Lessons from the Ocean: Stillness


Lessons from the Ocean: Stillness
Reflection from 2022 Oaxaca: Zicatella and Carizalillo

This year has been different for me. My mind likes to be busy. Naturally, I feel like that is what works for me, it’s what I like to do. I love to daydream. I thrive in my alone time because my alone time gives me time to do these things that help guide my life. I also like to be with friends and go to places that excite the different interests I have. But for the most part, I was used to doing a lot of things on my own and I felt comfortable in that space. 

I started dating again earlier this year. In my mind, the goal has always been a healthy relationship with someone I could see as a life partner. But to be honest, I was just curious as to what dating looked like and meeting people.

Through this little curious process I did meet someone and I’ve been enjoying my time with him. There has been a tiny shift in me. I’m not sure how to explain this, but I haven’t been spending the amount of time I was used to on my own, and to be super honest, it felt a bit foreign.

As this trip I had planned was nearing, I felt this pull in two directions. I wanted to give space to the thing that had called me to make this trip in the first place but I also wanted to just stay in the moment. I was feeling a push and pull within me up until a few days before my trip when I finally decided what I wanted this trip to be for me, some time to spend painting by the ocean.

When I arrived I spent the first few days of my arrival painting in Zicatela. The water in Zicatela is far from still, the waves generally come in strong, it’s primarily known as a surf beach. There are also currents that form and move up and down the stretch of water. Swimming in that water is not easy or really advised to people unfamiliar with it. It took me a few days of observing the water before finally deciding to go in. The pull is strong, and in order to avoid getting hit by the waves every few seconds you have to swim further into the ocean, something that I didn’t feel safe doing with the constant currents that occur. When I did get in it was brief. After a few days there I decided to have a beach day where I could swim and headed over to Carizalillo.

Carizalillo is a small bay where the waves come in softer. It is still a surf beach but you can swim further in that water and float or swim for hours, which is exactly what I did. I got there at 9 am and left at 7 pm, took a few breaks for food, but a majority of that time was spent either swimming or floating in that water. Stillness. 

I spent most of my time in that water just feeling the waves, swimming, floating, letting them rock me gently before the next soft wave came in, I did this until my brain got quieter and quieter and the waves more abstract. Later that night I reflected on that. I had a similar experience of reality slowly becoming an abstraction once when I took sedatives that slowly made me pass out. 

As I lay in bed that day I could feel the memory of the waves rocking my body and the sensation of floating in the ocean, it was a magical experience.

Stillness, a lesson from the ocean.

Image 1:
Carizalillo, Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca

Image 2:
Zicatella, Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca

Carizallio Beach

Zicatela Beach

Plein Air Paintings: Oaxaca-Colorado

Plein Air Paintings
April 22, 2022 - Ongoing

Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca ·
Chicago, Illinois · Denver, Colorado

An ongoing practice that allows me to enjoy the weather, get lost in the flowers and paint outdoors.

Return to the Ocean

I flew out on 4/20. It was a long day of travel, an overnight flight followed by customs, followed by loosing my baggage resulting in missing my flight. Just when I thought the fiasco was over and I could relax at the airport lounge I realized I had lost my wallet somewhere in the CDMX airport. I was getting hopeless responses from most of the places I back-tracked to that is until coming across a lovely man named Ignacio who worked there and radioed everyone until he located it. Singlehandedly saved my ass. Thank you Ignacio. I finally arrived to my destination 18 hours later. The first thing I did when I arrived to my Airbnb was go to the ocean. I caught the sun as it was about to set.

April 21, 2022: Zicatela Beach, Oaxaca, Mexico

Xerx’s flower crown

Xerx is a very good friend and a magical floral designer. He was also one of the people I spent a lot of time hanging out with when everything was shut down. I had met Xerx in 2018 when my best friend at the time, Javy, started dating him. I remember the first day I met him, the first thing he did was excitedly pick me up and Xerx is TALL. Javy and I had a piece at Congruent Space for Glamour Girl’s Amuse Bouche art show and my cousin and her wife, Coral had came in from Grand Rapids for opening night. We all drove together in a car and I remember Xerx asking Coral for a piece of mentos gum, she extended it out to him and he ate it straight out of her hand. Xerx made it very easy to be comfortable being unhinged, we’ve done so many things together that I won’t mention here, the point is I’m very comfortable with Xerx.

