The opening of the George W Bush Presidential Center felt like a big family reunion – not just because five living presidents were there. Several thousand guests were mingling on the lawn of Dallas Hall when Dee and I arrived on the SMU campus, where the presidential library and museum is located, the evening before the dedication. We’d come to know many of them since meeting the Bushes in 1994.

There were family members like Robert Welch, Laura Bush’s cousin, who filled me in on the drawings by late El Paso artist Jose Cisneros that he has hanging in his home. We also saw close friends like Jan and Joey O’Neill who introduced Laura and George for the first time in the back yard of their Midland home.

Joey lent President Bush the W.H.D. Koerner painting “A Charge To Keep” – a man on horseback called to duty, charging over a hill- which hung beside his desk in the Oval Office for eight years. So did El Paso artist Tom Lea’s painting “Rio Grande,” a reproduction of which now hangs in the museum’s re-creation of the Oval Office.

Maggie and John Hager were there. Like Laura and George, they’re the new grandparents of Margaret Laura “Mila” Hager. Maggie smiled as she pointed out that Mila was born to Henry Hager and his wife, Jenna Bush Hager (the Bushes’ daughter), before Prince William and Kate Middleton’s child, who isn’t expected until July.

Former Michigan Governor John Engler and his wife, Michelle, talked about their triplet girls now in college. I recalled visiting their state with Laura in 1999, watching a star shower on a cold November night in Frankenmuth.

Ann Johnson, who headed the Art in Embassies Program for the State Department, introduced us to His Excellency Salem Abdullah Al-Jaber Al-Sabah of Kuwait – there to pay respect to both Bush Presidents since “41,” George H.W. Bush, freed his country from Saddam Hussein.

Marci Armstrong, Associate Dean of SMU’s Cox School of Business, shared her surprise at seeing women in hijabs on campus until she realized they were Fellows at the Bush Institute’s Women’s Initiative. They were there to gain leadership skills they could use in their own countries during the Arab Spring, a wave of popular uprisings that has swept the Arab world in recent years.

Yes, it was a reunion of family and friends, but with a refrain – Make new friends, but keep the old, one is silver and the other gold.

George W. and Laura Bush walked on stage to enthusiastic applauseon the eve of the dedication, introduced by their friend and former Commerce Secretary Don Evans, who now heads the George W. Bush Foundation.

George was excited and grateful: excited about the dedication of a beautiful building designed by a great architect, Bob Stern, and grateful for the more that 300,000 donors who helped pay for it all – up front. “An unusual accomplishment in these times!” he said.

He thanked everybody for coming, noting too many foreign dignitaries to recognize them all. “I wouldn’t know how to pronounce their names anyway!” he said, then hesitated before blurting out “OK, SAAKASHVILI,” referring to former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili.

Then he announced he’d heard 41 was there. “Where are you, Dad?” he asked, spotting his father seated in his wheelchair toward the edge of the tent. “I LOVE YOU, MAN!”

He talked about the values he learned from two loving parents and how lucky he was to have a dad who taught him how to be a man and a mom who taught him the confidence to speak his mind – “sometimes getting both of us into trouble,” he quipped.

He was thankful to have been given the chance to lead a great nation, as one to whom much had been given but from whom much was expected. He couldn’t have led without a great first lady, one the world had come to love and whom he loved, too.

He said he did not miss the politics of Washington, D.C. though he wanted to stay involved in issues important to people’s lives – economic prosperity, education, global health, the environment. His overriding belief is that every human being longs to be free and that freedom is a gift from God.

A centerpiece of the new library is Freedom Hall, where a lantern is raised high above the entrance of stone columns and a trinity of paned glass bays. It shines like a beacon against the sky, yet remains of human scale. It is modern, but reflects the classical past. As Laura Bush said, the Bush Library and Museum are about “looking to the past to engage the future.”

The morning after the dedication, Condoleeza Rice spoke to visitors drinking coffee before a tour of the museum began. She shared that before she left Washington, she asked for a personal tour of the National Archives, a benefit of serving as Bush’s secretary of state. After reading the familiar words at the top of the Declaration of Independence, she said: “It is an angry, raised fist document, and those who are already calling the Arab Spring an Arab Winter forget the struggles our own country went through.”

Encouraging a “long view of history,” she admitted the difficulties ahead in the world. Those fighting for their freedom need friends. “And,” she said, “there is no better friend than George W. Bush.”

Wake (left) and Don (right) Margo with George W. Bush

The uplifting, confident stories of Egyptian women eager to build strong futures for themselves and their country recently were part of International Women’s Day on the SMU campus. The 13 women had just completed their yearlong fellowship with the Women’s Initiative at the George W. Bush Institute. Twenty new fellows, also from Egypt, sat in the front rows of a full house.

The spirit of the room was upbeat with a strong sense of comradeship. James Glassman, Executive Director of the George W. Bush Institute, emphasized the meaning of “unalienable rights” and the struggle of the United States in its own history to free slaves. He gave perspective to the struggles for freedom in the Arab world and said women would help lead the way. Laura Bush said when her mother was born in 1919, women couldn’t vote – but through the women’s suffrage movement she was given that right, just as women are gaining the right in the Middle East today. She grew teary when imagining the freedoms “our daughters and granddaughters will see,” adding “I’ll soon be a grandmother, you know.”

Charity Wallace, Director of the Women’s Initiative, shared the program and how it works. The fellowship is based on research showing the best indicator of a woman’s success is her network, allowing her to tap into the resources and expertise of others, expanding her influence. Women who are “rising stars” in the most influential sectors of a country are brought together and taught skills in leadership, networking and developing their own personal action plans. They are also taught how to “cascade” their new skills to other women in their country, creating a multiplier effect.

Each fellow is also given a U.S. mentor whose home town she visits, and mid-way through the program the mentor visits her fellow in her country. Together they commit to visiting electronically a few hours every month for a year – though, evidenced from the testimonials of the women that day, the relationships will endure.

Developing life skills in SMU classrooms is balanced with experiences in Dallas, Washington, New York and San Francisco. The fellows visit Genesis House, a woman’s shelter, and the National Cowgirl Museum. They learn about effective communication and freedom of the press at Voice of America and ring the bell at the New York Stock Exchange. Congresswomen discuss forming caucuses on Capitol Hill and at Google and Facebook they learn how to use technology for social good.

This year the doors of the White House were closed – all tours stopped due to sequestration. Its omission did not seem to dampen the spirits of the Egyptian women.

The positive stories they shared on International Women’s Day spoke volumes. When Sara Galal returned to Alexandria, her husband said “you’ve changed!” and left his job to join her in Sweety Heaven – her online company that helps improve communication between parents and their children and that has attracted a number of investors. Amany Eid used Google Moderator to launch an opinion board, giving her local community a way to express their thoughts to the Egyptian Parliament. She also began collaborating with Ireny Roman on a book about the Egyptian Revolution and women’s contributions to it. Enas Lofty participated in Egypt’s first photo exhibition on sexual harassment, promoting discussion on a problem that isn’t sufficiently addressed. Fundraising consultant Azza Koura developed a comprehensive marketing plan with another fellow and is raising money for Heliopolis University and the Arab Medical Union.

