The third volume of SUR—an annual arts and culture journal out of Mexico City—takes a look at “the life and work of writer and architectural critic Esther McCoy (1904–1989)….In 1945, the writer and her husband [left Los Angeles and] took up residence in the city of Cuernavaca for eight months, during which they found an interest in popular crafts and pre-Columbian architecture. Yet little has been written and researched about McCoy’s relationship with Mexico. SUR 3 takes as its starting point the connections between McCoy and Mexico: moments from her personal life, her political and artistic acquaintances, her writings while in Mexico, and the relationships the writer started with some of the most emblematic figures of modern Mexican history.”*

(Included in the issue: BLESS N°56 Worker’s Delight and N°57 Daycation Lookbook; concept and graphic design by Studio Manuel Raeder; photography by Ludger Paffrath and Bert Houbrechts, BLESS.)

SUR, Volume 3, ESTHER McCOY: THE MEXICAN YEARS is available at:

OOGA BOOGA, 943 North Broadway, Chinatown, Los Angeles.

OOGA TWOOGA, 356 South Mission Road, Los Angeles.

Also see:

PIECING TOGETHER LOS ANGELES: AN ESTHER McCOY READER, Susan Morgan, ed. (Los Angeles: East of Borneo, 2012).

tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/28/mother-modern/

*bomdiabooks.de/product/sur-volume-iii/

Image courtesy Ooga Booga.