On this day he picked me up and we headed to the studio. At the time I didn’t know the extent of what Xerx was going through, he shared a few things, frustrations and pains in his romantic relationship, that I now know were much larger than he had initially mentioned to me that day and we talked about it. I too was going through my own relationship woes at the time and we cried in the car, a good little cry that day before this shoot. Xerx is also a gay man, I feel like it’s an important detail to mention, I wasn’t out here confiding my relationship sorrows to a straight man.

When we got to the studio Xerx had taken out two floral crowns he had made. They were beautiful. I love the way Xerx plays with flowers, at the time he had been working at the floral depatment of Wholefoods, and was using that to fund some of his more personal floral experiments. He would make these beautiful experimental arrangements he kept in his home, and we would often find ourselves admiring them and their compositions while being stoned on a weekend night.

He had ordered the flowers for the crowns from a supplier online and then spent a day arranging them, before storing them in the fridge for safe keeping. We didn’t have much of a plan for the shoot, the idea was I bring some clothes and we creative direct as we go, it was just us two and we’re good at just figuring it out.

Xerx and I have a good little collaborative thing going, we both understand the importance of spontaneity so this was a fun little shoot together. He had me posing with my mouth slightly open in a fictional moment of ecstasy, I laid on the floor and blankly stared into space so it looked like I was dead, some of the shots were very overtly sexual, but it was so fun playing this character. This photo I share here is my favorite one from the bunch, it’s softer, more reserved, and when I look closely at my eyes I can still see remnants of the tears shed that day LOL.

March 18, 2021 at my studio in Mana Contemporary

Some other floral arrangements by Xerx

Back in the flow

”Back in the flow”

I had been feeling a distance from painting and the medium, I went to the studio last night and decided to paint something from my reference material to get back into the medium. I took out this book of “Rose Photo Postcards” by The American Rose Society that I had found in a used bookstore in LA. The process of painting this rose brought me back to the imagined landscape reality I had been lost in last year. I enjoyed painting this, it transported me back to the space I had been feeling disconnected from for the larger part of this year. Something also happened while I was painting this, I started to sing. I’m not as much of a singer as I am a dancer, but something about the process made me sing and that was new. Also, spring is coming back and the flowers will be coming out again soon. I think the anticipation of a new season is breathing a new life that was dormant inside of me for the majority of winter, I want to continue to nurture this.

This is a painting using lead white pigment from Windsor & Newton, charcoal mixed with transparent gesso and Belgium linen canvas.

Wendy's Manifesto

Wendy’s Manifesto

1) Life should be fun

2) Live life on your own terms

3) Exercise kindness wisely

4) Follow the path that calls you

5) Understand that everything always works out in the end

6) Feel everything

7) It is wise to change your mind

8) Preserve your peace, preserve your essence

9) Life is a continuous journey of learning who you are, learn

10) Above all, no matter what, always return to love

and always always always be a little mischievous 🧚‍♀️

 

Noche de Romance 2022

Punch House Chicago
February 14, 2022

Most of the fall and winter I spent listening to oldies that would come out on the radio show I remember listening to “Viejitas pero Bonitas”. It was a show that would come out in the 90’s and early 2000’s on the Spanish station la Ley 107.9FM late into the night and had a radio host who would play romantic ballads and talk about love. There was something super nostalgic, romantic and sometimes sad about the love stories that were told through these songs I fondly remember. I had a vision of hosting a night at a bar in Chicago where I could play all this music of love, music that was in Spanish and that brought me so many memories. After mentioning my idea to a dj named Lary, who goes by the alias Casino Boogie, he recommended I reach out to Bobby from Punch House. So I did, and Bobby responded right away, he remembered the radio show and after sending him a concept mix he accepted my pitch for Noche de Romance at Punch House for Valentine’s day.

