Art And Soul

It’s paintbrushes at the ready in the central Mexican city of San Miguel de Allende, the country’s colourful, artistic heartland

- Jonathan Thompson

“An ex-voto is a kind of prayer,” José Luis says, as we stand, apron-clad and attentive in the cactus garden. “It’s offering thanks for something you’re grateful to have in your life. That could be anything — from a favourite teapot to a friendly chicken.” The idea of today’s class is for each of us to paint an ex-voto, with a little help from José Luis. Easels are picked, palettes distributed and paints are carefully blended, before brushes caress canvas in the early morning sunshine.

Today’s class is a common sight across San Miguel de Allende, Mexico’s capital of creativity. While many larger cities are traditionally associated with art — Florence, Paris and Kyoto, for example — San Miguel de Allende is art. Known to Mexicans as ‘the magic place’, its tight, snaking stone streets, graceful steeples and vivid homes — all mustard yellows, cornflower blues and lipstick reds — combine to form a vibrant fairytale whole. So dramatic is the effect that the entire city — all 64 colourful blocks of it — is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.