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06/07/2006: "Rising Star Ruben Morales Captures Essence of Zccalo Life" by Ron Butler
MORELIA, Mexico -- Artist Ruben Morales, long a familiar figure selling his paintings on Sunday on the
Plaza de los Matires (Plaza of the Martyrs) in this picturesque Central Mexican city, has been winning attention and fans north of the border as well as throughout his native country,."The men are bent, faceless. Many of the rebozo-clad women kneel in supplication, sometimes to a pot of flowers, but also to pure white space, their God left to the immagination," wrote Judy Wiley recently in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
"I'm embarrassed to ask how much one costs. It seems an insult to his dignity, to ask Morales to put a price on works that are such a part of him he cannot name a favorite."
Morales looks like an artist. Fiftiish. Glasses hangimng from a cord around his neck. His facial features are classic Mexican. He has dark curly hair that tumbles over his forehead, dark skin and a broad swipe of a mustache against a somewhat prominent nose. Added to this is the knowing, sensitive look common to those who portray life in the stroke of a brush or the swipe of a pen.
I had purchased a Morales painting several years ago at Morelia's Casa de las Artesanias where handicrafts from throughout the state of Michoacan are sold on two levels of a former 450-year-old convent located just behind he cathedral. It was a simple painting of a flower vendor that I grew more and more fond of as time went by. Even on the dreariest of days, it seemed to fill the room where it hung at home with warmth and color. I bought several more paintings on subsequent trips, noting a substantial increase in price each time, although still relatively inexpensive at less than $200. But on this visit there were none of his paintings on sale. When I asked one of the salesgirls why, she told me they had become too expensive so they weren't handling them any more. "But don'tyou set the prices?" I asked.
"Si,"she said.
So much for local marketing techniques.
It was quite by accident that I met the artist shortly afterwards. It was Sunday. I passed Las Rosas church and conservatory, now part of the city's art and library complex. On weekends, artists can sell their works outside along the church walls and fountains, and there they were. I recognized Morales' work immediately -- faceless figures done in impressionistic style, heavy rhythmic swirls of paint applied with brush and pallet knife in the warm bight colors that speak of Morelia's labyrinth of twisting sun-washed streets. Twenty or so were on display, oils as well as drawings and watercolors.Morales interrupted his chat with two other painters and came over. I introduced myself. I had already picked out a couple of paintings I wanted: a woman with a pail done in a deep blue wash and another of a young woman sitting with her legs drawn up in front of her next to a bowl of orange flowers.
Morales obviously doesn't have far to go to find his subjects -- workers, vendors, people living their day by day lives. The Las Rosas conservatory is just off Morelia's main plaza. Surrounded on three sides by shady arcades and pedestrian malls, the plaza is dominated by the magnificent Morelia Cathedral whose twin pink spires guide travelers from miles around to the heart of the city. The plaza is the plaza of all Mexico, with its outdoor cafes where businessmen gather for coffee in the late afternoon; workers sweep the street with palm fronds; old women sell lottery tickets, and kids hawk newspapers and chewing gum. Subjects enough.
I wanted to see Morales' studio, the place were he worked, and asked if I might visit him there. He said he would get one of the other artists to look after his paintings and I could meet him there at three that afternoon. He wrote out the address. He home is on Avenue Manuel Buendia but his studio is about a mile or so in the opposite direction.Later, in the taxi, I looked over the notes I had taken earlier. Morales was born in Morelia on Feb. 23, 1947.. Son of a construction worker, he was one of a family of five children whose mother died when he was one. He finished elementary school in Morelia and attended art school for two years at the Escuela Popular de Bellas Artes there, but learned little, he says, rebelling from the formal techniques taught at the school. He used to go to the Plaza de Armas in downtown Morelia where local painters gathered to sell their works. He learned much of his skills as an artist from them. Morales is married to Adela Zarate Alvarado and they have three daughters, 29, 27and 24 and an adopted ten-year-old son.
He was standing at the door as my taxi pulled up in front of the green stuccoed building. The interior was sparsely furnished with several work tables, geraniums in coffee cans, a cot and an open back section that lead to a cluttered yard where two large pigs scuffled about. Even Salvador Dali who loved to shock visitors with his eccentricities never had pigs in his studio. And, of course, there were paintings everywhere, drawings, sketches, oils, stacked here and there, on the floor, propped against the walls. Part of the studio serves as a tailor shop. Morales explained that his wife Adela does alterations, nodding to several somber business suits that were hanging there, all too large and dowdy to be his.
His favorite painter was Diego Rivera, he told me. I asked what he thought of Jose Luis Cuevas, whose powerful images seem thrust from the subconscious and are often preoccupied with death. "Not much," he said, but with an expression that acknowledged respect.
I picked out yet another painting -- a swirling yellow image of a man stacking melons -- and gratefully bought it. Morales cautioned that the paint was still wet.
The next day as I crossed he plaza, I passed the flower vendors sitting on the sidewalk selling their fresh blossoms under the shaded portals. One of them, I'm sure, the one in the pink dress, hangs in my living room at home.
Several months ago when I visited, I was impressed with the growth in the artist's work and his confidence. He had just returned from a show at the posh Punta del Este resort in Uruguay and was planning gallery visits to Phoenix and Los Angeles where his works will be shown later this year at the Mexican Consulate. He will still sell his paintings on the street, but I knew I was witnessing the breakthrough moment in an artist's life. Nothing can stop him now. # #