I wanted to make the night special, I bought 4 dozen roses and handed them out to people at the bar with a quote about love that I have been developing in my head for some time “Love is a present state”. There were some people who came out specifically because they remember the radio show and wanted to listen to the music and reiemnice. A lot of my friends also came to support and it was so so so special to be able to play the music I’ve been listening to for the past few months in my solitude out loud at the bar. It was also so nice to have people come up and tell me the memories that they resonated with the music and how they connected with it. It was an amazing night. BIGGGGGG shout out to my studio neighbor and friend Jeffly for helping me print my tags and HUGEEEEEE shout out to Daniel, the one and only, for helping me attach my tags to my roses last minute, LOTS AND LOTS of love to all the friends and everyone who came out to support my little idea and who celebrated this Noche de Romance with me.

Hope to do this again and to dance and sing with you all. Lots of love.

“Love is a present state”- Wendy Robles

Listen to Noche de Romance mix here :)

“I don’t know what this painting is about”

A note in Kenrick’s studio space.

“I don’t know what this painting is about”
-Kenrick McFarlane

In conversation about starting and approaching a painting in the flow state and how it relates to art and all things life. Diving into the guidance and the unknown.

 

Lessons from the Ocean: A Stubborn Woman

Lessons from the Ocean: A Stubborn Woman & A Lesson on Guidance

I can be a stubborn woman, that is a quality that I have in me, I can blame it on the lineage of woman I come from but for whatever reason that is who I can be sometimes. I am flexible, I am understanding, I know my limits but sometimes I just set my mind to something and I just have to do it. Determined? LOL maybe that’s a better way to define it, or at least it sounds nicer. But I can be stubborn too, I work on it, but it’s there and I know it, I am aware. It’s sometimes proven a necessity and been a useful, rewarding trait and sometimes it’s been the exact thing blocking me.

I was in the ocean with my friend Lilly and B last April for Lilly’s birthday. It was my first time being really in the ocean, fully in it, and it was amazing. We swam out and there were waves coming towards us. Lilly, who knows how to surf, was teaching me about the waves, white top means go underwater, clear top means you can ride the wave further in. We were getting a lot of clear tops and I was having a good time just chilling in the water riding the small waves as they came. Then a wave with what I perceived as a sliver, the tiniest hint of white, came towards us, barely noticeable, I swear. Lilly told me to go under and for whatever reason I decided that I did not want to go underwater. Why I thought I shouldn’t heed to mother nature's warning is beyond me, but again, sometimes I don’t know why I do the things that I do. So that wave, that so kindly warned me and I thought I didn’t have to listen to, took me out. I came out of that wave with salt water up my nose and coughing, only to be hit by a second wave shortly after. By the third wave, Lilly had noticed and swam out to pull me out before I got further dragged out to the shore with the rocks.

Getting tossed around by that wave, as scary as it was also a little fun? I probably say this because I didn’t get hurt hurt, just a little roughed around. Had I hit those rocks, most likely I would be thinking differently about that experience. 

Lilly spent time with me this past week. We talked about the ocean and life. The way some occurrences just are and how beautiful it is to be within those experiences. There’s something about the ocean that I am drawn to. It’s just this presence, at times it has brought me peace, at times it has brought me clarity, at times fear.

I’m about to make a correlation to the ocean that is cliche, but the ocean and life I have come to view them in similar ways in this regard. I am at the mercy of both. Do I think I have absolutely no control over my life? no. But there are things in life I don’t know and paths where my decisions will lead me. This is something I will spend my lifetime learning, life’s guidance. But what I have found is that when it’s part of the guidance it’s there, it always has been no matter where life has dragged me to, it has found a funny way to put me exactly where I need to be, even if I don’t listen the first, second or third time.