A little over two weeks after hearing these testimonials, 27 year old Sandy Halim arrived in El Paso. We’d been paired since I’m in the art business and Sandy is an artist, working with craftsmen in Cairo to make products she hopes someday to export. She loves things made by hand – like the brass book marks with hand-cut scriptures in Arabic she had samples of, and the tooled leather wallet she brought as a present. She wants to employ Egyptian artisans by acting as a bridge between them and the marketplace. She also believes she can make the world better by making beautiful things.

When I met her at the airport, she immediately said she felt at home, identifying with our high mountainous desert and dry desert air. We had dinner in Dee’s and my home and visited Rocketbuster Boots where “bosslady” Nevena Christie showed her how beautiful handmade boots are made.

We had dinner in Dick and Betsy Behrenhausen’s home on Rim Road overlooking El Paso and Juarez and attended the Art Walk downtown with Kaycee and Matt Dougherty. Businesswoman Cecilia Ochoa Levine shared her export expertise and told Sandy she looked forward to being part of her network

We also visited Collectibles, the shop off Mesa near the old Jaxon’s restaurant on Mount Franklin’s west side. Sandy was drawn to the things displayed, gathering a few angels with uplifting words written on them to take to friends in Cairo as gifts. “If I ever have a shop, I want one like this,” she said.

Owner Marilyn Malooley is of Middle Eastern descent and was pleased by Sandy’s interest. She shared the names of marketplaces where she buys, taking the time to write down contact names and numbers. She made suggestions on distributors who sell crafts from all over the world. Marilyn also told Sandy that her church congregation is Arabic- speaking and that she’s always looking for things to sell at their annual bazaar.
After exchanging e-mails and telephone numbers, Marilyn handed Sandy the bag with the gifts she’d selected, saying, “it has been an honor having you in my store and these are for you.”

When doors are opened instead of closed, good will and possibilities will always emerge.

The University Medical Center of El Paso has changed the skyline of the city. Inside its modern, state-of-the-art facility is a small ecumenical chapel created by the enigmatic painter, Annabel Livermore.

Rowing Pass the Shrines to our Ancestors during the 47 Bi-Annual Festival of Lights on Pickerel Lake, 2007-09

Annabel’s Chapel has served as a quiet place for patients and their families since 1998 when it was built to serve the indigent patients of Thomason General Hospital. It was dismantled when the old hospital was remodeled, then reinstalled just off the new lobby of the integrated Women’s Pavilion and Children’s Hospital where it continues to bring solace and peace.

An elderly woman was once heard whispering while sitting on one of its wooden benches, “Se siente la presencia del Espiritu Santo en este lugar” (I feel the presence of the Holy Spirit here). Special visitors, such as Laura Bush and writers for Texas Monthly and the Houston Chronicle have also come to see it.

Annabel’s Chapel provides a place for meditation and prayer. A small fountain fills the space with the gentle sound of trickling water. Watercolors of brightly colored flowers line the walls like Stations of the Cross, set apart from their surroundings with gold leaf frames that gleam like halos. A vaulted ceiling with painted starlit sky rises overhead, changing from sunrise to sunset.

James Magee – the gifted artist of international acclaim – oversaw the installation. He’s always had a personal interest in the chapel since Annabel Livermore is his alter ego. She was conceived in the 1970s when Magee was living in upstate New York working in an abandoned chicken coop that served as his studio. He’d lived a peripatetic life since leaving his small hometown of Fremont, Michigan where a church stands on nearly every corner.

Magee – who was born in 1946 – is a most unusual man. He earned a law degree from the University of Pennsylvania, worked on the Law of the Sea for the United Nations, served as a sculptor’s apprentice in Paris, rough necked offshore in Texas, and designed opera sets in New York City. His sister says he always needed more stimulation than other people. Eventually he came to rural New York, finding himself isolated and depressed. He made a wiry crucifix and placed it in the yard – but nobody came to see it. Although he wanted to confess, he found “the priests I knew were so joyful, I couldn’t.”

An independent filmmaker recorded the sculpture Magee was creating in New York at the time. It was terrifying work of debased humanity made of concrete, rebar and Bondo. One work, titled “Ozzie and Harriet,” consisted of two horrifying figures with contorted faces and mouths filled with animals’ teeth. Harriet lay on the floor like scattered debris, as if her bones were beaten and crushed. Ozzie stood close by, his face a gaping grimace. The work was so grotesque, so evil, that when it was uncovered Magee’s dogs refused to enter the room. Instead of signing the work with his own name, he signed it J.R. McCoy.

James Magee sent the film to Father Amade and Father Nivard who’d become his friends in France years before. When the gentle priests suggested he look more closely at the beauty of God’s handiwork, he took their advice – buying a set of watercolors and beginning to paint, first on the edge of a hayfield. He described his deliverance in the 2010 catalog “Remembering Newaygo County, The Symbolist Paintings of Annabel Livermore” for the Muskegon Museum of Art: “With an emotional swelling in her transgender breast…Annabel came into being the instant her brush hit the watercolor paper next to a wild raspberry bush outside of Woodridge, New York.” In the extended title of one of her paintings “My Garden as Seen from the West Wall,” Annabel wrote:

Once you said to me a modest drawing, say, of leaves and
buds, was like a prayer; and, if sweetly curved, would
gently bend, like a hyacinth in
the wind, to mend elements torn
deep within.

Emerging fully developed like Athena from Zeus’ head, Annabel is a very proper, elderly spinster whose biography echoes some of Magee’s own life. Born in the upper Midwest, receiving a classic liberal arts education, loving Tennyson and the Victorian poets, and giving up a career as a librarian to move to El Paso to paint. While some have suggested that Annabel Livermore is Magee’s road not taken, the fact is he has taken it.

James Magee’s own journey to the Southwest came about as the result of an accident in 1977. As he was traveling from New York to Mexico City to visit friends, his train derailed and he stumbled upon Ciudad Juarez. He was drawn to the light that he found more intense than anywhere else in the world and to the Mexican culture with its “vibrancy of color and circularity of line.” Juarez’s gritty bars also attracted him, places packed with human bodies, activity and sound where he witnessed people helping each other. Whereas in the New York art world he saw “talent too often not rising to the top but getting crushed underfoot,” El Paso-Juarez was a stimulating place with challenging space where he could heal and grow.

After moving to El Paso, Magee began his life’s work, beginning to buy up acres of land near Cornudas, Texas. There he began a massive solitary endeavor of constructing four identical 17 foot high stone buildings connected by causeways on 2,000 acres of land. The buildings form a cross with their doors facing each other, and each houses an enormous altarpiece – perfectly crafted from steel, glass, wood, metal, rust, oil, rubber, barbed wire and flower petals. Until recently Magee allowed no visitors except close friends since “The Hill” is a place of private devotion. Now a group of friends has formed a board to help the Cornudas Mountain Foundation sustain and share Magee’s vision.

