Fidencio Romero
Featured Artist - El Calendario de Todos Santos,
May 1999
Fidencio
Romero was born in Loreto, B.C.S. Mexico. He lived on Carmen Island for
eight years, where he learned the ways of the sea and could identify any
fish that moved and the birds by their smell.
Fidencio's mother died when he was only one year old and his grandmother raised him. He felt his mother's presence through out much of his life as an "angel." She often came to him in his dreams and helped him in unusual ways. Fidencio also felt the presence of the angel Michael, who he said crossed his arms and frowned if Fidencio did something that Michael did not like. Fidencio continues to live very close to the spirit world and although his heritage is Catholic, he practices no specific religion.
Fidencio began carving wood in 1995. He studied and carved in Santa Fe, New Mexico for three years. He carves angels and saints because of his natural belief in them and as a way of honoring his past.
Fidencio was captivated by the creative energy of Todos Santos in 1998 when he came to participate in the Todos Santos Art Festival. He now lives Todos Santos and is the only Santero (saint maker) in Baja California Sur.
Fidencio has exhibited his wood carvings in galleries in Santa Fe and Albuquerque, New Mexico and Oklahoma. His work is now on display at his Galería de Fidencio.
Charles Stewart
Featured Artist - El Calendario de Todos Santos,
January 1999
Charles
Stewart uses many mediums including oils, watercolors and wood sculpture.
He has also created many carved and painted wood gates and door throughout
Todos Santos.
Born in Toledo, Ohio in 1922, Charles studied at the Toledo Art Museum. He served in the U.S. Army during World War II. After being discharged in 1945, he studied painting and sculpture at the Art Student's League in New York. In 1950 he visited Mexico City, then moved to Taos, New Mexico, where he studied at the Taos Valley Art School under Louis Ribak. He has taught painting and sculpture in the Taos Art Association; at Philbrook Art Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma; and to private students.
Charles Stewart is the self proclaimed founding artist of the Todos Santos ex-pat artist community. He and his wife, Mary Lou, moved to Todos Santos in 1985.
Charles' works are in collections in the U.S., Canada, México, France and Germany. It is displayed locally at the Galería de Todos Santos, the corridor next to El Tecolote Libros and at the Charles Stewart Gallery & Studio.
In the winter of 1999, The Lineberry-Van Vecten Museum of Taos Artists in Taos, New Mexico showed 48 paintings by Charles of Taos artists' studios.
"Painting is life; it is for the artist to make paint and canvas live. It does not matter whether it be recognizable in concept, but in execution the work must come alive. On this plane everyone can understand, can feel. To me the ories, paint and brushes, canvas textures are merely a means, not the end." - Charles C. Stewart
Gloria Marie V.
Featured Artist - El Calendario de Todos Santos,
March 2002
Gloria
Marie Vigil Chavez was born in Hollywood in 1957 to a Mexican mother and
Spanish father. Encouraged by her parents, and by public school programs
for gifted students in the 60's, she pursued drawing, painting, and sculpture,
eventually majoring in three-dimensional design at Cal State Northridge.
After her parents' death in 1972, an art career gave way to making a living. Gloria designed album covers (Jackson Browne, Bruce Springsteen), styled photo shoots, and did make-up for the movies (including a young, can't-sit-still Jim Carrey). She was successful, she traveled the world; but in 1994 Gloria left it all for Todos Santos, where she met artist and gallery owner Michael Cope, who encouraged her to "crack a tube" and get back to her art. Gloria has been living and painting here ever since.
While still a versatile artist (ceramics, sculpture, mixed media), Gloria Marie V. is best known for her oil paintings, in particular her dramatic portraits of Mexican women. She is a patient, meticulous painter, adding layer upon layer, much as a make-up artist works, until there is a depth and a detailed realism that goes beyond photographic to surreal. One canvas, Teotichuacan, took four months, night and day, to complete. Gloria generally paints while listening to X-Files or other videos. "I find it engages the part of my brain that would otherwise be criticizing and doubting the part that's painting."
She works in her studio al otro lado, in a Greek style house she designed with the writer Michael Mercer, whom she met here six years ago.
The art of Gloria Marie V. is shown exclusively at Galería de Todos Santos.
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