April 18, 2021 at La Jolla Beach, San Diego, California

Studio Experiments 2021

Studio Experiments

I set up some flowers on a frog and placed a sky painting in the background. Initially, when I made these paintings I envisioned floating flowers painted onto them. But I enjoyed how calm they were and the more I looked at them the more I felt like they were complete, so I let them be. I did however want to capture this idea in some medium. I set up some still-lifes with my flower arrangement, the painting, a silk background, and a touch of a jewelry piece to shot some 35 mm film. Sadly the film has been lost in the strips of film my studio mate and I have collectively have. For now, here’s the digitals.

Reflections of Mexico Loneliness and Solitude September 4- 20 2021

Reflections of Mexico Loneliness and Solitude
September 4- 20 2021

Okay, I’m going to start unpacking Mexico with a topic that came up many many times during my travel. Loneliness and Solitude. In fact, if I had to pick a topic to describe this Mexico trip it would be just that. To be honest, If I don’t give it much thought the two can almost sound synonymous to me, or at the very least close in meaning.

When I got on the plane I sat next to a man. I was in the middle seat he was in the seat next to me towards the window. I was so so sleepy, it was a redeye and I couldn’t find a proper way to fall asleep. The man noticed and offered to let me sleep on him. I accepted, I know it sounds odd, “Wendy, what were you thinking?” But I was tired and the man was nice. So I fell asleep on this stranger’s shoulder. 

When I landed I ordered an Uber. It was still early in the morning and dark out, but my driver was wide awake and charismatic. He told me how he liked to drive, it was a passion of his, and he liked meeting people in his drives and sharing conversation with them. He told me about his life. He had a dog and he was single, he had been so for a very long time. He told me that one of people’s greatest fears is being lonely. I questioned him on this, but his answer was something equivalent to “yes, of course, didn’t you know?” No, I didn’t, I always thought it was spiders or heights or the dark or something, I kid, I kid. Loneliness is a very real fear.

During my stay, I was able to visit two homes designed by Mexican architect Luis Barragán, the first being Casa Gillardi, and the second Luis Barragán’s studio/ home space. The topics of loneliness and solitude were brought up during both of these visits. Luis Barragán was known for designing with solitude in mind, it was part of a philosophy he carried. Famously quoted “Only in intimate communion with solitude may man find himself. Solitude is good company and my architecture is not for those who fear or shun it.”

In conversation with the man who lives in Casa Gillardi. I recall him mentioning how people fear loneliness, in a very similar fashion to that of my Uber driver. Still, I questioned this, really? Fearing loneliness? The response was similar to the driver’s. Neither really went in-depth as to why, it was more of “it’s an obvious fear, who wants to be lonely?” which is probably very true. Who wants to be lonely?

I’ve had the opportunity to travel alone in my life and I very much enjoy the experience. I get to pick where I want to go, I’m able to meet new people and have beautiful conversations. I get to explore and get lost in my thoughts and walk around, treat myself. I, to a certain extent enjoy my solitude. But I also enjoy sharing my travel experiences with friends, the warmth of familiarity and companionship in a new place. And being able to share those moments with people I love. It’s a balance, if I had to pick which one I prefer I’m not sure I would have the answer, I like both in their own way.

Last year I found myself leaving a 10-year relationship. And I was single for the first time in my adult life. My friend Kenrick once asked me, would I rather be single or in a relationship. My answer, I would want to have a healthy relationship with someone I could see as a life partner. That has always been my desire. But, I would prefer being single if the alternative was being in a less-than-ideal situation.

I’ve reflected a lot in moments in my life that I have been in company and felt lonely and moments where I’ve been in solitude and felt in good company. But what I haven’t experienced much of are moments when solitude and loneliness become one. This, to me, is not a good place to be in, and one I’ve been mindful of. I have experienced moments like this in my life and they were not pleasant. 

Back to Mexico, I found myself stumbling upon stories of solitude through the people I met. And even feeling my own solitude when I accidentally took myself to a haunted stories interactive exhibition in the dark and found myself quite literally enduring the fear BY MYSELF. Terrifying. Did I close my eyes and my ears most of the way through? Most definitely, yes. 

