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Frail and wheelchair-bound, though dapper as ever, Peter Rodriguez gazed in appreciation at the large crowd that had gathered at Fort Mason on Nov. 19 to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Mexican Museum\u2014the very institution he helped build.<\/p>\n
But the crowd was there to celebrate him as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t know I was that good,\u201d the 89-year-old Rodriguez managed to joke, struggling to speak in between coughs. \u201cI feel very great about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
He should.<\/p>\n
Founder of the West Coast\u2019s premier museum dedicated to Latino, Chicano and Mexican art, Rodriguez\u2019s life\u2019s work will be on full display until May 20, 2016 as part of the museum\u2019s latest exhibit: \u201cVida, Cultura y Color: The Art of Peter Rodriguez,\u201d which opened the night of the anniversary celebration.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re surrounded by amazing works of art that were created by these hands,\u201d said Tim Sanchez, the newest member of the Mexican Museum\u2019s Board of Trustees.<\/p>\n
But the museum does more than just display various forms of Latino, Mexican and Chicano art. It has historically provided a platform for artists who were shunned by other art institutions.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor those of us as artists\u2014particularly Chicano and Chicana artists\u2014it goes without saying there were little or no opportunities 40 years ago for us to exhibit anywhere,\u201d said artist and scholar Amalia Mesa-Bains. \u201cAnd Peter had the vision to give us that space.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was a vision that was born in the tiny rural mining town of Jackson, California.<\/p>\n
One of 11 kids born to Jesus Rodriguez and Guadalupe Garcia, both of whom fled Mexico during the revolution, Rodriguez taught himself to paint as a child. His Michoacan-born father worked\u2014and died\u2013mining gold and other precious metals from the Sierra foothills. His Guadalajara, Jalisco-born mother\u2014who once persuaded a would-be intruder to not enter her home by pulling back the hammers on a double barrel shotgun\u2014moved the family to Stockton when Rodriguez was still a boy.<\/p>\n
But it wasn\u2019t until Rodriguez traveled to his ancestral motherland that he became inspired to build a Mexican Museum in San Francisco, because he didn\u2019t see Mexicans represented in museums outside of Mexico.<\/p>\n
\u201c[The] first time he saw the Mexican art, that was the turning point,\u201d said Nora Wagner, who met Rodriguez in the 1970s, and began working at the original museum two months after it opened at Far West Laboratories, located at Folsom and 14th streets. Wagner, along with Bea Carrillo Hocker, Lupe Kindel and Adriana Williams, curated the exhibit.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe accepted the challenge without any hesitation,\u201d Wagner said. \u201cBecause we saw it as a means of paying back a huge debt. For it was Peter and his museum that opened the door for us to experience a very satisfactory career in the museum field.\u201d<\/p>\n
But starting such an institution wasn\u2019t easy. Rodriguez began by gathering donations and storing Mexican art in his apartment.<\/p>\n
\u201cChicanos, they [the art world] didn\u2019t recognize,\u201d Rodriguez said. \u201cAnd I said, \u2018We gotta have our own museum.\u2019 That\u2019s when I started working on it.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to Mesa-Bains, the museum owns one of the greatest collections of Chicano and Mexican-American in the country.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was no one else who had the aesthetic eye, the absolute drive to create what this is,\u201d Mesa-Bains said. \u201cAnd that is part of his legacy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Those words moved Rodriguez to tears.<\/p>\n
Rodriguez still paints at the Laguna Honda Hospital and Rehabilitation Center, the place he now calls home. The artist\u2019s mind remains sharp, as was evidenced the night his exhibit opened; he reminded his admirers that his paintings from Laguna Honda were up for sale.<\/p>\n
Long-time friend Cynthia Pierce, who also met and worked with Rodriguez in the \u201870s, still visits and paints with him on Wednesdays and Thursdays.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe believed in it when no one else did,\u201d Pierce said. \u201cPeople didn\u2019t think it would last, but Peter knew it would. He was determined.\u201d<\/p>\n
And he still is. Ever fighting to continue the legacy he\u2019s built, Rodriguez boldly addressed the crowd shortly before the night concluded.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you have any spare change, I wish those of you who are not members of the museum, to give as much as you can to keep it going,\u201d said Rodr\u00edguez, whose museum is currently open Thursday through Sunday. \u201cWe need donations, they don\u2019t have to be little ones.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
[su_slider source=”media: 28822,28823,28824,28825,28826″ limit=”25″ link=”image” target=”blank” width=”700″ height=”460″ autoplay=”0″ speed=”500″][su_menu][\/su_slider] Frail and wheelchair-bound, though dapper as ever, Peter Rodriguez gazed in appreciation at the large crowd that had gathered at Fort Mason on Nov. 19 to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Mexican Museum\u2014the very institution he helped build. But the crowd was there to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":28822,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":false,"newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[7569,7571,7573,7565,7575,7567,7577,7579,7581,7583,7585,7587,7589,7591],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-28821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-adriana-williams-en","tag-amalia-mesa-bains-en","tag-bea-carrillo-hocker-en","tag-cultura-y-color-the-art-of-peter-rodriguez","tag-cynthia-pierce-en","tag-far-west-laboratories","tag-guadalupe-garcia-en","tag-jesus-rodriguez-en","tag-lupe-kindel-en","tag-mexican-museum-en","tag-nora-wagner-en","tag-peter-rodriguez-en","tag-tim-sanchez-en","tag-vida-en","entry"],"yoast_head":"\n