Nature, Development and Artists
Its interesting to see how artists flock around the worlds’ most beautiful places. Everywhere you go, where there is natural beauty, an artist community will sprout. Nuevo Vallarta has been no exception. Soon after my arrival, I would hang around the beautiful lot I had acquired facing the south shore of El Chino Channel (across the water from Paradise Village), doing sketches and small paintings. Other than the mangroves, birds, fish and bugs, there wasn’t much there then. However, there were some boats in the decrepit Nuevo Vallarta marina, and from those boats they emerged: Artists!
Boaters are wonderful people: highly skilled in many fields, well-organized and well-communicated. Some of them are also artists. A woman named Beverly saw me sketching, so she approached, inspected and then spread the word: a painter had arrived. So soon Susy Grover, Anne Timmins and others joined me in our first informal workshops. We invaded an abandoned building, we set shop anywhere we could, we hired tourists for models, we made field trips and shared critique. This was the year 2001 and it all happened while my family and I started the construction of the Estudio-Café. From the beginning the place had a vocation to gather artists and thinkers, and lovers of nature. People would come to watch us paint, or to read and enjoy beauty and peace.
Looking back years later, after having organized several well known shows in defense of nature -“Natura Nayarit”- we find many pleasant memories. Also our conscience is satisfied with having done what we could to defend nature: our main source of inspiration. This feeling is shared by the many artists in the area who came from other towns and joined our quest to raise public awareness and were brave to sign our manifesto, warning the authorities of the dangers of overbuilding. Now that the sad evidence of nature’s defeat is starting to appear in many points of our bay, as the flora and fauna give way to concrete and vehicles, and as the quality of life that made Vallarta so desirable diminishes, I wonder what we should do next. I continue to wish developers and politicians could be educated to bring the culture of beauty and nature into their designs.
The challenge is formidable: to change society through brushstrokes. Our lucrotheistic (I learned the term last week: “lucroteísta” and translated it into English, meaning someone who worships monetary profit) developers and political authorities are rich in money, yet sadly ignorant about the biological and social structures that support our lives. They think their lives are strictly dependant on money. Yet, as artists, the challenge must be accepted.
Even from the early days of the Altamira murals, artists have depicted nature and civilization’s dependence on it. I sincerely hope that our painting will not become a nostalgic memory of the beauty that was, but proud expression of a culture capable of correcting course and making repairs. I wish people to see our paintings of nature today the way they would see pictures of their beloved mother: to better remember, behold and care for her. I wonder if our politicians and developers keep photographs of their mothers. I wonder what to do next.
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Federico León de la Vega
E-mail: fleondelavega@prodigy.net.mx
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Author Note: This is a chapter of a book I am writing about my adventures as a painter artist.
The Federico León de la Vega Estudo – Café is open to the public and is located in Paseo de la Marina 31, Nuevo Vallarta, Nayarit. Opening hours are Monday to Saturday from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Sundays from 8:00 to 11:00 a.m.
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