Towards the end of my trip, I found myself in the most bizarre experience. This was brought up by a conversation and led to an unexpected release of emotion, an emotion that quite literally drained me for the rest of the trip. Loneliness, even the memory of it, can be heavy. 

The last part of my trip was my cousin’s wedding in Cancun. I had the opportunity to stay longer in Cancun as some of the guests were not able to make it and their rooms had already been paid for. And it was a tempting offer, something about the ocean was a healing experience, just getting swept by the waves with no real control over anything, it brought me peace. But I knew I had to get back, and address loneliness and heal myself and that I could only do this in the solitude and comfort of home. 

I wish I was a better writer and could end this in a more eloquent way, but that’s it, Loneliness and solitude. Mysteries of life. 

September 8, 2021: Casa Luis Barragán, Mexico City, Mexico

September 12, 2021: Casa Frida Kahlo, Mexico City, Mexico

“A Journey into Oaxaca”

Kenrick’s Studio in DTLA

This piece happened on my last night in LA. Kenrick and I worked on this in similar fashion to the first collab piece, placing colors on the palette and then just starting. I played some music from Bruut!, Los Pasteles Verdes, Los Angeles Negros and we were vibing. After most of the painting was complete we stepped back, then we made the call to flip the painting 180 degrees and decided that was the final touch it needed.

See First Collab Piece Here

Naked and Famous in LA

December 11 - 16, 2021

I was back in LA for my friend Kenrick’s first LA solo show appropriately titled “Naked and Famous” something I’ve been looking forward to all year long. I was also doing my first DJ set there at High Tide for the afterparty. It was a fun night and a full 24 hours of no sleep for me, minus the 45min nap I took in the car.

Daniel the lovely studio mate also let me take his camera with me to LA so I got to capture some scenes there in Fuji and B&W film. Film I forgot to bring and ended up leading me to stop by at the little camera and magazine shop where I met Raymond the shop owner, photographer and dj and who I proceeded to spend the next 5 or so hours chilling in LA with, and so graciously got me Japanese food, thank you Raymond.

Some of the rest of my time there was spent going to the Huntington Garden’s, which has the most extensive variety of desert plants outdoors I have ever seen. Kenrick and I did a part two collab at his studio in DTLA. And unfortunately to my dismay, LA was not really any warmer than Chicago.

Flowers on Film at the Huntington
Photos using Cannon Ae-1 and B&W Ilford 35mm film

Naked and Famous After Party for Kenrick’s solo show

Film photos from my day at the Huntington Library Gardens

In Good Company at Mana Contemporary

In Good Company at Mana Contemporary
December 10, 2021 - January 7, 2022

In Good Company by the Monira Foundation is an art show put together to showcase all the wonderful talent that exists in the Mana Contemporary artist studio building in Chicago.

66 Chicago artists, painters, photographers and sculptures all under one roof. Opening night is December 10th, come grab a drink and see the work of select Chicago artists, including your girl.

SHOW OPENING
5-10pm
Friday, December 10, 2021
2233 S. Throop Street
Chicago, IL 60611

Find more details here:
monirafoundation.org

See you there <3

Reflections from Durango, Mexico

Life’s Little Parallels
July 31 - August 10, 2021

Last summer, I drove 4 hours in the mountains of Mexico, it was pitch black and slightly raining. The road was a little rough and my high-lights weren’t enough to really capture the clifs that I knew were on the side of me. It was a scary experience because 1. Coming out of the town I did not have GPS or cellphone signal so I had to remember my way out of the mountains before getting to the first major town which was about 30 minutes away and 2. The area where I was driving is known for its cocaine production, and there are stories of things getting violent and cartels blocking the roadways, there is no safe way to do a U turn in those mountains and so if I were to be stopped, driving alone in the night there really would be nothing I could do. So I thought about this and the other very rational fear of accidentally falling off the side of the mountain in the dark (there are many crosses along the way, this is a common occurrence). 

