MEXICO CITY: DOLORES OLMEDO MUSEUM

March 10, 2018

So . . . who was Dolores Olmedo? A very wealthy Mexican businesswoman and collector, Dolores was Diego Rivera's and Frida Kahlo's friend, and even appears in some of Diego's paintings. After Frida died in 1954, Diego spent the last three years of his life living with her in her home in Acapulco, where he died in 1957.  Dolores told Diego that she planned to create a museum to show his work, and he made a list of paintings she should acquire, including 25 pieces by Frida. She did not like either Frida or her work, but she bought up all the work she could anyway, along with 137 works by Diego. In fact, she because the foremost collector of his paintings.

Dolores bought a large piece of land in the Xochimilco district in 1962. She built a beautiful estate home there, which she converted into a museum in 1994. That museum now houses the largest collections of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo paintings. She outlived Diego Rivera by 45 years, dying in  2002.

And this is where I wish I had the pictures from my camera. Bob has dozens of photos of the Mexican hairless dogs and a peacock on the property, and six pictures of the museum interior. SIX.

Maybe photos weren't allowed inside? I can't remember. Sigh.

Frida loved dogs, particularly the hairless Xoloitzcuintle (aka Xolo dog, Colima dog, or Mexican hairless dog).  Dante, Miguel's dog in the Disney movie Coco, was a Xolo dog.

She sometimes included her favorite dog, Senor Xolotl, in her paintings. This one, Self Portrait with Monkey (1945), is in the Dolores Olmedo Museum, but I had to find this photo on the internet. I wonder why Senor Xolotl's name didn't make it into the title?

I think these dogs were the highlight of the visit to the museum for Bob.

MEXICO: XOCHIMILCO CANALS AND UNAM

June 10, 2018

After leaving Coyoacán, we headed south to visit Xochimilco, "The Venice of Mexico." Like Coyoacan, Xochimilco is one of the alcadias, or burroughs of Mexico City. It is best known for its 110 miles of canals, remnants of the extensive canal system built by the Aztecs.

In 2011 Xochimilco was designated one of Mexico City's twenty-one "Barrio Magicos," or Magical Neighborhoods. (Incidentally, the city center of Coyoacan is also a Barrio Magico.)

This is another city that I visited 40 years ago, and in the intervening decades, tourism here has increased dramatically. Dozens of boats were lined up at the dock waiting for passengers.

Victor purchased our tickets and we boarded our boat, "Puros Cuates," which I think means "Pure Friends" (Pals? Chums?)

Many of the boats are named after girlfriends or wives: Adriana, Lupita, Victoria, Julietta, Carmelita, Andrea, Conchita, Maria Cristina . . .

MEXICO: COYOACAN, PART II--LA CASA AZUL

March 10, 2018

Finally it was time to go inside La Casa Azul.

I've always been intrigued by Frida Kahlo, but visiting her home in Coyoacán made me a little obsessed, which I have been ever since. 

Her life was crazy.  She was born in Coyoacán in 1907 to a German immigrant father and a mestiza, or mixed race, mother. She had polio at age six, which made one leg shorter than the other. A very intelligent young woman, she planned to attend medical school, but at age 18 she was in a bus accident in which a iron handrail went through her pelvis, fracturing her pelvic bone, puncturing her abdomen and uterus, breaking her spine in three places and her leg in eleven places, and crushing her right foot. She lived with significant pain for the rest of her life.

She met Diego Rivera, already a famous painter and 20 years her senior, in 1928. He had been married twice (and was still married). They were married in 1929. I don't get what was so appealing about him to her. Her parents, who didn't approve of him, called it "a marriage between an elephant and a dove."