Annabel Livermore continued to paint upon arriving in El Paso, exhibiting in museums and galleries including mine. Nothing, however, can quite compare to Annabel’s Chapel since it is like walking into one of her luminous paintings. The idea for it was conceived when Annabel’s assistant was admitted to the psychiatric ward at Thomason Hospital in 1989 and she went to visit him. In the gray, dismal surroundings, she remembered the story of Matisse filling a hospital room with sheets of vibrant colors to speed the healing process. She also remembered Father Amade and Father Nivard and how their advice had helped heal James Magee’s spirit.

She established the Annabel Livermore Flower Fund at the El Paso Community Foundation to provide fresh flowers for the altar of her chapel. For several years bud vases used to be delivered to each room accompanied by a little card with a colorful reproduction of a flower painting that said, “With this little gift I wish you health & happiness,” and it was signed by Annabel Livermore.

When asked in a 1994 interview about her use of a pseudonym or multiple identities, Annabel Livermore had this to say: “…do we not all come into this world naked as Jay Birds and leave in the same way? What is a name? Is it not simultaneously a mode of empowerment and confinement, a narrow fiction of history for a species teetering on the brink of destruction and too consumed with personal identity and tribalism? Whether knowingly or not, each of us wears a disguise. We all go by pseudonyms. And in the end the only honest appellation for any of us is Child of God.”

Samalayuca, 2009-10

A few blocks from downtown El Paso on the Mexican side of the Stanton Street Bridge is an attractive three-story building at the corner of Calle Ingeniero Manual Cardona and Avenida Malecon. Its modern façade faces north, its blue neon letters read Hospital de La Familia. When visitors walk in the front glass doors, they’re immediately struck by how busy it is – filled with Mexican families, most of them extremely poor since the hospital was built for them. Yet the interior is so beautiful, the quality of care so excellent, the doctors and nurses so professional that middle class families have also come. The last time I walked through its gleaming cafeteria and past its pharmacy, a smiling woman recognized my face and asked if I were from El Paso. “I am, too,” she said, “though I come to this side for my health. I told my husband to come here, too, and he likes the way they treat him.” That day she was there with her sister from Denver who found the help she’d been seeking. “I like it here,” the sister said. “They listen to me and know me by name.”

The Hospital de la Familia is a 110 bed teaching hospital that serves over 200,000 people, providing more than 400,000 medical services a year. It is the fourth largest hospital in Juarez – accredited by the Secretaria de Salud de Mexico – and runs the largest, nationally recognized nursing school in the State of Chihuahua. Its achievements are extraordinary, but its beginnings forty years ago were as small as a mustard seed in an environment that seemed hopeless.

That’s when Guadalupe de la Vega, a beautiful woman with a forceful spirit, read the headline in a Juarez newspaper Human Hyena Kills Child. Shocked that a mother would kill her unborn baby and seeking answers for such a horrible act, Lupe went to the Juarez jail where a poor, illiterate and malnourished woman was in a cell. With eyes lowered and in an almost inaudible whisper she shared her story. She had been left alone with nine children in a one room shack built of wooden pallets. Her husband had left, looking for work in the United States. Yes she had taken a knife and plunged it into her pregnant belly. With crying, hungry children and no food to give them, she despaired of bringing another child into a miserable world.

Lupe’s question about family planning met sad and suffering eyes. The woman lived in a world of poverty and fear, with no access to information or care. The Mexican Federation of Health and Economic Development Associations (FEMAP)– was born that day, bringing to life a movement of providing health, economic development and education to the poorest of the poor. Based on a model of Promotoras de Salud – poor women providing health information out of their own tiny homes in the farthest reaches of Cd. Juarez – FEMAP grew beyond child and maternal health to include micro-lending; environmental health; educational programs for youth; and social entrepreneurship.

It’s first building was a small clinic in the same location the Hospital de la Familia stands today. In had two beds in 1973, growing to four in 1976 and 110 in 2012. At every step, the poor paid a little and others sources of earned income were found. Today the hospital is fully sustainable with laboratories, imaging services, health promotion programs in the maquiladoras, and pharmacies generating revenue to subsidize programs incapable of making money.

The Hospital de la Familia is filled with beautiful art loved by the patients. A mural by Nezahualcoyotl Lozano fills a large wall in the cafeteria communicating the wonder of life. A strong indigenous woman sits at the center giving birth, her head tilted upwards towards the light, her legs rising like mountains, her large hands open to welcome her child. The male stands reverently behind her, his arms extended in a gesture of protection. The trinity of man, woman and child are surrounded by sperm, ovum, and fetus – communicating the union of man and woman to create life. Technology is present in Lozano’s mural, though not primary – represented by a test tube and beaker, its use is in the service of mankind and not at the expense of it.

Life giving messages are communicated throughout the Hospital de la Familia. Hark the Herald Angels, a painting by El Pasoan Manuel Acosta, greets abuelitos and abuelitas, tios and tias coming to see their own babies in the neonatal unit, reminding them of another birth long ago that changed the entire world. Though the upper corners of the painting are dark, the darkness is not allowed to encroach on the mother and child. Angels in royal blue dresses – like enveloping wings – shelter them in loving light.

At the entrance to the Hospital de la Familia is a bronze sculpture by Lupe de la Vega’s daughter-in-law, Angela. Called The Triumph of Life, the work of art depicts a young girl laughing, standing on her tip-toes – her long hair blown by the wind, her arms spread wide as if taking flight. One morning when seeing a little girl standing silently in front of the sculpture, Lupe bent down and said to her, “Do you know you can be like that? God sent you – and if you listen to your mother, study and work hard, you can be like her!” The little girl looked at Lupe’s face, took her mother’s hand and walked away.

After a planning meeting upstairs to expand the hospital and nursing school in the coming years, Lupe was leaving the building when she felt a tug on her dress. There was the same little girl who looked up at her and, pointing to the sculpture, said, “Señora, I am going to be just like that!”

The El Paso Public Library’s history goes back to 1894 when Mary Stanton – a Georgia native who traveled west to join her lawyer brothers in El Paso – started a reading club for high school boys, moving her 600 books into a room in the Sheldon Building downtown. Three afternoons a week she kept it open, leaving a key with someone in the building in case a reader came when she wasn’t there. Interest grew and Mary soon looked for help. Within a year she had formed a library association and she was its president, moving the library to the Sheldon Hotel. Mayor Magoffin set aside a room in the new City Hall where the library moved next with a collection of over 2,000 books!

With El Paso booming and its people reading, a single room wasn’t enough. Citizens found help in Andrew Carnegie, who was building libraries all over the world. Remembering a small Pittsburgh library open to “working boys” and how much it meant to him, Mr. Carnegie said yes to El Paso’s request, giving $ 37,500 for a building put on government land. When it opened on April 25, 1904, the Carnegie Library became one of 16,089 libraries built in the U.S. between 1883 and 1929.