I have been somewhat scared of the dark most of my life. It’s not as persistent of a fear as when I was younger, As a child I used to sleep with a night light (and sometimes on the floor, idk why that made me feel safer). This fear definitely hasn’t stopped me from adventuring being the curious person I am. As I drove through the mountains, thinking of moments where I have had to endure fears of the dark, a memory came to mind.

I LOVED school supply shopping as a kid. There was something so thrilling to me about organizing all my supplies and daydreaming about school. So when the list arrived one summer I begged my mom to take me to the store. I don’t remember why but that day the apartment garage where the car was stored was in pitch black darkness, so naturally my mom was like “no”. But being the persistent child I was, I proposed a solution and she accepted. If I could go into the garage and open the door that was at the other deep end (closer to the car) she would take me. She knew I was scared of the dark, so in her mind this was not going to happen.

I grabbed my dad's little handheld flashlight and a rock and went to the garage door opening trying to figure out how I was going to get to the deep end of that garage. A few times I walked in only to realize that it really was super super dark. I’m not sure how long I waited outside of that garage but at some point a car finally went in, so I saw that as my chance to go in with it. Unfortunately, this car was parked at the near end of the garage so they didn’t really provide much help. But I saw this as my chance, something about someone else being in the garage with me made me feel more at ease with the dark, so I just ran with it. Somehow I made it to the other end and propped open the door. My mom kept her end of the deal and I went school supply shopping that day.

The parallels of life are really funny sometimes, and if I pay close attention, I find that in my life there are many parallels I can look back like “hmm, interesting”. But that day, when I arrived from Mexico to my parent’s place, the same garage I had endured in my early years was also in pitch black darkness. This isn’t a common occurrence, so it was kind of like life’s little inside joke with me.

August 10, 2021: Driving out of Bagres at approx. 4am

August 10, 2021: Chicago, IL

Sky Paintings

Pilsen, Mana Contemporary Studio

Through out the summer I went on many bike rides down Lake Shore path overlooking Lake Michigan, whether it was waking up super early in the morning to watch the sun rise over the lake (beautiful view) or to go late late into the night to feel the quietness of the city and the warmth of the summer without the sun. The lake saw a lot of me this summer, I cried by the lake, I submerged myself in it, I went with my friends cruising and I bingged a lot of albums being by the lake. It was a place of meditation where I could to get a little lost, get lost in the perceived vastness of the lake and the sky and quiet in my thoughts, I could also reflect and think. There was a lot of balance by the lake, and I am grateful for all of the moments I had there.

Fast forward to November, I found myself hitting a period of being stuck. I wasn’t going to the lake as much. I didn’t have the energy to go early like I did in the summer and by the time I was done with work the darkness of the city wasn’t very encouraging to get myself there. The times I did go to the lake, the wind was super strong and it was so so so cold. My bike rides to the lake became less frequent.

I started this series of paintings based on images of the sky I had on my phone. Some from the lake, but others from my collection of travels, California, Cancun, long drives. Making these was a sort of meditative process similar to the lake. I initially thought these could serve as backdrops for images of floating flowers but I’ve decided to leave them as they are. They are my portals where I can enter their landscape and get lost in the imagined vastness just like I did during my time at the lake.

New Orleans Girls Trip

New Orleans Girls Trip
October 28-31

When I say I was exhausted from Mexico I mean it, I was EXHAUSTED, like there was absolutely no reason I should have accepted to go on this trip when I did, but I’ve always wanted to go to New Orleans and the opportunity to go during Halloween week with my friends was too tempting to resist, so when my friends told me we were doing girl’s trip part dos I caved.

My friend Bella, was staying down in Missisippi doing some work as a political reporter, and three weeks before Halloween it just so happened we all had a clear schedule for that weekend. I’m glad I accepted to go when I did, because this was a fun trip, a bit unexpected, and I’m pretty sure there was mold in one of the rooms, but lovely and needed. We also changed our names during this trip, one night my name was Scarlett the other I went by Star, I think it just fit the outfit I was wearing. Scarlett wore a red velvet dress with a cut out back and had a mole on her face, Star was more playful and wore some converse and a black velvet mini skirt with a tied up floral pink shirt. The unexplainable reason as to why woman do the things that we do. It was fun, that’s my general consensus for making decisions.

