Paraninfo

I heard they offered a great anatomy sketching class. Next thing you know, I signed up as soon as it started.

In this school, students are more driven and avant garde-ish than at the Municipal School of Art. The classes cost Q.100 a month which, I believe, is around US$12, give or take a few. In other words, for less than $50 a month I go to the equivalent of full-time art school, with 4 courses overall. Students interested in an arts degree may also apply for one.

Art school staircase, El Paraninfo

The classrooms still have the old auditorium style from when it was a medical school, with its wood bench furniture and big, wide windows covered in antique glass. Very pleasant.

There are a couple of USA compatriots in my class at El Paraninfo and they chafe at the bridle somewhat, because they are used to more "postmodern" type classes at the art academy they were attending back home in the US.

Guatemalan art schools all pretty much stick--at least in the intro courses--to the "Classical School of Drawing." Old fashioned, yes. I am quite conservative when it comes to education, so I do appreciate the grounding in learning a solid infrastructure.

This means that at the art schools in Guate, most instructors expect you to have a basic understanding of geometry and anatomy. You study anatomy charts, for example, to gain a working understanding of how to place muscles on a human form. Things like that.

I am a nerd, so not only did I study the charts, but I watched the Berkeley University webcast Introductory Anatomy course!

I highly recommend Berkeley University's webcast courses, they have courses on everything! You can find them by clicking here. Also great are Yale University's Open School online, you can find them here. I read somewhere that these are being used for home-schooled kids of high school age. If so, more power to them!

My first full sketch for Anatomy Drawing class.

There is a young man in one of my classes who draws really well. I'll call him Javi.

Javi is 30 and he's obviously from a well-to-do family. Very groomed and fit, always dressed in trendy track suits, expensive sneakers, etc. Javi is very young-at-heart and a high-functioning autist. He speaks enunciating words very loudly, categorically and clearly.

I really enjoy talking to him--or rather, listening to him talk to me, 'cause I don't think he really "sees me." He talks towards me. Yet he is very smart. He carries a backpack full of glossy books on "how to draw wizards and elves," "how to draw anime," "how to draw superheroes," etc. and he brings them all to class every single day.

He has to draw human figures just like the rest of us, and he spends any free time sketching his wonderful wizards and gnomes, preparing for the day when he gets to start creating his very own comic books.

Classroom, El Paraninfo

Javi really makes class interesting. He spends class time making all sorts of sounds. He beeps, he hums, he speaks in a myriad different cartoonish voices. This goes on all the time while he draws very diligently. It's as if some TV were on, airing a cartoon. But the noise from TV cartoons annoy me, and Javi doesn't. Javi told me that he always has "stories happening in his head." I guess that explains that.

Theater students at practice and enjoying the weather outside
Paraninfo, Downtown Guatemala

Javi told me that he is in art school perfecting his skills, because he will soon produce his comics and "the world will be astounded by them!" He said these are "marvelous" and when they are published, the readers worldwide will consider them among the best cartoons ever.

Then he became a bit shy and said "Well, I better stop talking to you about this now."

I asked him why and he said, nervously, "Because here it is where you will start laughing at my ideas." I guess he's used to people laughing at him. I assured him I would never laugh at his ideas, that I find them inspiring (I do). He didn't seem too convinced by this. Yet after quite a while he said, hesitantly, "In that case, you will be allowed to see the comics when I start producing them. Yes. I am hoping they will be deemed good."

After another while he pulled all of his glossy books from his backpack and handing them to me with a "Lord of the Manor" gesture, he said, "Here, you can look at my books. Learn from them. But you can't take them home with you."

So this little story goes nowhere, except that I really like Javi and, to the extent that Javi seems to consider other human beings as, well, "being there," he appears to consider me his friend. Other than that, Javi happily dwells in his world of goblins and superheroes.

Carved antique bookcase, The Workers' Library

On my way from El Paraninfo home, on 2nd avenue, there is a library founded 120 years ago, with all its original furniture. It is called La Biblioteca de los Obreros (The Workers' Library). I discovered it quite recently.

They have books dating to way ahead of that, as they started as a library for union workers, with libraries donated to them. The upkeep is still in the hands of the labor union, but I think its considered as some sort of relic. Doesn't seem any new books have been added in decades.

Antique tables and bookcases, The Workers' Library

It is always empty except for a couple of very ancient caretakers, who tell me the heyday of the library was in decades past, when it used to be of great importance. "A hub" they said, for workers hungry for culture and reading material. The furniture is antique, carved, polished to that high gleam of good wood. The floor tiles are beautiful, forming pleasing geometric shapes.

Better yet, the book collections are amazing! They have collections of El Diario de Centroamérica (one of the oldest newspapers in Central America) bound in leather, in better condition than at La Hemeroteca, the national repository for periodicals.

Leather-bound collection of historic periodicals

There are hundreds of books long out-of-print and collections of letters and works from the founding fathers of the nation and the like. Most bound in leather. The place is, as Guatemalan libraries go, fairly large. I don't think they have much that is more recent than around 1970, but for those interested in historical research or for library rats such as me, the place is a paradise!

It only opens from 4 to 7 pm, Monday to Friday. I will be there on weekly basis, so if you want me to look up something for you, let me know, and I'll see if they have it.

The sun is setting and taking with it the intense heat of this morning. Rock concerts at the plaza await, y'all, and after that, I expect, a cold drink with friends at some of the quaint and quirky pubs 'round here. Can't complain, can't complain. Hey, it's work, remember?

I'll leave you with (below) an interesting piece on exhibit at El Paraninfo.

www.QualityGuate.com
Hotel - Loft - Parking
In the Historic Center of Guatemala