Kiki Suarez

When I was only ten years old, my grandfather died and left me a considerable inheritance. At that time, money was not very important to me. However, 17 years later, when I graduated as a psychotherapist from the University of Hamburg, this money enabled me to leave my home in Europe and go far away to a different land. During my last years at the university, I felt a desire deep in my guts to leave the life I knew, go somewhere new, and have a chance to look back at my own culture from another perspective.

Back then I was the follower of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, who later called himself Osho. Of course, I wanted to take my inheritance and go to Osho`s ashram in India, but my parents were scared to death; they feared losing me forever to some strange Indian guru. The previous year a dear friend of mine, Michaela Fernandez, had visited Mexico and she was so enchanted that she had obsessed about returning as soon as possible. She insisted that I accompany her to Mexico before heading off for India. As fate would have it, I had just read Carlos Castaneda's books about his initiation with a Mexican shaman and Mexico sounded very exciting to me. Beautiful beaches, ancient ruins and real Indians were awaiting me there. Just as Carlos Castañeda had found his spiritual teacher, Don Juan, in Mexico, maybe I would be lucky and find mine!

And so it happened that in the summer of 1977, Michaela and I flew to Los Angeles, visited Disneyland and Palm Springs and went on a bus for several days to cross the Mexican border and arrive at the city of Chihuahua. From there we took one of the most fascinating train rides in the world. The trip started in Chihuahua, crossed the Sierra Tarahumara, and went towards Los Mochis on the Pacific Coast. That was my first encounter with real American Indians. I was in awe looking at them from the train windows. We went high up, to where, even in August, there was snow on the ground. There were skinny dark-skinned men, and women in colorful skirts and blouses who watched us passing by. Whenever the train stopped, the colorfully dressed Tarahumara people came running to the train to offer us their handicrafts or artesania. I was shocked and excited. The only people I had ever seen dressed so colorfully at home were some gypsies I had watched knocking at our door as a child. I realized that I had arrived in a different world, perhaps on a different planet.

From this first day in Mexico, I knew that I would be forced to face and explore everything that I had learned, thought and felt until this moment, and that this country would compel me to reevaluate everything I thought I knew until then. I did not know then that Mexico would even reshape my whole life.

I had never seen so many people in such poverty; many merely had a bare room to live in, albeit always with a television set. Neither had I ever been in such a hot climate. I had never seen so many faces smile at me while walking in the streets. Never had I seen streets filled with so many food vendors offering their goods to the passers-by. Everything smelled delicious. I was amazed that, sleeping in your one star hotel room, cucarachas could be so big and that they would not bite you while crisscrossing the floor all night long. For the first time I felt how chili pepper burned my mouth like fire.

However, what really hit me --what was outrageous -- were the colors. All the Mexicans seemed to just bathe in color and combine colors in whatever way occurred to them. There were no rules, and having grown up in Germany, I had all these rules about colors in my head: you cannot wear orange with red; you cannot wear dots and stripes together and so forth and so on. My very fashionable and elegant mother had taught me the rules well, and, of course, I had believed that these were not just my mother's rules or fashion's dictates; they seemed to be rules made by God himself. Well, with Christ on the cross and colorful images of the virgin everywhere, these people obviously did not know the rules. Apparently, God had not made these rules after all. It might sound trite, but to me this was a major breakdown of all my ideas.

Traveling further south, to the states of Oaxaca and Chiapas, where the majority of the inhabitants are indigenous, and each village has invented their own colorful dress, there seemed be no limits to combining colors and patterns. There were colorful and patterned textiles, paintings on tree bark, paintings on pots, incredible rugs everywhere. There were stripes and dots and embroidered animals, enormous flowers of black velvet and nylon with green and yellow, all the colors you could imagine and they could all be combined in one skirt or one blouse. And they looked beautiful!

