I had oil colors and gouache in my hands before I was able to talk; I colored photographs as a child and I must have developed my first photo when I was five. Our house and studio, at the corner of Amsterdam and Sonora Streets, was in the middle of the art life of Mexico City. The Roma/Condesa/Hipodromo neighborhood was populated with artists from many countries. A major influx of artists and intellectuals from Spain, France, Israel, Russia, Lebanon, Poland, Germany and other countries were brought to this Colonia to live and share; together with the Mexican artists to form one of the most vibrant, colorful and artistic areas of Mexico. Here I grew up.
Kinder Garden was the first art school I attended. The focus was on developing inquisitiveness and creativity, along with getting used to the ritual of long days in school. I did not mind school one bit. They will give us “engrudo” (wheat paste) and newspaper and we made papier mache sculptures; there and then I knew I loved to create things with my hands… I was good at it and the teachers encouraged me. In elementary school, my father and I spend countless hours making dioramas that had been a simple request from a teacher to make drawing, I had to create three dimensional objects. Having learned to read so early in my life gave me a love for books that has been with me all my life: I read everything that fell into my hands; I discovered French and Russian authors at an early age and their writings filled with philosophical and sexual innuendo were an incredible adventure
Poetry came to me in second grade although all the text books in Mexico contained lots of poems; it was not until then that I became fully aware of words as tools. There was a competition/assignment to write a poem form mother’s day and not having enough words in my vocabulary I went to the library in Parque Mexico and sat there with a whole pile of poem books and read and read for days. Rhyme was difficult so I took all the rhymed ending word from a poem and wrote the whole poem around those words; needless to say, I won. I had a strong deep voice and after reading my poem in public assembly I became the school poet… I wrote poems for the school for Mother’s day, the Flag’s day’ the Fathers’ day and all other occasions. I also wrote poems for hire for my friend’s girlfriends, which was easy since I was in love with some of them; this I sold for three pesos each; of course, when the girls found out who had written the poems were both upset and intrigued by me