Diego and Frida, 1933  (Photo from here)

They lived for a time in Cuernavaca, then they lived in various cities in the United States where Diego got commissions, including San Francisco, Detroit, and New York City. They built a house in 1934 in San Angel that was really two houses, his pink and white and hers blue, joined by a bridge. They lived there together until their divorce in 1939, at which point Frida moved back to her childhood home, La Casa Azul. She began to experience more and more success with her art, which was featured in major exhibitions in Mexico City, San Francisco, and New York City. She and Diego remarried in 1940. However, her poor health and escalating physical problems increasingly confined her to La Casa Azul.

By the mid-1940s she could not sit or stand for any length of time. She had a failed operation on her back in NYC in 1945, and further surgeries in Mexico City in 1950. Her right leg was amputated to the knee in 1953, and she became dependent on pain killers, even attempting an overdose when Diego had yet another affair. She died at age 47 in July 1954 of a pulmonary embolism. Her body lay in state under a Communist flag in the Palacio de Bellas Artes, and a few days later she was cremated as she had wished. Diego lived three more years.

Her art can be bizarre, and yet far more approachable for me than that of many others of her era. She spoke for feminism and social justice, and yet there was a deeply personal aspect of much of her work. There just isn't anyone like her--and I have to confess that I am part of the movement that has been called (and criticized extensively) "Fridamania."

In any case, La Casa Azul was opened as a museum just four years after her death; it is one of the most popular museums in Mexico City. It serves to preserve her personal possessions and to highlight the way she lived, as well as a kind of art museum.

I'll start with the art.

Frida started but never finished this Self-Portrait while she and Diego were living in Detroit in 1932.

MEXICO: COYOACAN PART I--HOMAGE TO COYOTES, ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST, AND LEON TROTSKY

March 10, 2018

Victor let us sleep in until 9:00, and then picked us up to take us to one of his favorite breakfast spots, Pattiserie Dominique. In spite of its French name, it had a decidedly Mexican flavor.

I had delicious huevos rancheros.

Bob had a croquette, a sandwich with pork and Gruyere cheese topped with a sunny-side-up egg.

MEXICO: MEXICO CITY, PLAZA DE LA CONSTITUCION AREA

March 9, 2018

Victor picked us up at the hotel at 10:30, and we headed towards the Plaza de la Constitución, the main zocolo, or public square, of the city. I've circled a few of the places we went on the map below just to show how condensed the sites are. The Plaza is #2.

On our way to the Plaza, we stopped at the Palacio Bellas Artes, or Fine Arts Palace (#1 on the map), which is where the famous Ballet Folklorico performs. Built between 1904 and 1934, it has an Art Nouveau exterior . . .

. . . and an Art Deco interior. Here is the inside of the dome . . .

. . . and a view of the main lobby:

Photo from here

The next day we saw the Palacio at night--a truly gorgeous building.

Ó

MEXICO: ARRIVAL IN MEXICO CITY

March 8 2018

I have long wanted to take a trip to Mexico City, which I had visited with my mother just after my high school graduation in 1978 and where I had spent nine weeks during 1979 on a summer study abroad program.  I could never convince Bob to move it to the top of our travel list. Then our close friends were called to preside over the Mexico Villahermosa Mission of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and I got Bob to agree to a trip to visit them there.  And since we were already in Mexico, why not add a trip to Mexico City and surrounding attractions?

A bonus was that Arnold Pedroza, the father of our nephew-in-law John, is a well-known and highly respected tour guide in Mexico. John arranged for him to take us around. He and his son Victor, who took over on days Arnold had other commitments, were fantastic tour guides, some of the best we have had. How could we pass up an opportunity like that?

We had a fantastic trip, and Bob was so taken by Mexico's indisputable charms that he has since returned to another part of Mexico with John and has a goal to visit all the Mexican states.

So why haven't I already blogged about this trip that happened two years ago?  On our way home, I experienced every traveler's worst nightmare: I lost my camera in the Mexico City airport.  I don't know if it was stolen or if I just left it looped on my chair during lunch, but I didn't realize I didn't have it until I got home and unpacked.  I know I had it in the airport because I took a few pictures there, but that was the last time I saw it. I immediately contacted the airport, and Victor even went to the airport to check the lost and found, but no camera.  I was devastated.

