By Hal Marcus
March/April 1976
reprinted from Southwestern Art Form
When I first mentioned the idea of an interview with Southwestern Art Form, he exclaimed that the best interview was one of informal communication and not questions and answers. "Ideas are more important than facts." I agreed as he poured me a glass of fine wine from a long bottle that gurgled as we laughed.
It was a beautiful afternoon. The birds were singing and the dogs were barking. The sun was setting through the yellow gazebo in his yard. We walked and saw the sprouts of spring popping up through the earth. Manuel has a certain kind of relationship with the earth. I see it in his painting. I see it in the lives of many Mexicans. They seem to have an earthly insight for plants and gardens. Manuel exclaims, "I love the earth. When I work in the garden I feel earth in my hands, and I know that one day I will become earth. My good friend, Peter Hurd, told me years ago that my very backyard was an artist’s world. I paint my backyard and the friends and relatives that walk through it." Both sides of the Rio Grande make up Manuel’s backyard.
Manuel Acosta was born in the little mining town of Aldama on the outskirts of Ciudad Chihuahua in Northern Mexico. His parents, starting out from this tiny, dusty pueblo, made the three-hundred mile journey to the promised land of El Paso, Texas. They packed their possessions and their only child, Manuel Gregorio, into the interior of a swaying train, along with other voyagers who were fleeing the unstable revolution and perils of Mexico at that time. Soon there were six children. His family and neighbors were hard working people, doing heavy work in the big city. But infused into all this was the love of daily life. As the children grew up and took their places in the community, Manuel was drawn to art, first as a hobby and finally as a direction for his life. A puzzled but loyal family hardly comprehended what an artist was, and their main worry was that he should make money. If there was a consoling thought for the family, it was the fact that he painted something they understood—his family, his friends, and his barrio. Manuel recalls the early years, "I used to ask my grandmother to pose for me. She was shy and felt she wasn’t important enough. I told her that everything that is here and now is important. Right here is just as important as anything going on in Paris or London."
Most of the time Manuel closeted himself in his room, and a succession of chicano youths, nieces and nephews, dancers and artists posed for his paintings.
Among the artists frequenting Manuel’s studio was the already famous Peter Hurd. Manuel recalls his first meeting with Hurd. "Urbici Soler, my sculpture teacher at the time, told me the Peter Hurd was looking for an assistant to paint a mural. I went for the interview with great hopes and little expectations. After seeing my work, he asked if I could sing in Spanish. I said, ‘yes’, and Hurd said, ‘you’re hired’." Thus, Manuel came into a circle of artists. He soon met Hurd’s wife, painter par excelance Henriette Wyeth, artist John Meigs, and countless others, that helped encourage and inspire his life-long pursuit……art.
His career followed a pattern of slow growth. Excursions to art schools and efforts to find recognition were undertaken, with only modest success. Always, back to the barrio he came. A studio was built with the help of friends and neighbors, and as all artists must do, he began to work with a fervid dedication.
The sun having diminished behind the mountains, we entered Manuel’s studio. As we spoke the light changed rapidly. The spacious studio, which is the entrance to his home, is a perfect expression of Manuel’s life, vast and orderly. Twenty foot walls with sombreros, tubas, guitars, sculptures, pianos, paintings, art books and easels surround his studio.
To my right sits a Mexican man fast asleep snoring to the sound of dogs barking. "That’s my friend, Aldolfo," Manuel exclaims jokingly with glassy eyes. "He’s meditating." We laugh and admire how beautiful he looks asleep in the dim light.
Manuel’s views on art are those of life: to inspire, to be, and to create. As I began to leave, Manuel lit a lantern (one of many that surround the interior of the house) and told me, "If in this life I have inspired one person, then all my life has been worth it."
I don’t know if Manuel know it or not, but when I left his place, I knew by what I felt that his life had been worth it.
I felt inspired. My mind was spacing—out.