Mary Stanton’s dream became a source of civic pride with city support – including a 0.0037% set aside for values on city property. When Maud Durlin Sullivan – a Wisconsin native and graduate of Brooklyn’s Pratt Institute – succeeded her, she took the library to new heights. For over 35 years she made it one of the best in the nation, with over 2,000 volumes in Spanish and a Carnegie Art Reference Set including 1,400 prints and 127 art books. After touring Mexico City libraries in the 1920’s, she even bought the rare, lavishly hand-painted Antiquities of Mexico volumes published by Lord Kingsborough in 1831 – sending him to debtors’ prison, it cost so much to make! Its nine volumes are filled with ancient paintings and hieroglyphics in the royal libraries of Paris, Berlin, Dresden, Vienna and the Vatican. Mrs. Sullivan wanted library visitors to see great art from all over the world! Tom Lea, Jose Cisneros, Carl Hertzog, Peter Hurd and Carl Hertzog all spoke of the life-changing impact Mrs. Sullivan had on their lives.

When El Paso citizens voted a bond issue to build a new public library in 1951, Carroll & Daeuble were chosen architects and Carl Young did the design. There was so much pride in the library that Carl Hertzog made a booklet recording its historic milestones and the meaning it had for “steady citizens … building a city.” It describes the Southwest and Latin American rooms – and the building materials the architects chose. The building still stands on North Oregon Street, a southwest modern masterpiece!

Owl in front of Library, photo by Arturo Flores

Its exterior is of Cordova shell limestone embedded with ancient remains of sea life. The piers of its cantilevered portico are made of rock from Mount Franklin. Its right angled geometry is pure and strong, changing during the day with the direction of the sun.

Pictographs in Foyer, photo by Arturo Flores

Impressed in the concrete ceiling of the entrance are Indian designs from Hueco Tanks arranged to tell the story of El Paso from creation to the Spanish Conquistadores. On the façade is Tom Lea’s relief of an owl and a bee, a response to the words of John Burroughs- “I go to books and to nature as a BEE goes to the flower, for a nectar that I can make into my own honey.”

Pictographs in front of Library, photo by Arturo Flores

Inside El Paso’s most noted artists contributed – Jose Cisneros designing bookcase plaques with symbols of El Paso’s cultures; Stan Stoefen building furniture with Indian designs; Urbici Soler contributing portrait heads of Mezo-American women in wood and bronze; and Tom Lea painting a mural of his beloved Southwest.

Many of these works are still there, though rearranged in succeeding expansions. A new façade by Memo Barrajas faces Cleveland Square, with names of El Paso writers etched in glass. Computers bring readers books in digitized form, with the pages turned on screen at the click of a mouse.

El Paso Public Library, photo by Arturo Flores

Yet the words of El Paso citizens written sixty years ago ring as true as ever, even as technology has changed the world:

On the shelves and in the files of your library the world’s treasury of wisdom is systematically classified: a librarian can locate any part of it for you at a moment’s notice, whether you wish to know how to plant a tulip or what happened at Socrates’ trial in Athens, how to wire a television set or something of the life of the third American President. Without libraries the magnificent technical advances of our age would have been impossible; without public libraries the ordinary citizen would be denied his right to participate in them.

So your library is a bank of the world’s information, a bank with ever-growing resources – and you have been provided with a blank check.

Inside Historical side of Library, photo by Arturo Flores

A familiar sight in downtown El Paso is the alligator sculpture in San Jacinto Plaza, created by the American sculptor, Luis Jimenez. Los Largatos was the first public sculpture sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts in El Paso. When it was commissioned, Jimenez drew on memories of visiting the plaza as a child, watching live alligators lounge in a pool at its center – something people did from the turn of the century until 1965 when the reptiles were permanently moved to the zoo. The experience was one Jimenez never forgot and he wanted to share it with others. His 1987 proposal drawn in ink stick shows his grandmother- himself and his grown daughter, Elisa- his wife, Susan, and their three small children, Adan, Orion and Xochitl – standing around a blue tile fountain watching the alligators.

Sculpture came naturally to Luis Jimenez, having grown up in his father’s neon sign shop on Magoffin Avenue. He sometimes recounted climbing inside the cement polar bear his dad made for a cold storage business on Wyoming Avenue, and burning his hands on the lime. Both Jimenez Signs and the cold storage business have long since closed, but the polar bear is still there. Likewise, a remnant of the signage for the Bronco drive-in theater – that showed movies from 1950-1975 to as many as 600 cars at a time- still exists. The gigantic white horse’s head now advertises a swapmeet on Alameda Avenue. On the Cotton Street overpass near downtown, the blond-headed girl taking a bite from a slice of Sunbeam bread is also a Jimenez sign.

Learning from his father, Luis Jimenez used fiberglass painted with bright shiny colors to make his sculptures, sometimes lighting them up with colored electric bulbs. End of the Trail (with Electric Sunset) – recently moved from the UTEP Library to the new Chemistry and Computer Science Building on campus – recreates the famous James Earle Fraser End of the Trail sculpture of a defeated Indian on his doleful mount, first displayed at the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco. In Jimenez’ version, the appaloosa dapples on the horse’s rump are calaveras- the skulls often seen in Chicano art. The pony’s head, hung low like its rider’s, has burning red light bulb eyes. Dozens of other bulbs that used to flash off and on with a rhythmic … click-click… click- click… create a glaring sunset. When the sculpture was initially placed in the library, the blink part of the lights was turned off since it beckoned students to look at the sculpture instead of their books. Now the lights burn quietly, emanating a warm, constant glow as students drink coffee nearby.

The story of how the sculpture came to campus may be of interest to some. After Adair Margo Gallery opened in Wakefield Plaza on the corner of Campbell and Yandell in 1985, Art News Magazine ran an article on well- known art collectors, a subject of great interest to me. One of them was Frederick Weisman of Los Angeles, the first distributor of Toyota cars in the United States who owned a highly acclaimed collection of modern and contemporary art. Reading about him caused me to wonder, “now how do I get a person like that to come see art in El Paso?”

At the time, El Paso had a not-for-profit art space called the Bridge Center for Contemporary Art that displayed artworks considered innovative and new. It was located on Stanton Street near downtown and I served on the board. At one of our meetings, director Al Harris mentioned a California art collection – the Weisman Collection – that shared its American and European post-war paintings with cities across the United States. It even covered shipping and insurance costs through its own foundation! Since Dee and I were traveling to Los Angeles for an insurance meeting soon, I offered to stop by their offices and ask about bringing the collection to El Paso.

Nora Halpern – an attractive, intelligent woman with an easy laugh – was curator of the Weisman Collection and the first person I met. She liked the idea of sending paintings to our border and promised to talk to Mr. Weisman. Within weeks, an agreement was signed and a truckload of paintings was scheduled to travel to El Paso. There was scrambling among Bridge Center staff to find a place large and safe enough to display the collection. Luckily, they found a well-lit space above the old Oasis restaurant downtown with double-hung windows looking out on El Paso Street.

When Mr. Weisman’s collection traveled, so did he – arriving in his private jet painted a deep blue with bright white stars. I’d called Nora to see if I might host Mr. Weisman for lunch in my gallery the afternoon of the exhibition opening. Before hanging up, I asked how she would best describe her boss’ taste in art. “He likes things that glow in the dark,” she said.