Here I stood in the midst of this picturesque huge circus; a woman who had studied Marxism and Buddhism, who had attended endless student protest meetings, who had suffered tear gas protesting the construction of nuclear power plants, a woman who had grown up with the horrendous history of her parents and grandparents, a woman who was of the first generation after Hitler, carrying the guilt of her people. I came from this small country between the capitalist west and the then communist east, and even that small country was divided in two. When we were young we dreamt of Marxist utopias, then we felt a lack of spirituality and we turned to the east, to Buddhist ideals. At the same time we were completely convinced that utopia would never come, as there could not possibly be any future with the world being divided into two enemy camps, each owning enough arms to destroy the world ten times over. The world seemed a terrible place, badly managed, full of injustice and greed, doomed to a final holocaust within the next few years. We discussed all this for days and weeks and years on end in the pubs and cafes around the university buildings without ever finding the possibility of a successful conclusion, while the smoke of our cigarettes burned and brought tears to our eyes.

Suddenly here I stood in this country full of smiling brown faces, full of warmth and color and the joy of life. Nobody seemed to know about nuclear power plants or about two superpowers ready to strike; here it seemed to be enough to know that today you had food on the table, and then you could throw a smile to a complete stranger.

No train left and no bus arrived on the given timetable. Wherever we went, the nights were noisy; crickets sang, dogs barked and cocks crowed non-stop. Often there was no bread, just tortillas, and I missed my familiar foods. Everything was so very different from anything that I had known before that occasionally a wild fear arose in me from a spot below my stomach, but each time, Michaela and the colors and smiles that surrounded me, soothed and calmed my fears.

The distance from the city of Oaxaca to our final destination in Guatemala was too long to do in one single trip, so we decided to stay a couple of days in the colonial town of San Cristobal de las Casas -- 7,200 feet above sea level and the tropical jungles in the state of Chiapas. Many people on our way down had warned us that it got so cold and rained so much there that it would be intolerable. It was cold and it did rain a lot, but it just served to remind me of the weather of my home town and it made me feel good.

Between the fireworks and patriotic drunkenness on Mexico's Independence Day on September 15th, I met my future husband, Gabriel Suarez, and all my life up until then fell apart. I had to reconstruct the mosaic of my entire life anew.

The only thing that I knew before starting my journey was that I was sure that I wanted to be a psychotherapist. Now I found myself in a country where I was just starting to learn the language. It was evident I could not be a psychotherapist. Furthermore I did not really know what the needs of these people were; they seemed so very different from anyone I had known up until then. It seemed to me that what the people really needed were doctors and midwives and they did not have many resources for such a luxury as a shrink.

I was very much in love with Gabriel and was soon pregnant with my first son, but I started feeling extremely lonely--Michaela had returned to Hamburg to finish her studies. I still enjoyed all the colors and smiles in the streets, but it bothered me that I could not sit down with most of these people and converse because I did not speak enough Spanish. If a person did not speak English or German, I could not talk with her. My husband was a good man, but he had so many friends that often I found myself alone in the house. Even though this world deeply fascinated me, I started to feel very, very lonely. It was wonderful to love and feel loved by Gabriel, but as every day went by, I missed my many wonderful German girl friends more and more.

One night, feeling lonely and sad, I discovered some brushes and colors on my husband's desk. As I did not have anything else to do I sat down and started painting. I think that I painted a huge black tree with many colorful houses, people and even a gorgeous snake all around them. While painting I did not think, I just followed my hand and imagination and I enjoyed. My sadness vanished and wonder and satisfaction replaced it. When my husband looked at my picture the following morning he said, "This is beautiful, Kiki, keep painting!"

If anybody had ever told me before that one day I would be a painter, I would have just laughed. I had always liked to write. I did write letters, but it took them weeks to reach their destination and another few weeks until I received an answer. I was so lonely and so eager to communicate my thoughts, doubts, hopes and feelings. Suddenly I found I could express everything in a painting and the person who saw it could maybe understand me without any words, so I painted. Painting seemed the only activity that took away the feeling of loneliness and homesickness. Having a blank sheet of paper, a brush and some colors I discovered that I was free and able to create whatever world I wanted.

