Casa Arnel Part I
The Murals of Jalatlaco IX.
Note: this is Part I of II. To see Part II in sequence click on the archive to the left for the article on this date.
The population of the city of Oaxaca is around 700,000. I have read that approximately 77 per cent of the people here make their living from tourism. Thus the lock down for the coronovirus in March of 2020 was an economic upheaval on a grand scale. Everything but essential services were ordered closed...hotels, restaurants, tourist shopping venues, museums ...everything!
Fortunately some of the businesses took advantage of the absence of clientele and painted, updated and renovated their facilities using staff members to keep them gainfully employed. Included in that group was Casa Arnel which consists of a large hotel at the center of Jalatlaco and two apartment buildings down the street. (I live in one of them). All three buildings were painted outside and some parts of the interiors were painted as well.
Sr. Arnel is a man of much energy... he is always doing something, he is always thinking of things that could be done. It seemed to me that no sooner had the hotel been repainted beige with terracotta trim than he decided to have a mural painted across the front. Actually there was probably a six months time lapse between the execution of his inspirations.
So when he announced this latest project ...and he is not shy about announcing his projects, those of us who know and love him...as well as the Arnel family in toto... were, as they say, amused. We were further amused when he told us that he had hired an artist by the name of Jose Jimenez. All of us here are so old as to remember that fabulous TV character: My name Jose Jimenez. But I was the only person amused when he told us that the mural would consist of the heads of red cows. Unfortunately I was immediately reminded of The Laughing Cow Cheese. And indeed, in the finished work there is a striking resemblance. But the mural is intended to be lighthearted, decorative, and gay and in that regard it is successful..
I looked forward to the progression of the work because it would have offered me the opportunity to photograph the making of a mural. That, however, did not come to pass. The artist could only work from 10 or 11 at night until 4:30 in the morning. (I don’t care what photogenic event is taking place, I don’t go out after 9 PM.) I assumed from this that he was a middle aged working man with a large family to support. (This is how my mind works.) Actually he turned out to be a 22 year old boy wonder, a child prodigy who has spent most of his life painting. And you will see on his internet sites how really good he is.
I was also amused as the work progressed. Sr Jimenez appeared late at night as planned and from the pencil marks still on the wall I assumed that he had placed the template head and then traced around it. With a brush loaded with black paint he quite freely outlined each head. His strokes are very free and fluid...and enviable.
The next day the boys who work at the hotel, Daniel and Alejandro, were sent out with ladders and buckets of white paint to fill in all of the outlined areas. The next day they were at it again filling in the white areas with red and yellow paint. This had somewhat the visual sense of the Keystone cops. But I was reminded as well that Leonardo diVinci had created the concept of paint by numbers and centuries later here that technique is still being used.
But as my drafting teacher once announced: “the design is in the details”. And sure enough it is. Each head is beautifully animated by the brush work by the artist himself. And the design overall creates a wonderful, dominant, presence. Thus the hotel, long a landmark at the main intersection of Jalatlaco reclaims a dominant position ...despite the huge presence of the new four story pink luxury hotel next door. (Was this Arnel’s ulterior motive? Hmmm. I know him well enough.…) Whatever the reason there are now tourists day and night photographing one another and or themselves in front of the red cows watched with envy by the dour faces of the folks next door.
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