Just Getting Started
COLLISION 00028
When we arrive in a place that lives up to – and then some – our expectations, magic is bound to happen. Several years ago, a friend and I visited San Miguel de Allende in Mexico just before the new year. As a lover of all things taste and art, I’m not sure I could have rung in 2022 from a better spot.
San Miguel’s old town was abuzz for the holidays. The world was only just coming back online from the COVID lockdown. People seemed genuinely enthusiastic to be out and about. I know we were.
San Miguel’s depth and range were simply incredible. At least in 2021, it didn’t feel overly commercialized or overrun by Western brands. I do remember there being a Starbucks on a prominent corner, but the obscenely obnoxious Burger King and its brethren hadn’t yet found a way to infiltrate, infest and overrun the city’s authenticity and charm.
If they were in fact there, I hadn’t noticed them. And that’s the way I like it. Don’t get me started on Burger King’s real estate agenda. It is sinful.
If one was going to buy art, this was an inspired place from which to do so. San Miguel’s picturesque streets felt as if they were out of a novel. Colorful buildings painted in a soothing but still vibrant palette were occupied by galleries, artisan shops and cafes. There were markets, converted factories and beautiful gardens and plazas. Rooftop bars sat perched above it all, and fabulous design-forward restaurants were serendipitously tucked in, keeping San Miguel’s world-class culinary achievements always, and gratefully, within reach.
It was a shopper’s and foodie’s paradise in a way that made consumption and indulgence feel more like curation and cultivation.
At this point in my travels, I had started to dabble in collecting pieces from local artists, usually picked up in small galleries and boutique storefronts. I hesitate to even use the same art-collecting nomenclature, as my endeavor was and remains today a humble one.
Collecting art has been one of the most powerful ways I’ve brought my travels home. Each purchase a collision of its own. My favorites come from Seville, Tel Aviv, Maui, Luxembourg and Seoul. And by the time I publish this collision, I’m confident I will have reconfigured that list over a dozen times.
How, after all, could I leave out pieces picked up in Vietnam, Barcelona, Krakow, Budapest or Cape Town? And I’m sorry, Lisbon, Cartagena, Ljubljana.
And Bilbao!
While every piece comes with its own story and memory, no painting is as non-negotiably special as the one I bought in Galería Ascender. Oftentimes, and I’m sure there is a lesson in this insight, I have found my favorite pieces in galleries that feature a totally different genre of art or craft.
Galería Ascender was exhibiting huge paintings with an ancient, folk fine art feel. My amateur, hackneyed description, not theirs. They weren’t my taste or even remotely in my budget, but all together they had an epic, mesmerizing quality about them. I slowly took in one after the other.
Suddenly, I stopped in my tracks, breath taken, when I saw a piece that couldn’t have felt more disconnected from the rest. It was displayed on an easel in the back of the room. It might as well have been a magnet.
I had a most visceral reaction upon seeing it. First, my heartbeat quickened. Then, my stomach sank. No way was I going to be able to afford it. Finally, I sighed in knowing resignation. I started to walk out of the gallery, but I couldn’t and I didn’t.
I had to know.
It was day one of our travels. We hadn’t priced art anywhere in San Miguel up to that point, so I didn’t know how surprisingly affordable it could be there. Putting my ego aside and hoping for the best, I asked the gallery manager about the piece. His eyes lit up and my stomach bottomed out, crashing to the floor.
Uh-oh.
“My son did that piece,” he said, beaming in paternal pride. “It’s 100 USD.”
At first, I thought I misheard him. Then I nodded yes slowly, trying, and I’m sure failing, to mask my shock and excitement. He beamed all the brighter.
“Would you mind taking a picture next to it with me so I can show him who bought it?” he asked. After we snapped the pic, he went on to make every minute of that trip, of that peek inside the gallery, of that courage to ask worthwhile.
“This is his fourth piece,” he gushed. “My son Evo is just four years old. He’s just getting started.”