When Mr. Weisman walked into my gallery, there was Luis Jimenez’ End of the Trail (With Electric Sunset), having arrived the day before on Luis’ flatbed truck – a short drive from Jimenez Signs where it was housed. We gave it a prominent place in the upstairs gallery with paintings by El Paso artists hanging on the walls around it. Mr. Weisman showed interest in every work of art, politely studying each one as we toured the galleries after lunch – but it was Luis’ flashing sculpture that captivated him. “I’d like to buy it,” he said. “And when I do, do you think UTEP would accept it as a gift?”

Diana Natalicio didn’t hesitate when I called. “Why of course, we’ll accept it! With thanks!”

In September 1998, the sculpture was dedicated in the lobby of the UTEP library with everybody there – Luis Jimenez and his family, Diana Natalicio, Frederick Weisman and dozens of students, faculty, well-wishers and friends. Almost two years had passed since Mr. Weisman had bought the sculpture – it had been committed to a traveling exhibition before he first saw it, but the delay in having it delivered didn’t bother him. He paid the bill up front, helping me realize for the first time that perhaps I could be a real art dealer after all! As for the sculpture, it traveled around the United States and other countries, too – identified at each venue as being from the Collection of the University of Texas at El Paso, a gift of the Frederick Weisman Company – before returning home.

On Tuesday, October 20, I was asked to speak to 8 women’s soccer teams in El Paso for the Conference USA Tournament at UTEP. The new Deputy Athletic Director wanted the girls to learn something about El Paso and I appreciated the invitation. My column this month is comprised of my remarks.

Good evening. I appreciate being invited by UTEP’s Deputy Athletic Director Julie Levesque to speak here tonight to Conference USA Women’s soccer. Your hosts thought it might be nice for you to learn something about El Paso. Just looking out your bus windows, you can notice interesting things about this corner of the world where two countries and three states meet. In fact, from the UTEP campus you can see a rocky peak – the core of an ancient volcano – that’s now called Mount Cristo Rey because there’s a sculpture of the risen Christ at the top. At the base of it is where Texas, New Mexico and Chihuahua all come together. There are dinosaur tracks there at the base, too, recently found by a UTEP Geology student named Eric Kappus. Seeing dinosaur tracks kind of mocks the notion of borders, you know.

El Paso was named by the Spanish in 1598. It was called El Paso del Rio del Norte – or the Pass of the River of the North. There was a ford here where the Spanish could cross, right below the foothills of where UTEP stands today. They were traveling the Camino Real – or the Royal Road – called that because it connected two capitols – Mexico City to the south and Santa Fe to the north.

Mountains provided great landmarks for the early travelers. They stand high and do not move. Though they might disappear in a terrible dust storm, when the dust settles, the mountains are there. There’s a quote by the poet Carl Sandburg that says “A mountain is something that’s fastened down, something you can count on.” Those are words that might be significant for athletes like you – who, through victory and defeat – must have something unmoving that you can count on, too.

Tom Lea, The Enormity of the Earth’s Visible Space, The Hands of Cantu, 1963. Chinese ink painting, El Paso Museum of Art, gift of Mary Lewis Scott Kleberg.

As the Spanish travelers went north, many were looking for gold. There are lots of minerals in the mountains surrounding El Paso, a reason UTEP was founded. In fact, it was the first branch of the University of Texas System and it was called the Texas College of Mines with a focus on mining and metallurgy when it was founded in 1914. The mascot has always been a miner with a pick in his hand, looking for a glimmer of gold. Today UTEP and El Paso continue to look for things of great value – just of a different kind. Having this tournament, where the winner is guaranteed entry into the NCAA Tournament, is one way to create opportunity. Another way of saying “a glimmer of gold”.

Have any of you noticed the architecture on the UTEP campus? It’s Bhuttanese and do you know how it came about? The wife of the first dean of the Texas College of Mines admired the landscape of El Paso, with its dry, rocky mountains, noticing a similarity to the Himalayas she read about in National Geographic. The article she saw was on the Kingdom of Bhutan and she admired how the buildings there had splayed walls, slanted out at the bottom, seeming to grow right out of the rock. Mrs. Worrell was her name and she was a woman of great insight and sensibility, encouraging the Bhutanese syle we have on campus, one of the most beautiful campuses in the world.

Her gesture of admiration and emulation for a faraway type of architecture has created a relationship with the Kingdom of Bhutan that sends students to our campus every year. In fact, UTEP President Diana Natalicio, attended the wedding of the Prince of Bhutan and was treated as family. Often we enjoy Bhutan Days in El Paso, where the people of that tiny kingdom share archery and dances in their beautiful, colorful costumes. El Paso has always been a place interested in other places and people, even if they are just passing through. We’re delighted to have Colorado College, the University of Houston, Tulsa, East Carolina, SMU, Rice, Memphis and the University of Central Florida with us for the days of this tournament!

If you were to go into the El Paso Public Library, you would see this mural on the wall called Southwest. An extraordinary writer and painter named Tom Lea gave it to our citizens after a bond election resulted in a new library building downtown. It is the landscape where we live, one he said he loved for the intensity of its sunlight, the clarity of its sky, the hugeness of its space, it’s revealed structure of naked earth’s primal form, without adornment.

Tom Lea, Southwest mural, 1956. Oil on canvas, 5 ½ x 20 feet. El Paso Public Library.

He also wrote about our landscape that its richness is in space, wide and deep and infinitely colored, visible to the jagged mountain rim of the world – huge and challenging space to evoke high and challenging freedom.

A clue to what we’ve done with our freedom comes in the form of another mural by Tom Lea, done in 1938 for the historic federal courthouse downtown. In it, giants of El Paso history and its founding cultures of the Indian, the Spaniard, the Mexican and the Anglo loom above us in beautiful classic form. They are in the costumes of their occupations and cultures: Apache, Conquistador, Padre, Vaquero, Cowboy, Pioneer Woman…. And, overhead, there is this inscription that reads: O Pass of the North, Now the Old Giants Are Gone, We Little Men Live Where Heroes Once Walked the Inviolate Earth.

When the Director of the El Paso Museum of History – a native of Bulgaria named Julia Bussinger – arrived in El Paso two years ago and saw this mural, she declared, “We will awaken the giants of El Paso history!” and that’s what’s she’s done. The mural informed her of El Paso’s roots and, when you have those, it’s easy to add on, including other cultures who have contributed so much including Middle Easterners, African Americans and the Chinese. And people from many cultures have excelled at so many occupations here at the Pass of the North – including industry, architecture and athletics.

Tom Lea, Pass of the North mural, 1938. Oil on canvas, 11 X 54 feet. El Paso Historic Federal Courthouse

The first giant awakened on the El Paso Museum of History Walls was Don Haskins and the 1966 “Glory Road” basketball championship team. There are other athletic giants we could recognize and eventually will: Tim Hardway and Nate Archibald in basketball; Don Maynard and Thomas Howard in football; and, Obadele Thompson, the bronze medallist sprinter in track.

