User:Anniemagic/Nan Cuz, Indian Artist, Panajatchel, Guatamala

Nan Cuz, Kekchi Indigenous Artist, Panajachel, Guatemala ... Nan Cuz (alias Irmgard Carmen Heinemann)is a Kekchi Indigenous Artist living in Panajachel, Guatemala - about 5 ft tall with short black hair, deep black eyes, a vivid mystical imagination and bright spirit. Her distinctive and much imitated art style is a bright yet haunting blend of mysticism and primitive Indigenous art, illustrating her dreams, village events and lifestyle. She was born in Senahú, Alta Verapaz in 1927, the daughter of Maya Kekchi Philomena Cuz and German father Hermann Heinemann. He returned to Germany and remarried. His wife was sent for Nan to offer her a European education, when the Nazis took power. During World War II her education was interrupted and there was no way to return to Guatemala. She became a photographer and painter, fell in love and married German journalist Georg Schäfer, who was at the time studying parapsychology and eastern mysticism. With their book, “In the Kingdom of Mescal: A Fairy Tale for Adults” Nan and Georg gained international reputation during the experimental rediscovery of psychedelic visionary drugs. The book was published in 1970 in Berkeley by Shambhala Publication, (ISBN: 0-87773-016-4) and translated into English by Dinah Livingstone (Foreword by Miguel Angel Asturias, Guatemalan Nobel Literature Prize Winner for “The Corn Men”). It was originally published as “Im Reiche des Mescal” by Carl Schünemann Verlag, Bremen, Germany. It was called “a remarkable document and work of art about human religious sentiment” as quoted in the scientific work: “Religion and Psychoactive Sacraments: An Entheogen Chrestomathy by Thomas B. Roberts, Ph.D. and Paula Jo Hruby. They further discussed their experiments and findings in the scientific paper "Experimental research on the space-time problem" which led to a correspondence with Albert Einstein. While living in Germany Georg had a simple one-room atelier in Blankenese, outside Hamburg. He lived with Nan and their two children Thomas and Maya. The conditions were primitive. Later they decided to leave Germany returning to Guatemala to live a simpler life. They renounced modernity and continued studying eastern mysticism, Tibetan chants and ritual dances, local Shaman/Brujo rites and practiced their artistic expression. They received a few students in a simple adobe house while Thomas their 18 year old son built an A-frame house. This house became the family's main residence in Panajachel and "the Galeria Nan Cuz". Thomas resided upstairs and the Art Gallery was established on the ground floor to receive the public. In early 1976, Georg Schäfer added an eastern style ashram and traditional Indigenous “sweat-house” (sauna) dispensing lessons to a few pilgrim/acolytes. It was located behind Nan's Gallery in the garden where Georg showed his own sculptures; this included a series of blank white masks. The masks contained a little mirror and by peering through the eyes it reflected thoughts, drawings and messages inside of the mask. Nan continued her textured “Mother Nature” and psychic mood paintings using rustic natural colors and oxides. Visitors came from the American, European and Asian continents to meet them and study with the couple. In 1977 two scholarly Japanese students built a garden in the temple area. Friction arose between the couple around 1976. Georg's pursuit of eastern mysticism with his acolytes and Nan's refusal to integrate herself as a "clan mother" provoked separation and ended a quarter century of marriage. Nan moved across the river to the indigenous side of town, a nice roomy white adobe house full of prisms, wind chimes, indigenous masks, weaved baskets and sculptures. She settled for a much calmer and simpler lifestyle than the Galeria that was located on the tourist side of the village. Nan remained as busy, creative, and warmly receptive as ever. She painted and continued her research into Buddhism and local Shaman practices. Georg and Nan continued their work independently. Georg remarried Sherry Munson with whom he had four children. He settled with his family in the United States. He never regained the fame he’d known with Nan and died January 11, 1991. Nan also remarried a man named Horst Köhler, who died in March of 1995 from cancer. Nan is living in Panajachel and the Galeria is still open on Rancho Grande street, managed and owned by her son Thomas Schafer Cuz. In 2008 a German film team came to Panajachel to create the documentary “Nan Cuz, Malerin – Brennende Feder, Sehendes Herz” or “Nan Cuz, Painter – Burning Feather, Visionary Heart” directed by Anja Krug-Metzinger.