While moving to a half-dozen cities with her engineer husband, and traveling back and forth between the United States and her native Guatemala, Anita Aparicio learned how to explore her new surroundings quickly.
She's doing that now in Bellingham, and it shows in her art.
About 30 of her mixed-media collages will be on display starting Nov. 25 at Fairhaven Originals Gallery. The exhibit, which runs through December, is called "A Visual History of Bellingham," because most of the pieces include digital images and old photos of Bellingham from the late 1800s into the early 1900s.
It's her way of getting to know - and showing her love for - her new hometown.
"I hope to be many, many more years here," Aparicio said, "because it's a beautiful place to live."
Aparicio is 74, but looks much younger. She's short, with graying dark hair, a broad friendly face and an easy smile.
"I don't think people should be somber," she said. "Life is too short."
Aparicio said she takes after her father, a businessman with an independent nature and a flair for the flamboyant, typified by a seven-color hat he liked to wear.
"If somebody doesn't like color, they won't like my exhibit," she said.
Aparicio grew up in Guatemala, but studied art and French literature at Scripps College in Claremont, Calif. After marrying, she and her husband moved several times as he worked on major construction projects in the U.S., Canada and, later, back in Guatemala.
They raised three daughters along the way, so Aparicio's free time for art was hit-and-miss. After her husband died in 1990, she moved to the Bay Area in California, in part to escape the civil war in her homeland. While in California she designed clothing, sold antiques and painted furniture.
She returned again to Guatemala to care for her mother, build a house and raise a grandchild. Then, with her children grown and the sound of gunfire still piercing the Guatemalan air, Aparicio decided it was time to find a more peaceful place to work on her art.
"Guatemala is beautiful," she said, "but it's turbulent."
Through the years she had met people from Bellingham, so she moved here in 2010 and jumped full-time into her work, with a studio in Bay Street Village.
"I do a lot of painting," she said. "It's what I do with my days."
Aparicio has had six art exhibits in Guatemala. Several of the shows - including one using antique dance costumes and masks, and another honoring colonial churches destroyed in Guatemala's 1976 earthquake - reflect her interest in presenting times gone by.
"I'm a frustrated historian," she said. "I like to tell people about their past."
COMING UP
What: "A Visual History of Bellingham," an exhibit of mixed-media collages by Anita Aparicio.
Where: Fairhaven Originals Gallery, 960 Harris Ave., Suite 103.
When: Opening reception is 5 to 9 p.m. Friday, Nov. 25. The show runs through December. Gallery hours are noon to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. Admission is free.
Details: 360-220-2150 or fairhavenoriginalsgallery.com.
The gallery address in this article was corrected Friday, Nov. 25.
