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FÁBRICA LA AURORA ART & DESIGN CENTER

 

What once was a textile factory, today houses canvases, sculptures and handmade products of great artists who live in San Miguel

The Cultural Center of Art and Design, La Aurora, which has been unveiled as one of the main attractions of the city of San Miguel de Allende, has a great reason for celebration: its first ten years of history.

After having been for nine decades an important engine for the labor sector in the textile industry, the walls of the Aurora Factory mutated to house in them, canvases and handicraft products in exchange for the looms that had already given it fame and recognition.

In this way, in 2004, under the auspices of Don Francisco Garay and with the initiative and creative value of Christopher Fallon, Mary Rapp, Merry Calderoni and DeWayne Youts, American artists who came to the city to reflect their experiences through The mastery of the brush, sculpture and design, opened the first workshops of what would eventually become a cultural center for the arts.

“The character of the factory today is created by the artists that have been gathering here, from the initials that arrived such as Merry Calderoni, Mary Rapp and Christopher Fallon, who was very involved in the principles of the factory, in the concepts and remodeling of their spaces. That is why I believe that the factory has been adopting the personalities and creativity of the people who have gathered here, ”says Mr. Francisco Garay, son of Don Francisco who was the owner and promoter of the Factory.

A walk through La Aurora leads to multiple scenarios. From the simple delight of spending an afternoon to explore its walkers and open studios, through paintings, antiques, books and sculptures, to the possibility of meeting face to face with an artist in full exchange of ideas and opinions at the time you taste some dish in the cafeteria of the place, or while they throw themselves with blows of strokes to the conquest of their canvases.

Mary Rapp, a sculptor established in La Aurora since its inauguration as an arts center, says, “the walls of my studio still retain the brands of the machines from when it was the factory, those brands that I consider art. Some of the artists that are here carry out the Open Studio every Thursday, where people who wish can see us in our creation process ”.

Here, renowned national and foreign artists connect with a decade of local stories, where they have managed to find a space to develop their creativity and exhibit their work. The atmosphere conferred by La Aurora has invited new creators to join the passages of this scenario, where distinctive talents of art such as Peter Leventhal, Juan Ezcurdia, Ricardo García and Santiago Corral, now dedicate part of their journey to capture their dedications here. Likewise, the vision and interpretation of writers such as Edward Swift, who took the liberty to elucidate the walls of the factory as pages, and thus make it their own to be inspired by the creation of their memories. Finally, with the affinity and warmth of hundreds of families who visit the various spaces that make up the cultural center each week.

“Thank you for the opportunity to enjoy such joy of sensations and feelings that bring us so close to the works. We will visit each year of the Liceo Querétaro University students of Communication Sciences in design, ”said Raúl Contreras, while touring one of the main corridors of the factory.

It is ten years that La Aurora reopened its doors, now converted into an arts center. From the effort of the Garay Family coupled with the initial vision of four authors to explore the arteries of the factory closely linked to the artist, this project emerges that now sees the fruits of its delivery. A decade of scenes whose protagonists, painters, sculptors, gallery owners and guests, project on the face of the other the appropriate inspiration to take away from this place the memory of their works. That essence that combines the artistic identity of a city and the immediate reference for its tourists.

Since then they have joined the factory’s corridors, contemporary art galleries, design and decoration furniture stores, as well as antiques, jewelry stores, linens and whites, restaurants and what may be the main attraction of the place: the studios -Gallery, which today provide the magnificent color that attracts countless San Miguel, tourists and how many people show affection for the artistic.


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