Of course there are many, many women as well: Camilla Correa who led the nation in softball homeruns; Natasha Lacy of the Washington Mystics, playing in the WMBA; track stars Halimat Ismaila (Bronze in the 100 m relay) and Blessing Okagbare, (Bronze, Long Jump); and, dozens of other Olympians including Kelly Parker, a bronze medalist in soccer this year.

These and so many others – like the Spanish travelers of old – have passed through El Paso, the Pass of the North, with their eyes firmly fixed on where they wanted to go. They are giants of our past who saw a glimmer of gold in our mountains, going after it with all their might.

As for you, we wish you a glimmer of gold in the conference this week. Good luck and may God bless you all!

LA LYDIA by Adair Margo

Growing up in El Paso, I heard about Lydia Patterson Institute from the time I was a girl. When my mother did volunteer work in the segundo barrio and took me with her, sometimes we would drive by the school on South Florence Street. But it wasn’t until 1998 that I began learning more about the place affectionately known to its students as “La Lydia.”

That’s when my friend Laura Bush came to El Paso as First Lady of Texas for Lydia Patterson’s 85th anniversary and shared how the Methodist church she attended in Midland supported the school. In fact, Lydia Patterson was considered one of the outstanding achievements of Methodism and was supported by an eight state region – Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri, Arkansas and Louisiana.

Lydia Patterson’s remarkable story has grown in relevance since it opened in September 1914 in a building constructed with $ 75,000 donated by El Paso lawyer Millard Patterson in memory of his wife. It was started as a school for Mexican boys – primarily those studying for the ministry – and became a fully accredited coeducational school serving primarily students from Ciudad Juarez. Three seniors formed the first graduating class in 1921 and today there are 410 students enrolled. 95% of them will graduate from college.

Living on a border, we know that things are never clear-cut and there are children who can fall through the cracks – children who are United States citizens but whose parents are not – like Almendra and Angel Hernandez who were born in Oklahoma City and attended an American school until their father was deported. Forced to return to Juarez, Alemedra and Angel could not attend school in El Paso because they were not residents of the school district, and they could not attend school in Mexico, because they are U.S. citizens. A church group built the Hernandez family a Juarez home and learned that Angel and Almendra were not going to school – and that’s how they found their way to Lydia Patterson.

There are many stories of children falling victim to an immigration system that has left them displaced with no place to go. Lydia Patterson has become a pressure valve for difficult conditions on the border, allowing children from Juarez who are U.S. citizens to be educated and insuring that they will be ready to contribute when they someday return to their native country.

Lydia Patterson has done this kind of work for almost 100 years, graduating thousands of students who have gone on to lead contributing lives. Every time I meet a Lydia Patterson student – and they often visited my gallery – I can sense their promise and gratitude for having been given an opportunity.

When Leanne Hedrick and I recorded the oral history of Jose Cisneros (Jose Cisneros, Immigrant Artist, Texas Western Press, 2006) , he spoke about Lydia Patterson and what it meant to him. His family had lost everything during the Mexican Revolution, fleeing north from their home in Durango and arriving in Ciudad Juarez in 1925. One of his baby brothers died on the way and was buried along the side of the road, wrapped in a cloth.

When I first came to Juarez, it was a very hard life. We found a two-bedroom home, but my father was unable to work because he hadn’t recovered from having lost so much. He wasn’t mentally stable, and we had a hard time settling in. Another of my uncles also lived in Juarez and he helped me get a school passport for El Paso. The next week, I started school at Lydia Patterson Institute. I was fifteen years old.

The first year I went to a special English class, and the next year they transferred me to the third grade… At the same time that I started school in El Paso, I also got a job delivering the El Paso Herald-Post in the afternoon. Each morning I rode my bicycle across the border to go to school, and every afternoon I delivered newspapers in the Segundo Barrio. In the evening, I returned to Juarez. This worked fine through the school year; but then school let out for summer vacation.

The first time I tried to cross the border, just to throw my paper route, immigration authorities stopped me. They told me I had only a school passport, which was different from a passport that would allow me to work in El Paso. I called the president of Lydia Patterson Institute, Herbert Marshall, and he arranged with immigration to get me a visa and a working passport. I was very grateful because I needed to work in order to help support my family.

After a while, I got a second paper route delivering a new Spanish newspaper called El Continental. It was a morning paper, and I had a route near the school. That way, I could cross the bridge at six in the morning, deliver newspapers, and then go to school. When school ended at three o’clock, I had time to deliver the El Paso Herald to my route along Stanton, Florence, and Virginia Streets. I went home after that because the bridge closed at six in the evening.

If I waited too late to cross the bridge, I would have to find some place in El Paso to sleep. Back then, the authorities wouldn’t let you cross the bridge after dark. Once, when I finished my work too late to cross the bridge, I slept under the iron steps at the old Lydia Patterson school. They have built a new school since then.

The time I’m talking about is from 1925-1929. Lydia Patterson was in the old building then. It was a very nice school. Most of the students were from Juarez. Some of them lived and worked at the school, but most came over every day from Juarez.

My first teacher at the school was an elderly lady named Mrs. Macan. She was a very good teacher, and I loved her because she was the first person to teach me English…In the English classes at Lydia Patterson, they taught us how to read, write, and pronounce it…

Jose Cisneros, who completed 8th grade at Lydia Patterson, did some of his earliest pictures of historic Mexicans and Spaniards there. After he left school, married and had a family of five girls, his main occupation was as a bus painter, but he continued to draw in the basement of his home when he returned from work in the late afternoon. He skipped dinner to study books and draw, eating cookies and drinking milk instead.

By the time he died in 2009, Jose Cisneros had illustrated hundreds of books and articles about the Spanish borderlands, and he had become internationally known. He was knighted by the King of Spain; received the Texas Medal of Arts from Governor Rick Perry; received the National Humanities Medal from President George W. Bush; and was awarded the OHTLI Award (a Nahuatl word meaning pathfinder) from President Felipe Calderon of Mexico. He was also recognized by the National Cowboy Hall of Fame and the Western Writers of America for Lifetime Achievement.

And at the end of his life, Jose Cisneros remembered the principal and teachers at Lydia Patterson Institute who opened doors for him that he never thought possible.

Entering the Tom Lea Gallery at the El Paso Museum of Art, there’s always something awesome to see. A painting that holds visitors’ attention for a long, long time is Invocation – one of the last big paintings Tom Lea did. Old Mount Franklin – bathed in winter sunlight – looms over a prospector and his pack mule standing at its base, the prospector straight and dignified in his jacket and brimmed hat, looking up to the mountain’s face.

Invocation

The painting – like so many of Tom’s works – was created for a friend after a request was made during the course of a conversation. Over his career, there were many of these conversations, some resulting in requests as direct as “paint something about Sinaloa where I love to fish.” After a friend made that comment, Tom painted a picture he called Grace Note in a Hard World about the little Mexican town of Fuerte, Sinaloa. It remains one of the most memorable pictures he ever did.

