Hug at Capilla Azul opening of Second Nature, May 2025

Greetings!

Thank you for taking a look at our current newsletter for La Capilla Azul, a small, community-based exhibition space in the agricultural community of Contuy, on the Gran Isla de Chiloé in the province of Los Lagos, Chile.

We just celebrated our third anniversary in May with the opening of our tenth (!) exhibition, Angelus Novus, featuring recent work by Quellón-based visual artist and teacher Andrés Ávila, and the Spanish mixed-media artist Rogelio Lopez-Cuenca, who lives near Málaga. Neither artist has an especially high public profile in Chiloé, but that didn’t prevent a lively crowd of more than a hundred and fifty friends and neighbors from joining us for the celebration that unfolded across a few hours.

Andres Avila Espinoza, Brith of Angelus Novus, watercolor and mixed media on paper, 2025

Installation of Angelus Novus. Andres Avila (l.) and Rogelio Lopez-Cuenca (r.)

The event included the customary welcome to our guests, a jaunty procession to the Capilla, the official opening of the exhibition, and a brisk return to the fogón for the raffle, lots of food and drink, and a superb musical trio performing traditional Chilote music. Our invitations read, “From 4pm to 9pm,” but evening falls early in late autumn, and most of our guests were on the way home by 8pm.

Rogelio Lopez-Cuenca, SalmoFan, from Angelus Novus, Capilla Azul

Rogelio Lopez-Cuenca, Robinsonn Crusooe, from Angelus Novus, Capilla Azul

For the past few months I’ve been thinking about the concept of Slow Art. It seems to have never really caught on as a trend in the mainstream art world, but what drew my attention was how the articles and texts I’ve come across on the subject are primarily concerned with the relative state of mind, or mindfulness, on the part of the person seeking to achieve a deep state of connection with a work of art. It should go without saying that for both casual and professional art observers, it’s always beneficial to periodically reflect on the influence that one’s state of mind plays as we contemplate works of art. Allowing yourself to focus but relax into the experience, emptying your mind of buzzing distractions, and surrendering at least a portion of some of your ego and willpower—the better to meet the artist halfway—are more than useful techniques for determining what a particular artwork signifies, and for gradually coming to terms with one’s own response to it. This heightened sense of feeling attentive has formed the core of my ongoing rumination of what Slow Art might be.

Midsummer early evening, Comarca Contuy

While fully supporting the principle that achieving mindfulness is enormously useful while engaging with art, our cumulative experience of presenting ten exhibitions at Capilla Azul over the past three years has brought my thinking around to an additional possibility: perhaps one of the best ways to experience Slow Art is by changing the environment in which that art is shared. In purely visual terms, one of the most distinguishing characteristics of contemporary art is that it tends to be presented in some variant of the archetypal white cube gallery, and nearly all of these cubes are located in cities, while the few situated in out-of-the-way places tend to be the private domains of a particular individual or institution.

One can even conjecture that the art of the past hundred years has flourished in such settings specifically because the outside world is perceptually cut off, making it easier to focus on the visual experience contained within. Conversely, when contemporary art does venture into non-urban spaces, it has frequently shown a tendency to do so at the cost of displacing or deprioritizing some aspects of those communities that preceded them. Recent art history is filled with stories of visionaries who’ve spent decades working in remote places to shape their ideas into literal monuments that become visually integrated with the surrounding landscape. We don’t tend to hear as much about who, if anyone, lived there beforehand, and what their lives were like beforehand and afterwards.

Laguna near Capilla

When we decided back in 2022 that the mission of Capilla Azul would be to serve as a platform for the visual creativity of Chiloé and its people, we were only dimly aware of what it meant that the community of Contuy, and its three hundred families, was going to be the center point for all our activities. While we are still very much at the early stage of understanding all that’s implied by this long-term commitment, one thing that seems emblematic of the kind of art space we’ve become is how our openings have become weekend-long affairs that begin on Friday afternoon and often stretch into Sunday night or Monday morning. This isn’t because life at Comarca Contuy is a particularly debauched affair. On the contrary, that’s the rhythm of country life: friends drop by, neighbors pitch in, the weather changes, and everybody does their part to keep things moving along. Some guests drop by early out of curiosity and end up part of the welcome committee, while others linger on past midnight. The three daily meals enjoyed by the Comarca’s guests are made with local, seasonal ingredients from trusted vendors, and because of Marcela Contreras’s extraordinary knack with food, these are lengthy, jovial affairs, with lively conversations between people who, in some cases, have only just been introduced to each other. Laughter and music flow easily, and those who’ve been wandering outside and communing with nature eventually wander back in, enjoying a state of slowed-down, low-key bliss.

For many of us, Comarca Contuy operates as a literal Garden of Eden before the fall, where the landscape is a constant, enveloping presence, and people are happy to share what they have. As befits its role as a site of reflection and contemplation, the chapel itself is set a few minutes’ walking distance away, along a wooded path from the fogón and its festivities. While it’s just inside the gate facing the main road, cars rarely disturb the serenity of the surrounding meadow.

