UPCOMING EVENTS
THE BORDER BOOK FESTIVAL

Here you will find information and dates for upcoming events of the Cultural Center de Mesilla and Border Book Festival. Please check back frequently!

ENTRE MUNDOS/BETWEEN WORLDS
GALERÍA TEPÍN
SUNDAY, JANUARY 31, 3-5:00 p.m.

Click here for more information on Galería Tepín and our ongoing art exhibitions.

RETABLO PAINTING WORKSHOP WITH SANTA BARRAZA
SATURDAY, AUGUST 21, 2010
9:00 AM - 3:00 PM

Cultural Center de Mesilla
2231 A Calle de Parian
Mesilla, NM 88046

Cost:  $125.00 includes supplies
Lunch not provided.  

Reservations necessary as space is limited.
575-523-3988 • bbf@borderbookfestival.com

A retablo is a term for a Latin American devotional painting, especially a small popular or folk art one using iconography derived from traditional religious sources. Retablos are devotional or votive paintings, often on rectangular sheets of tin that illustrate holy images such as Christ, the Virgin Mother, or one of the hundreds of saints. Contemporary retablos used images found in modern society and span spiritual and cultural traditions.
Ex-votos ("from a vow") are different from retablos in that they often depict the story that led to their commission. These stories recall dangerous or threatening events that actually occurred, and which the person survived, thanks to the intercession of a sacred person - God, or a saint. They are made as a way of thanking the sacred person for protection in precarious situations, such as surviving an illness or earthquake.

The way a retablo and ex-voto look are entirely up to the person designing it, so long as it contains the necessary basic elements. The most important part of the retablo is the representation of the miraculous event.

A native of Kingsville, Texas, Santa Contreras Barraza is a contemporary Chicana/Tejana artist who is a Professor of Art at Texas A&M University at Kingsville. She formerly taught at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Penn State University at University Park. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1975 and her Master of Fine Arts in 1982 from the University of Texas at Austin.

Barraza’s artwork has been widely exhibited in the United States, Mexico, Italy and Spain. Her vita reflects a career replete with awards, appearances and lectures, exhibitions, and publications. In 2001 Texas A&M University Press published the book, Santa Barraza: Artist of the Borderlands, which received the annual Southwest Book Award from the Border Regional Library Association in 2002.

Barraza’s work is currently on exhibit at Galería Tepín, the BBF’s art gallery located at 2220 Calle de Parian. Santa Barraza (Karankawa/Chicana) paints bold representations of Nepantla, a mythic “Land Between.” Her work depicts the historical, emotional, and spiritual land between México and Texas, between the real and the celestial, and between present reality and the mythic world of the ancient Aztecs and Mayas.

EL MOVIMIENTO TERTULIAS
SUNDAY, AUGUST 29, 2010
5:00 PM

THE CHICANO MOVEMENT LIVES!

Join us for a Series of Tertulias—beginning on Sunday, August 29th at 5:00 p.m. at the Cultural Center de Mesilla, 2231 Calle de Parian, Mesilla, New Mexico.

A tertulia is a social gathering with literary or artistic overtones.

We will look at Books and Writers of El Movimiento Chicano. The "Chicano Movement" has been used by historians to describe a moment of ethnic empowerment and protest among Americans of Mexican descent beginning in the 1960s. What has changed since then? What has not changed?

A special reading will take place this night to introduce you to oft forgotten voices of El Movimiento and to celebrate the life of Journalist Rubén Salazar, who died 40 years ago on August 29 during the Chicano Moratorium. The Chicano Moratorium was a march of between 20-30,000 in Los Angeles to protest the Vietnam War.

We will meet once a month on a day and time to be determined by the Tertulianos. A reading list and books for the Tertulias will be available at the Cultural Center de Mesilla. Leader is writer Denise Chávez. Cost of each Tertulia is $10.

For more information, contact The Border Book Festival
575-523-3988 • bbf@borderbookfestival.com

Images by Santa Barraza.

VASUNDHARA
THE 17TH ANNUAL BORDER BOOK FESTIVAL
APRIL 8-10, 2011

Click here for more information on our annual festival.