My Story

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LETTIE GARCIA STUDIO, GALLERY & HOME DECORATING.

Edited Monday October 29, 2019

 

 

    I, Lettie García-Alonso Glass am originally from México. I was born in México City and grew up through my teen years in a very creative family of painters, writers, musicians and craftsmen, strong women and Medical Doctors.

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    I grew up with my father taking me to museums and palaces in México City and this awoke my interest for art, form, shapes and architecture at a very young age. I also grew up going into my Father's hospital being groomed to be in that field, but I was truly not interested. Later on my teen years while living in the Sonoran desert, I had the opportunity to move to Massachusetts to learn English as a second language. After spending few months in Cambridge MA. I decided to explore the area a little bit further and made my mind to take the commuter train to Rockport, Massachusetts immediately after getting off the train I fell in love with the artsy community and the exquisite old charms of this little quaint New England town. I knew I wanted to move to that picturesque town, so the decision was made that same day, best decision of my life.! I never minded the train commute to Cambridge to go to school. It didn’t take too long for me to make new friends in town and I had the opportunity to interact with different artisans and artists using different media and I was welcomed to participate and learn new techniques. A summer job was soon offered and I decided it was a fantastic opportunity to practice my new language and learn art. Having a summer only job made it easy to go back to Mexico during winter where I decided to persuade my artistic learnings even farther by taking sculpting, drawing and paint lessons at the local University, not into medical field at all. The next year another summer job was offered in Massachusetts and I took the opportunity immediately. After years of spending summers within the artsy communities of the north shore of Massachusetts and winters studying art in Mexico, I decided to go back to Mexico for good to take care of my mother. Few years after that living in the Northern Kentucky area where I made my own art studio and started to create art, soon joined a local art guild directed by my fellow artist Parish Monk who started to encourage me to participate in local art shows and start showing my art creations to the world. I participated in several local art shows in the Northern Kentucky/Cincinnati area, then during a visit to Charleston, S.C. I fell in love with the beauty, history, people, art and architecture of the town. I started to show in some Charleston galleries by invitation where my art was well accepted and appreciated. Later that year the decision was made to move to Charleston where we purchased 8 Queen Street downtown in the French Quarter neighborhood planning to open our own art gallery in our building, but our dreams where soon shattered to open your own business in Charleston.  My dream came crumbling down when we received a letter from City of Charleston letting us know we had been denied to open our gallery or our B&B.  I was so disappointed with all it was happening, I stopped creating art and became very ill and depressed. I continued to help the historic associations and local preservation communities. I poured my energy into my gardening and people started to notice the love in my garden and started to take pictures and featuring our little heaven in few magazine articles and some national shows, but I wouldn’t let my art out. I had started to doubt myself as an artist, I though perhaps we were denied because my art wasn't good enough. We had an offer to buy our beautiful Queen, which is how we used to call our building, and I told my husband “sell it”. He couldn’t believe it, it was my biggest dream, my baby, my life..!! To which I told him, “You shouldn’t fight this hard for what is right.” Though he couldn’t believe it, he understood. I told him “Let's go home.” So we sold our Queen with very heavy hearts, it was probably one of the hardest things I have had to endure, I felt as if someone had crushed my dreams, as if I wasn’t good enough and a failure. But, as soon as I say that, things started to fall in place like magic for us to move to Massachusetts. We moved and here we are among our long time friends. Immediately I was called by my artsy friends and was embraced as the prodigal son coming back home. We are making our new home in the Newburyport community and slowly I’m unpacking my studio again.

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    I go to México often to tend my rental business and visit my family and I’m planning to keep participating in art shows there as well.

    I also teach Spanish to small groups by participating in Spanish Book Clubs and Spanish Conversation Cafés, and taking special small trips to México with my company Lettie García's Discover Mexico Adventures, where I take small groups of pupils and friends in artsy & cultural immersions to México. I show them the real Country not just the all inclusive, not going out of the hotel trips. My trips are full of art, culinary experiences,learning, friends and family, visiting museums, palaces, Aztec and Mayan ruins, taking photograph, cooking classes and plain air opportunities with different teachers and media in different States of the Republic while visiting all those “of the beaten path” safe local treasures.

 

    For many years my passion for art was secondary, since I grew up with the old school mind of “you can’t make a living as an artist”. In 2014, I started to create again and I won’t let life hold my passion again. I might slow down from time to time, but art is a very important part of me, it is me. Art is how I express myself to the world. I have now been experimenting with different techniques to create depth and textures and I'm not afraid to experiment mixing medias and treating the canvas as a sculpture then adding color using acrylics, mixing natural pigments, inks, oils, even watercolors, complemented with chalk, waxes or gilding. I like to use recycled material in my pieces to process trash that will otherwise contaminate our planet and could kill our sea life  and transform it into beautiful, unique pieces of art.

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    Nature is a big inspiration for my pieces and some of my pieces have been inspired by my own trips and experiences.

 

    As a classical music lover I see my creations as a form of music for the eye.

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    Thank you
    I hope you enjoy my art
    Lettie García