Arnold had taken quite a few pictures while he was with us, and he kindly put them on a flash drive and sent it to me via John. Bob also shared his pictures with me, and I had about 100 photos of my own on my cell phone.  This was too good of a trip to not record, and so I've decided to use piece the trip together by using everyone's photos.  I also have about 30 pages of notes in a notebook that will help.

Our trip started out very well. We were upgraded to business class for the three hour flight from LAX to Mexico City on Delta Airlines. Our on-flight breakfast was probably the best airline meal we've ever had. We both had delicious smoked salmon and a bowl of strawberries and blueberries. I had buckwheat pancakes with macerated strawberries, and Bob had some sausage thing. All of it was excellent.

With a population of almost 9 million people, Mexico City is the most populous city in North America. (New York City has a population of about 8.4 million.) The greater Mexico City population is 21.3 million. Mexico City is the largest Spanish-speaking city in the world and is also the oldest capital city in the Americas.  When I visited there in 1978 and 1979, it was known as Mexico DF, or Districto Federal, but now it is officially the Ciudad de Mexico, or CDMX.

 

MASSACHUSETTS: MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS BOSTON

November 7-11, 2018 

I love art museums, and when some of my new friends at the Boston Honors conference invited me to go with them to the Museum of Fine Arts after a day of lectures, I jumped at the chance. The MFA Boston is the 17th largest art museum in the world by public gallery area and contains almost a half-million works of art. It was founded in 1870 and moved to its current location in 1909.

Photo from  mfa.org

I split up from my friends and wandered around on my own. There was no way I could do the museum justice in the two hours we had before closing, but I could see a lot more on my own than with a group.

From 1916 to 1925, John Singer Sargent painted a series of frescoes that adorn the rotunda. I thought I had pictures of them, but I can't find them. However, here is a sketch he did for one of the paintings: Atlas and Hesperides (1922-1924):

There was a wonderful display of musical instruments. Since my daughter played the French horn, that's what caught my eye first:

MASSACHUSETTS: BOSTON - BACK BAY AND BEACON HILL

November 7-11, 2018

Occasionally I get the opportunity to attend a work-related conference in a fun place.  In 2018 I went to Boston for a national Honors conference.

The conference was wonderful, and I made sure that I took every opportunity to explore the local area during lunch and after the last session every day.

I stayed in the Westin Copley Hotel, located in the prestigious Back Bay area of the city, and to get to the conference, which was in the nearby Marriott, I had to walk through Copley Place, a very upscale shopping mall that links the Marriott to the Westin. It was a good ten-minute walk, and for numerous reasons I enjoyed every minute of it every time I did it. 😊

FLORIDA: ST. PETERSBURG DALI MUSEUM

June 9-18 2017

At the end of another long day of scoring, we used an Uber to go to St. Petersburg, a neighboring community known as "Sunshine City."

Well, there wasn't any sunshine when we were there. We dashed through a downpour to our destination, a building marked by this famous signature: 

What? You don't recognize it?

Maybe this photo I took of the sign after our visit and when it had stopped raining will help. (Or maybe you know from the title of this post.)

I had to borrow this photo of The Dali Museum from Wikipedia because it was just too wet to take my own photo.  Built in 2011, The Dali, as it is affectionately known, houses the largest collection of Dali's works outside of Europe (2,400 at last count) and is one of only two major museums dedicated exclusively to his work, the other being in his hometown of Figueres, Spain.

This museum is actually the third museum to house this particular Dali collection. The first one was located in Beachwood, Ohio. It's opening was presided over by Dali himself. It drew so many visitors that a new museum was created out of an old marine warehouse in St. Petersburg in 1982. It was followed by this museum, built at a cost of $30 million in 2011.