In 1986 my husband Dee began thinking about how to honor longtime friends of our family who had started a company in El Paso called BDM. Joe Braddock, Bernie Dunn and Dan MacDonald – all Fordham University physicists – moved to El Paso in 1960 as consultants for White Sands Missile Range, hiring an engineer from Sandia Corporation in Albuquerque named Earle Williams in 1962 who would later become president. After meeting Dan MacDonald through the Association of the United States Army (AUSA), my dad, “Wake” Wakefield, began writing their insurance and building friendships that last still. The company grew, moving to McLean, Virginia just outside Washington, D.C in 1970, and my dad’s company grew with it. I remember many dinner conversations as I was growing up about BDM’s 4,000 + employees and what they were doing all over the world.

When my father died suddenly in 1981, Dee continued serving BDM International, traveling to Northern Virginia every month. With a love for my dad and the friendships he’d built, he began thinking about BDM’s upcoming 25th anniversary and what kind of gift he might give them. El Paso was the place where BDM had gotten its start and where its founders and my dad had met. Why not give them a painting by Tom Lea, because you couldn’t get any better than that!

Dee never went to Tom’s house to discuss the project, nor was there any kind of contract signed. He simply mentioned the anniversary in the course of a conversation, sharing the remarkable story of BDM International’s success. Several months passed without mention of the painting or anniversary when late one afternoon Dee received a call from Tom Lea. He had something in his studio he’d like to show him, whenever it was a convenient time.

Dee invited me to come along and, as we drove across Scenic Drive towards Tom Lea’s studio on the east side of Mount Franklin, we looked out to El Paso below. As he often does, Dee looked up at Mount Franklin’s rocky side, saying “looks like a touch of iron up there.”

Sarah Lea met us at the front door, showing us to Tom’s studio in the back. We remembered a photo of Tom and his friend J. Frank Dobie in that same backyard with Mount Franklin’s hardrock slope behind them. Tom had told us that when Frank Dobie first visited his home, he said, “Why Tom, you don’t even have a tree in your yard!” to which Tom responded “You don’t have a mountain in yours!!”

When Dee and I saw Invocation on Tom’s easel, Dee immediately whispered a wow! He was admiring the violet blueness of the canyon and the bright blueness of the sky when Tom said, “I keep thinking that old prospector is looking for a glimmer of gold.”

Dee bought the painting then and there and arrangements were made to ship it to Virginia where it hung in the board room of BDM International for years. The company went through many changes – going public, selling to Ford Aerospace, being rebought and sold again to the Carlyle Group – with a painting of El Paso’s Old Mount Franklin hanging on its board room wall.

My dad used to say that while BDM had been a great thing, that it couldn’t last forever. Eventually it was sold to TRW and subsequently absorbed into the master plan for the mammoth Northrup Grumman. None of the original partners with ties to El Paso were there anymore.

When the El Paso Museum of Art was built on the site of the old Greyhound Bus Station downtown in 1996 and plans were made to name its primary gallery after Tom Lea, Dee began thinking about getting Invocation back, soliciting the help of our friend, Earle Williams. Knowing of Tom Lea’s love for his town and Old Mount Franklin, BDM agreed to send the painting home.

Now when visitors enter the Tom Lea Gallery, they may enjoy looking at Invocation when in the museum’s rotating schedule it is up on view. They can also walk outside and see a hardrock mountain fastened down in the center of town. And – if we look at it in reverence and without haste – we may see a glimmer of gold.

Life is filled with twists and turns – and so was the road from the tiny village of Mata Ortiz, Chihuahua, to an exhibition of its extraordinary potters at the Mexican Cultural Institute in Washington, D.C.

It began when my friend, Laura Bush, expressed an interest in visiting Casas Grandes, Chihuahua, when she was first lady of Texas. She’d read about the town in books, and thought it would be fun to experience it first hand. Since El Paso is on the border of Mexico, a drive across the bridge into northern Chihuahua was an easy thing to do.

Sandi Casillas, a kindly art teacher, taught at St. Clement’s Episcopal School across the street from my art gallery. When she brought students to see exhibitions, she’d sometimes mention trips to Casas Grandes and Paquimé. She even finagled a job cooking for a pottery workshop given by Juan Quezada in a cave near Mata Ortiz, because she would do anything to tag along. Sandi wanted to live in Mexico, and figured out ways to travel there every chance that she could. Of course she would help me plan a trip for Laura Bush and some of her friends – and could she come along, too?

Following her hand-drawn map with descriptions of places along the way – Palomas, Ascencion, Janos, Colonia Dublan – we left on the second of January, 1997, a group of 13 in two sedans with my white suburban bringing up the rear. A first lady, a sculptor, a poet, a judge, a university president, an art teacher, a businesswoman, the Texas secretary of state, a painter and a writer were among us, most never having made the trip before. Our two days in Casas Grandes made memories that are with us still, including being with the renowned artist Tom Lea, who passed away in January 2001.

There was a quietness to the world that winter in Chihuahua, as we had a picnic under dry cottonwoods by a creek bed off the road. Blond children gathered around us, speaking old German when we stopped to visit a Mennonite community; Sandi gave them candy. As we pulled up to the old Luis Terrazzas hacienda, where we would stay near the ruins of Paquimé, mariachis played on the covered porch to welcome Laura Bush and her friends.

Light from the sky cast shadows on the earthen ruins of Paquimé. Potsherds, barely distinguishable from the dusty ground, were witness to clays nearby and pigments embedded in the rocks. The archeology museum, constructed like an indigenous dwelling growing out of the earth, displayed how ancient people lived, trading parrots and metates along routes from southern Mexico to Chaco Canyon. Their pots were painted with abstract designs of men and women, snakes and birds, earth and sky. Tom Lea was visibly moved as Tony Garza, Texas secretary of state, pushed him through the museum in a wheelchair and then outside. Like the antepasados who observed their surroundings long ago, taking cues for their painted designs, Tom Lea looked toward the mountains, and he did not feel alone.

Juan Quezada took the group through his village of Mata Ortiz the next day, pointing out what financial prosperity had brought him – cattle, roosters, a ranch house on the hill – before demonstrating his way of making ollas. He taught himself as a boy, through trial and error, since the ancient tradition had disappeared and there was no one to show him. Outside, plastic cylinders were filled with soaking clay. Wood was stacked by worn adobe walls, and cow manure was gathered in burlap bags – fuel for firings. Inside, Juan formed a flat circle of clay, pressing it into a shallow dish, then placing a thick coil around the edge that looked like a donut. Pinching the clay up, smoothing it as it rose and swelled, Juan Quezada formed an olla that was flawlessly balanced and formed.

Juan’s son, Noè, had finished painting an eggshell-white pot with an elegant design of sweeping black arcs and burnt-sienna bands in preparation for our visit. It was ready to be fired.

Wondering aloud how such fine lines were painted with pigment and brush on a curved surface, Tom Lea was delighted when Juan explained that, with fine long children’s hair attached to a BIC pen casing, a potter can drag the line.

