"Although events in Mexican history and in Frida's life provide the general framework, many incidents and characters portrayed here are the author's inventions. Although many of Frida's biographers mention her younger sister, Christina, I have reinvented the youngest Kahlo girl to make her a perspicacious witness to Frida's life. My intention in writing Frida was to capture the essence of Frida Kahlo's personality, not to document her life. I was particularly interested in what it might be like to be the unexceptional sister of such an exceptional woman…." read more

They may not have conquered Ajijic in the old days, but the Purepecha never gave up. They didn’t even ever surrender to the mighty Aztecs. Now, they are seeking to take Ajijic by artistic stealth, beginning next month when a special Purepecha Fiesta is to be held in Ajijic plaza. The Fiesta begins on October 12, “Dia de La Raza” (literally "Day of our Race"), a national holiday observing the survival and resistance of the indigenous Mexican.

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It is perhaps only in the "advanced" civilizations that artists are elevated above craftsmen, with the former thought to be leading the cultural vanguard while the latter are only practicing traditiona... read more

An earlier column described several Guinness records and their connection to Mexico and Mexicans. This month's column examines four more very different Guinness records which do not involve quite as mu... read more

A native of Guadalajara, artist Enrique Velazquez has made his home in Ajijic since 1989, painting and selling from his Arte Estudio on 16 de Septiembre, (a block east of Morelos), which he shares with his wife, Belva, also an artist. read more

The Surrealist poet, self-styled architect and arts patron Edward James liked to put his ideas into concrete form before they got away read more

Maestro (master, teacher) Rodolfo Morales, one of the most prominent native Oaxacan artists, succumbed to cancer of the pancreas in a Oaxaca City hospital, at 9:30 p.m. on January 30, 2001. Photography by Diana Ricci

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With the possible exception of André Malraux, no individual associated with the arts has been involved in direct political action more than David Alfaro Siqueiros. Student agitator, soldier, leader of... read more

James Metcalf, Stephen and Maureen Rosenthal and Vasco de Quiroga have a lot in common. Each was a foreigner who came to Michoacan's hills and dales surrounding Lake Patzcuaro, married art with commerc... read more

A great ideological struggle is never a day at the beach. Whether its matrix is race, nationality or economic inequality, the fight of the oppressed against the oppressor is always a somber affair. Nob... read more

José Guadalupe Posada is in the great tradition of cartoonists who double as political and social commentators. That tradition includes Honoré Daumier, whose merciless portraits of bourgeois society ... read more

Awarded June, 1999 Mexico City in the 1920s stood on the threshold of a new era. Although the country had won its independence from Spain in 1821, it became o... read more

Anyone out there on the information highway heard of an American photographer named North? Worked in Mexico, made dozens of daguerreotypes of the cities, churches and countryside circa mid-1800s? Gina ... read more