Disappearing shoreline, Paildad Estuary, May 2026

Exiting the capilla, you may find yourself gazing out over the shimmering lagoon, a natural breeding and nesting ground for local bird species, and just a few minutes’ walk from the expansive Paildad Estuary, where countless birds gather all year round, searching for food. Occasional dry spells provide an opportunity to indulge in a baño del bosque, which involves meandering slowly among trees and underbrush to more deeply experience the forest’s vitality through smell, touch, and sight.

Whereas an impressive level of mindfulness can be achieved almost anywhere with practice, discipline and focus, Contuy is the kind of place where it comes to you, practically unbidden. The possibility of combining visual creation with fresh country air, homemade food, lively company and an enveloping landscape offers perfect conditions for each factor to amplify the others, with everyone contributing to the shared experience. Within this socialized framework, the art isn’t on display inside of a hygienically sealed tabula rasa, but integrated into a space whose history is part of the community, and where neighbors feel at home to interact with the art as they wish. It is still, in the most meaningful sense, their gallery.

In Contuy, we’ve discovered over the past three years that the kind of platform we’re in the process of building cannot be rushed. Each exhibition has generated its own distinct link to a chain of mutual interactions between us, the artists, the Comarca, and the local community, where art becomes the shared vehicle for a togetherness that has been a vital source of inspiration for far longer than we’ve been playing our small but idealistic role.

Our message to the neighbors and friends who’ve sustained us thus far is that Capilla Azul truly makes sense when considered as part of a specific community that everyone calls home. In contrast, what we’re hoping to convey to everyone else is that utopias are not exclusively the products of fiction, nor do they require academically rigorous sociopolitical underpinnings to succeed in their quest.

What Comarca Contuy has taught me is that the experience of contemporary art should never be considered context-neutral, because everything that impacts our sensorial interface with the world becomes part of that experience. When the very landscape surrounding us has the capacity to dovetail with the perceptual interactions that artists have created for our extended contemplation, it becomes far easier to imagine that the pastoral experience of art as belonging to a place is always near at hand, if not already internalized.

One very special visitor at Comarca Contuy in May was the artist Jason Middlebrook from Hudson, in upstate New York, who made the trip in order to get to know the venue and the people, and to take part in the opening for our Angelus Novus exhibition on May 24. But the primary motivation for his visit was to meet Picapalos, with whom he’ll be collaborating for our next exhibition, opening October 24. Jason’s long weekend couldn’t have gone better—everybody got along like lifelong friends—and our visit to Lago Huillinco to see where Picapalos lives and works included a scenic hike through the adjacent woods, where the artist demonstrated her technique for curing the fallen limbs of various trees for future use. 

Jason Middlebrook and Andrés Ávila

Jason Middlebrook inspecting wood, Contuy May 2026. Photo by Ramon Castillo

View of Picapalos studio, May 2026. Photo by Jason Middlebrook

Jason was the first visitor to Chiloé who counts as someone I’ve known for most of my professional life, and with whom I’ve collaborated on a half-dozen projects over the course of more than thirty years. For that reason, I had the opportunity to experience our very special experiment through his eyes, as if for the first time. To say Jason was unprepared for the sheer physical beauty of the place, the incredible food he was served, and the uplifting spirit of the community would actually be an understatement, as much of the time he seemed almost astounded at his good fortune. Everybody is looking forward to his return in October!

Picapalos's studio, May 2026. Photo by Ramon Castillo

You might already know this, but La Capilla Azul, Inc. is a public charity operating in New York State, which allows tax deductions for your contribution, under the 501c3 provision of the U.S. tax code. Our umbrella organization, Comarca Contuy, is what in Chile is called a sociocultural organization, with by-laws that support rural arts education, among other community values, and Capilla Azul’s function is to support those goals through our own activities. Because our by-laws are identical to Comarca Contuy’s, in a way we function in a “Friends of…” capacity.

It’s important to emphasize that we receive no public funds for our work, which means that we depend entirely on donations from individuals and foundations to support La Capilla Azul. If you wish to become a supporter, there are four easy options:

1)   Click the Donate Here button below

2)  Mail a check made out to “La Capilla Azul, Inc” to our U.S. address: 206 Glen Street, Suite 35A, Glens Falls, NY 12801

3) Visit our website at www.capillaazul.com and follow the instructions

4) Check out our GoFundMe page at https://gofund.me/745d57953

All donations go directly to support Capilla Azul’s programs, whether in the form of our artists’ honoraria, travel and publications, or to pay the many local teachers, cooks, painters, musicians, framers, photographers, merchants, farmers, drivers, carpenters, and electricians whose ongoing dedication to the community of Contuy continues to inspire us in our work.

But we can’t do it without your support, which is why I hope you’ll consider reading a little more about La Capilla Azul, and decide for yourself why it deserves your contribution.

Thank you!

Capilla Azul is part of Comarca Contuy, Queilen, Chiloé, Region Los Lagos, Chile