My Heart for Art at the Casa de Cultura

               My Heart for Art at the Casa de Cultura

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Leo, our all-around Rancho helper, plunked down in the chair in front of me, early in the morning, before I’d had my first cup of coffee.

“Remember years ago, when you gave me all the paints and brushes and art stuff to give to an artist when you couldn’t use them any more?”

“Leo, that really was a long time ago. When I give something, it is gone from my head. But, yes, now that you say it, I do remember.”

A bit of back story here: When I moved to Mexico, I brought my best easel and boxes of all my art supplies. I kept myself so busy just settling in, first in Mazatlan and then in my forever home in Etzatlan, that all I did with art was shuffle it from bins to cupboards.

I had boxes of oils, watercolors, brushes, some old and others with price tags still attached, charcoals, oil pastels, drawing tablets, a French easel, canvases of every size. I was constitutionally incapable of passing an art supply store without going in and stocking up on what, after all, I might need, someday.

I dearly loved to paint. I enjoyed the feel of the brush on the canvas, the smell, the mixing of colors. I always ended up with paint on my face, my hands, my shirt. Didn’t matter.  I never was a good artist. Didn’t matter. I loved to paint.

Once I moved, most of my painting was practical, with larger brushes. I painted walls. I painted furniture. I painted concrete and wrought iron, doors and benches, but, sadly, neglected canvas. Until one day during the pandemic, I set up my easel and my oils and my favorite brushes and started a painting, scraped it off, started another. Set up watercolor paper and destroyed several sheets. Get the pictured?

My hands were no longer able to work the magic. The tremor I’ve had for years had gotten worse with time. I sat myself down and had a CTJ meeting.

I asked Leo to take all my art supplies to give to an artist in town who could and would use them. Leo said, “I know just the person.” The only thing Leo told me about him later was that the man’s father was ill, he was his father’s full-time caretaker, and it would be a while before he would be able to paint. That was that.

I poured a cup of coffee for Leo as he told me that Pepe, the artist to whom I’d given the art supplies, his father now passed, was using the materials to teach classes and the first showing opened tonight at the Casa de Cultura. Would I like to go to see their work?

“Would I go? You can’t keep me away.”  I’m so tickled that I can hardly hold my own self in my own skin.

That evening at the Casa de Cultura, oh, my, bursts of color, rows of oil paintings on easels, walls of pastels and charcoals, a wall of drawings, but most importantly, the artists, the young people and the older ones, their families and friends, all bursting with pride at the works they had created. And, rightly so.

Me, I’m bursting too, bursting with delight that something I could no longer use, is put to good use in creating joy in the lives of so many others.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

February 18, 2026

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