What my paintings most express are my crazy fantasies of a type of surrealistic world, one filled with love and the possibility of happiness. I suspect that one part of me tries to cheer up the other part. With each fantastic painting I tell my other depressed self that here are many ways to be happy, just find new ones if the old ones do not work anymore. Missing my girl friends so badly most of my paintings are of women friends.

Instead of being a psychotherapist, I became a wife, mother and businesswoman. I started a small shop with jewelry, Mexican folk art and my own paintings next to a restaurant that my husband had opened.

Shortly thereafter the Mexican artist, Marisol Fernandez, who soon became one of my first Mexican friends, taught me how to do copper print etchings. Etching my images into copperplates gave me the opportunity to produce many prints of the same image and therefore I could sell each one cheaper.

After the second of my three sons was born, a young photographer from Minnesota arrived at our restaurant. He was looking for a place to stay. We owned an empty house next to ours and offered it to him, and soon we became very close friends. This young photographer was Larry LaBonte, today a well-known artist in the United States. Shortly after moving in, his wife, Kathryn Shaw, joined him. When they decided to return to the States, they both asked me for a few etchings to take back with them so they could sell them. They bought around two hundred dollars worth of my etchings. A week later, they called and wanted another two thousand dollars worth of etchings. A new life began for Larry, Kathy, Larry's brother, Dennis, and for me. Kathy and Dennis became my agents in the U.S. and the big surprise for all of us was the etchings started selling like there was no tomorrow. The images of my original paintings appeared in catalogs and stores on tee shirts, posters, bags, cups and plates.

This all began in the early eighties and to this day we have kept up our business and our close friendship. During these years, I have exhibited my artwork in Switzerland, Guatemala, the U.S., Japan and lately in Siberia, Russia. Besides working in my original technique of watercolor and gouache, I learned appliqué, soft sculpture and collage. Recently I have begun to experiment with photography and photo collage.

Some time ago, I was asked to present a slide show and talk about my artwork. Going through hundreds of slides and trying to put them into some kind of order, I realized that I could divide my work -- independently from the technique I used -- into six subjects: "To be a Woman", "Friendship", "Love", "Family", "Nature" and "Angels". Some paintings could go under several of these subjects, but they all belong to at least one. These have been the themes of my own life: going through the highs and lows of living a woman's life, missing my German women friends and making many wonderful new girlfriends in my new world. My marriage has been challenged at times (like any relationship) but has continued to grow deeper. I painted situations out of my family life: quiet and wild moments with children and difficult and wonderful moments of our lives together.

Nature has been a significant and continual theme in my work. San Cristobal was a small town of 25,000 inhabitants when I arrived here in 1977; today there are ten times as many people here. The traffic has become unbearable; the surrounding mountains have been deforested, and denuded by the gravel industry -- gravel that is used for construction for the growing population. The jungle has been so rapidly destroyed since I first arrived here; I've witnessed the same in many other places and upon consideration, I wonder whether the human race has a future on this planet, and furthermore I feel impotent to change the course of this development. Perhaps painting nature in its colorfulness and splendor with people rejoicing in it is my desperate way to express my concern and try to remind others of it.

"I do not believe in angels" I told my youngest sister many years ago after her daughter, my niece Katharina, had died of leukemia. I was angry at life. The next morning, just before awakening, in my last "dream pictures", I saw a girl with long, blond hair standing, huge over a city, protecting it. My first thought upon awakening was that the girl was Katharina, and that she had given me a sign, she was that angel, and angels do exist! I went to my studio and painted her as that angel. This soon became one of my most successful images. I still do not know if angels exist, but maybe it depends upon what one calls an angel. There certainly are benevolent and mysterious energies that at certain moments cross and influence our lives in the most amazing ways.

The other day I read how the Dalai Lama, in an interview, said: "My religion is kindness", and in that sense, my paintings are Buddhist. I think that my art expresses kindness: people being kind to each other and nature and angels being kind to people. I was lucky to have an amazing teacher of kindness in my life and he was my father. He was the kindest and most non-judgmental person I have ever met. He would always forgive and always look for the peaceful way. He was not religious at all, he just respected everybody. My father died many years ago, but he still accompanies me. It is now that I fully appreciate his example.