As for the actual Halloween festivities, we originally had planned to be a cult of flowers. We were going to draw on our faces and just be flowers of some abstract sort for Halloween. The plan however did not end up as scheduled. The white face paint was not the move. So we toned the idea back a bit and just kinda got loose with the look. For the rest of the weekend we went to this cute french bar called Bar Marilou, tried some AMAZING Po Boys from Mahony’s and listened to a live band on our walk to down Burbon street. Absolute food favorite, must try from the trip, Bearcat Cafe breakfast spot, the Hot Chicken Crab Daddy, ugh so so so good. We didn’t get to go on a cemetery tour, big bummer. But we got a little lost in the energy of New Orleans Halloween weekend and overall fun short trip <3.

Luis Barragán: A Visit to Casa Gilardi and Casa Luis Barragán: Mexico 2021

Mexico City 2021: Luis Barragan
September 4- 20, 2021
Mexico City (D.F.), Mexico

On my recent trip to Mexico City, I visited two of notable architectural homes tied to the work of Luis Barragán, Casa Gilardi and his home studio, Casa Estudio both in the San Miguel Chapultepec bordering the Condesa neighborhood. If you have time and enjoy moving slowly through architectural spaces, I’d recommend both.

Casa Gilardi, completed in 1976, is one of Luis Barragán’s final residential projects. It’s still inhabited by the original family who commissioned it, and they’ve opened the home for guided tours. That living presence adds a quiet tension to the experience, like walking through a work of art that continues to breathe.

The tour I joined was led by one of the sons of the original owner. As we moved through the space, he spoke about what it was like to grow up in the house, offering personal memories that softened the geometry of the architecture. Casa Gilardi is best known for its vibrant, dreamlike use of color: a golden corridor, a pool tinted blue by light, blocks of magenta on the exterior, But what caught my eye was the staircase, two stories high, without guardrails, wrapping along the wall.

Curious, I asked our guide whether his parents ever worried about raising small children in a house with such open, precarious elements. He smiled and said no accidents ever happened. “We just had common sense,” he told us, shrugging lightly, as if to say that the house had taught them to move carefully, to be aware, to pay attention.

After visiting Casa Gilardi, I stopped to grab breakfast at a cafe before heading to Casa Luis Barragán, his former home and studio and just a few blocks away. This home feels more introspective. It offers insight into who Barragán was, not just as an architect but as a deeply spiritual, solitary artist. The space is filled with objects he loved: religious icons, flowers, custom furniture, books, artwork placed with a sense of consideration. The rooms are quiet and austere, but nothing feels cold. There’s a kind of warmth to the restraint. From the garden to the roof terrace, every decision feels cared for.

Barragán famously said that any work of architecture that does not express serenity is a mistake. Being in these spaces, you begin to understand what he meant. There’s something devotional about them, not in a religious sense, but in how they create space for presence, stillness, reflection.

It’s a rare thing to stand inside someone’s vision and feel like it’s inviting you inward.

Links to both of their sites:
1. https://casagilardi.mx/en/
2.http://www.casaluisbarragan.org/eng/en_index.html

Another thing to note: Make sure to make advanced reservations to Casa Gilardi, as it is open by appointment only and availability is limited

Casa Gilardi
Calle Gral. Antonio León 82, San Miguel Chapultepec I Secc, Miguel Hidalgo, 11850 Ciudad de México, CDMX, Mexico

 

Casa Estudio Luis Barragan
Gral. Francisco Ramírez 12, Ampliación Daniel Garza, Amp Daniel Garza, Miguel Hidalgo, 11840 Ciudad de México, CDMX, Mexico

Other blog post reflecting on Mexico 2021