After watching the simple firing in a make-shift kiln, or quemador, members of the group walked to other homes in the village, purchasing ollas from dining and kitchen tables, beds, and dressers. There were many houses with hand-lettered signs advertising pots for sale. Columned doors, new sofas, televisions and remodeled kitchens hinted at prosperity everywhere. Decades earlier, Juan Quezada began sharing the proceeds from the sale of his ollas with his family, but ended up teaching them to be potters instead.

Before leaving for El Paso, Juan presented Noè’s cooled olla to Laura Bush in his kitchen, a gift she displayed prominently in her office back in Austin. There’s a picture of Juan and a grateful Laura Bush with the olla, standing against a bright turquoise wall.

Again and again I returned after that trip, continuing after Laura Bush became first lady of the United States and Tony Garza became ambassador to Mexico. When Laura’s husband, President George W. Bush, appointed me chairman of the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, I decided to focus on cultural exchange, beginning with Mexico. Just as Sandi Casillas shared the Chihuahua region of Casas Grandes with me, I began sharing it with newly made friends at federal agencies and with private members sitting on national boards.

Every trip brought discoveries of change. Hostal de las Guacamayas, a charming bed and breakfast at Paquimé with exquisite ollas in its gallery. Crumbling adobes being restored by Spencer MacCallum, renown patron of Juan Quezada and promoter of Mata Ortiz. New restaurants and galleries featuring yet another generation of potters, and other developing crafts, like jewelry made from broken pots. Organized competitions for artists throughout the Gran Chichimeca, drawing regional visitors from several states.

After an April 2007 President’s Committee meeting in El Paso focused on the links between world heritage sites Monte Alban, Paquimé and Mesa Verde, I planned another trip. Repeating the route we made with Laura Bush, this time in a 14-passenger van, members of the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities and Mexican friends from the U.S. Embassy in Mexico and the Cultural Institute in Washington drove west from El Paso to Columbus, New Mexico, and then south to Casas Grandes. One visit is all it took for Juan Garcia de Oteyza, Mexican cultural attaché to the U.S. at the time, to decide on an exhibition of the potters of Mata Ortiz. His successor, Alejandra de la Paz agreed, working hard with Mayte Lujan, the owner of Hostal de las Guacamayas, to bring the exhibition to fruition.

When Juan Quezada was a boy, no one would believe that the poor town of Mata Ortiz would one day prosper, and that the first lady of the United States would delight in his work. Juan changed that by teaching himself to make pots from the materials of the earth, and then sharing what he learned with his family. That sharing extended to the village, and then to the United States and other parts of the world. The extraordinary exhibition at the Mexican Cultural Institute in Washington, D.C., was yet another extension of that sharing.

By Adair Margo

There is an extraordinary house on the northeast side of Mount Franklin, built as a tribute to the people of El Paso and Juárez. Located on the access road below an elevated part of southbound I-54 past Ellerthorpe Avenue, it is surrounded by concrete, chain link and speeding cars so can easily be missed. Once called “A Flower Born in the Trash Heap,” it was built by Rufino Loya Rivas, a Mexican immigrant who sewed pockets into denim jeans at the now-closed Levi Strauss factory in El Paso before he retired in 1995.

The home is a stunning tribute to the Border, an unexpected vision of dazzling adornment that grew out of Mr. Loya’s love of history and the architecture of Mexico. He especially admires the great cathedrals he has seen and read about in the colonial cities of Morelia, Guanajuato, Zacatecas, Puebla, Mexico City… where every city block is a history museum. Mr. Loya has books that remind him of these places and sometimes shows them to visitors who ask what inspired him. He points to colored pictures of elaborately carved and decorated Churrigueresque (the Mexican form of baroque) chapels, where statues and paintings of saints are integrated into the architecture. Sculpted flowers, shells, angels and graceful garlands surround the holy images, contributing to a scene of magnificent adoration.

The cathedrals were built over generations, he says, some taking more than 200 years to finish. Holding his hands up as if chiseling a stone column, Mr. Loya describes the artisans of old and how they carved into cantera. His admiration for their craftsmanship created a desire in him to adapt their designs to his own imagination and story, and to share what he loves with others.

Rufino Loya’s grandfather was born in 1870 on the south side of the Rio Grande. His birth certificate read “Paso del Norte,” where Franciscan friars established the Mission of Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe on December 8, 1659. A monument to Saint Francis stands at the southeast corner of his property, surrounded by flowers, angels and an inscription commemorating the 350th anniversary. Mr. Loya’s father was born in Ciudad Juárez in 1901 and his mother gave birth to him there in 1933. When he was 29 years old, he came to the United States looking for greater opportunity. Initially moving to California, the freeways and fast pace of life did not suit him, and so he returned to El Paso where he has lived ever since.

When he bought the small frame house at 4301 Leavell in 1973, it was ugly and surrounded by dirt. He promised his wife that he would turn it into something special, but she was doubtful since she had never even seen him pick up a hoe. Though he had little money, Rufino Loya made a small shrine: an angel on top of a painted brick arch with a red pot of flowers underneath. Primitive compared to what he creates now, his first effort was important because it compelled him to do more. One idea followed another as he experimented with Portland cement, forming it by hand into flat circles and balls, and pouring it into cups and bowls that served as molds. At first he had problems with the materials and began to feel afraid, but his desire to build something beautiful pushed him on, and he overcame his fears.

Every night after work, on weekends and on holidays, Mr. Loya continued his work, fulfilling little by little his desire of what his property would become. His wife, Celia, also became part of the dream by helping him. Today in the parkway of their home, a painted plaque with the impressions of two pairs of hands pressed side by side in wet concrete reads “Dios Bendito Y Estas Humildes Manos Hicieron Posible Esta Obra de Arte de 1973 a 1998: Rufino Loya Rivas Y Esposa” (God’s blessing and these humble hands made this work of art possible from 1973 to 1998: Rufino Loya Rivas and wife).

The work continues today as an act of worship and in gratitude to a community Mr. Loya says welcomed him with open arms. Every day he finds something else he can do and he has invited passersby to participate. Small tin cans painted white with black lettering invite donations for maintenance and a small sign below a painting of the Virgin of Guadalupe reads “Por Favor Trae Flores. Gracias.” One December 12, Mr. Loya was awakened at 1 a.m., turning the lights on to discover young girls singing “Las Mananitas,” (the traditional Mexican birthday song) in the first hour of the Virgin’s feast day. Austin writer Jill Nokes has included the Loyas’ home in her book Yard Art and Handmade Places, Extraordinary Expressions of Home, published by UT Press in 2007 and it has been featured on PBS stations nationwide. Rufino Loya is happy to share his “Little Piece of Mexico” more widely.

Mr. Loya has no patience for people who continually complain about El Paso and he wishes they would be quiet. On either side of the shrine to the Virgin are angels he bought at a flea market, making them his own with new coats of paint and by adding figurines. One looks down at a frog while placing a finger to his lips in the sign of “Be Quiet.” “Frogs you know,” says Mr. Loya, “make a lot of noise.”

Copy and images by Adair Margo