While practicing my art, I am conscious of my limitations in technique; at the same time these same limitations force me to find ways to express complicated feelings or impressions in the simplest images possible. I am astonished how this seems to consistently succeed. Now that I have finally returned to my psychotherapy practice, I find that having learned how to express myself in simple images helps me work in therapy with patients. Very often, while a person is telling me his story and problems, a simple colorful image appears before my inner eye, as if I had painted it, and frequently this image helps to bring more clarity to the patient.

Every article ever written about my work uses the word "whimsical". My work is fantasy, and what I paint are positive, whimsical images, revealing a situation that gives us hope. At the same time I think there is a seed of reality in each image. I paint very concrete everyday life situations: mother at the computer, daddy cooking in the kitchen with the children, mom and dad and the kids taking a hot bath together, friends embracing, or somebody holding her broken heart in her hands and crying. These are moments we all have known and lived through. In that sense, my paintings are universal; a person in Siberia understands them as well as a person in Japan or Africa. I do not paint typically Mexican scenes. Therefore, I do not consider my art to be Mexican, but when it comes to my colors and patterns, I see it as very Mexican, inspired by the color explosions of Mexican potters, weavers and artisans.

Over the years I have printed thousands of etchings and sold hundreds of original paintings. I am constantly surprised at this unexpected success and thankful for the fact that I have, evidently, found a language in which to communicate with others without any words.

I have three sons and they often complained that I paint few men. Most of my work is about women. Painting women and scenes out of women's lives comes very easily to me, whereas it is harder work for me to paint men. Perhaps this is because I so missed my women friends when I first started painting.

Often, at exhibitions, people have come up to me and exclaimed, "You must be such a happy person!" Looking at my own images I am often surprised at the happiness that they express. But I have been suffering from bouts of severe depression since my early childhood. At times I have sat down, and in very sad and desperate moments, told myself, "I will try to put this feeling into an image." But even out of sadness images emerge that are gay and bright. Being a psychotherapist myself I have often wondered about this and my only explanation is that coming to Mexico and feeling the tremendous joie vivre that this country exudes, despite all the hardships her people suffer, has awakened a part of myself that, even in the deepest of depressions, confirms an ultimate goodness of life.

and of each human being, there is a basic goodness and that everything is connected to everything else. This is what comes through me.

From 2002 to 2005 I worked with my friend, the American artist Gayle Walker doing interviews with women from Chiapas, women in between 60 and 108 years. We interviewed the grandmothers of friends, extraordinary Mayan Indian artesans, mestizo business owners and teachers. One woman remembered the Mexican Revolution and the Spanish Flu. It was a fascinating project, Gayle and I did it, I believe, to grow roots in this Chiapanecan earth, as we had both come to Mexico from far away. We were in our early fifties then and probably also wanted to check out old age, which we were getting closer to. The English version of the book was published by University Of Texas Press in 2006. Shortly before that Gayle died unexpectedly of a Brain Tumor. I self published the interviews in Spanish here in Mexico and eventually plan to publish the book here.

My husband is a gifted photographer and with our grown sons taking care of our businesses here in San Cristóbal, we spent the whole of 2007 in Namibia, Africa, traveling to several other African countries during that time. During that time I was asked by e German Haiku - Internet - Page to write about my adventures and encounters in Africa and I returned to writing. Suddenly I had time to write down many of the fascinating stories of my more than 30 years living in Mexico. Later Susan Ritter edited these stories as well as the African ones into English and I am happy to be able to publish them as books for Kindle now.

In 2008, back in my adopted country, Mexico, I was diagnosed with an illness of the retina and I am by now legally blind, which complicates life a lot. But I will paint until the last moment of light that hits my brains and I will write, I hope, even longer, learning new ways of doing so.

After the first terrible shock about my waning eyesight I have started organizing a group with other people, who are visually or otherwise impaired and I realize anew what I once painted many years ago: TOGETHER WE ARE STRONG!