T-SHIRTS & OTHER GEAR




Sex, drugs & rock 'n' roll made me crazy—thank God!



An Erotic Novel



How we lost the right to feel.

Go to the beach.

A Literary Love Affair

Artists

Fine art is one of the greatest bargains in Cancun, with styles and prices to suit every taste and budget. The more famous artists, such as Sergio Bustamante (a personal favorite), are carried by galleries and stores that advertise in the principal guides.

Plaza Kukulkán has the largest general selection of art, with at least two formal art galleries and—perhaps more interesting—many informal spaces in open public areas in which local artists sell their works direct to shoppers. The best time to meet the artists is in the evening.

La Casa de la Cultura in downtown Cancun, behind Wal-Mart often has exhibitions of local artists and is a must visit for serious collectors.

Malena Alvarez

Box 124, Cancun, Q. Roo 77501. Currently lives in Puerto Morelos. Ask for directions when you get there. Paintings upwards of $400. Modest prices for classes.

Dynamic painter and exercise instructor

Malena Alvarez, one of Cancun’s pioneers, arrived here more than twenty years ago. She paints local visions on thick-textured papel amate (the fig-bark papyrus of the Maya codices) in sand painted mats and local tropical wood frames. Malena also offers body consciousness classes. Drawing on more than thirteen years of experience as an instructor and disciple of aerobics, karate, dance, and yoga, her low-impact exercises are combined with gleanings from her evolving passions for great tone and self-knowledge.

Sergio Bustamante

Xaman-Ek Galleries, Plaza Caracol and Plaza Kukulcán

Surrealistic ceramic, papier-mâché and gold sculptures and jewelry

We’ve admired Sergio Bustamante’s works of arts since we first saw them on coming to Cancun. They combine the surrealistic painting style of Salvador Dali with a sophisticated sculptural construction that creates an often astonishing effect of realism. These works would make great magazine illustrations. They are humorous and penetrating at the same time. The workmanship is impeccable.

Mexican by birth, Sergio Bustamante comes from Chinese and Indian roots. He was educated and trained as an architect at the University of Guadalajara. He began experimenting with papier-mâché and opened up his first workshop in 1966. In the early seventies he studied painting in Amsterdam.

“Sergio first falls in love with the essence of his creatures,” his web page reports, “then lavishes his affection on details of paper and clay. Ultimately, Sergio’s success lies in his ability to transmit his exuberant love of nature in the eyes, hair, scales, skin, teeth and feathers of all creatures—great and small.”

Each design is issued in a limited edition of a hundred or less, signed and numbered. Within a given edition, each sculpture is an original work of art, emphasizing individuality and allowing variance in color, expression and posture.

Carried in galleries throughout the world, these are very definitely destined to increase in value as they begin to attract the notice of museum curators.

Miguel Castro

Puerto Morelos, near Motel Eden. Ask for directions in town. He’s well-known there. Excellent prices.

Mayan themes by Mexican artist

Miguel Castro paints the finest reproductions of Maya art in the area, also has interesting hand-made leather items, bamboo and wood objects. Castro’s Mayan reproductions are based on years of research in the original techniques and styles. They restore the realistic modeling and color that make the figures so much more accessible to the modern mind. This is what the sculptures looked like before losing their smoothly painted stucco finish.

You’ll have a pleasant experience talking with a great artist with a vast knowledge of ancient Mayan culture. Miguel created the trompe l’oeil mural that sets the stage for La Habichuela’s Mayan sculpture garden

Gerardo Espejo

Necesito Handicrafts shop. Hotel Zone, Playa Langosta, next to Casa Maya Hotel

Naturalistic painter

Gerardo Espejo paints and draws in a hauntingly emotional realistic style that combines the fullness of tropical light with a certain special tenderness of his own. These are very direct, compelling works of art that appeal fully to the senses.