Mayan Mysteries Remain

Chris Engholm's very pleasant life in Southern California went belly-up in 2008. He was director of land acquisition for one of the country's biggest builders, and when the bottom fell out of the real estate market, his family's livelihood went with it.

"The division I was working for went from 400 people to 20," he remembers. "Half the houses in our neighborhood were in foreclosure. The value of our house had gone from $700,000 to $300,000. But I had been warned by some old-timers in real estate when to get out. So we had sold all our holdings and had some savings.

"We were really just looking for a place to land and be creative," he goes on, explaining he was both a writer and photographer and his wife an artist in addition to their day jobs. They tried Phoenix -- didn't like the political landscape -- and New York City -- too expensive to live there -- and finally "had a madcap idea: We'd ride out the recession in the most dangerous country in Central America."

Engholm had visited Guatemala frequently to explore its culture through photography. What he didn't realize, he says, was "what was happening under the surface." After driving -- and driving and driving -- they arrived at Lake Atitlan just as "the worst series of storms in 60 years" hit the country. Soon, "crime was out of control. The government declared martial law. The Mayan community formed nighttime vigilante groups from midnight until 5 a.m., going through town wearing masks and carrying machetes. I was just blindsided," he says.

The family stayed only about seven or eight months before driving eight days to settle in Bentonville -- a community they'd seen only via the Internet. It was the winter of 2010, just as a storm hit that dropped 18 inches of snow on Northwest Arkansas. But the family fell in love anyway. They settled on 3 acres with a creek running through it, and Engholm began to take his art seriously.

The exhibit "Guardians of the Spirit," opening Monday at 211 Cafe in Bentonville, remembers his sojourns in Guatemala, both before and during the family's precarious stay in the country.

"When I was visiting Guatemala, I was visiting towns around this lake -- Atitlan -- interacting with different ethnic groups of Mayan people, many still practicing ancient ritual Mayan spiritualism," he recalls. "I started working with some locals on a videography project to record the oral histories of the elders, then I started photographing shamans during rituals and dances. And I started putting together this collection.

"Mayan spiritualism is based on sacred places -- hills, mountaintops, lakes," Engholm says. "A lot of rituals take place there, and pilgrimages are made there. I picked about 80 of them I thought a foreigner might want to see and made it my project to visit and put together kind of a catalog. My wife added a lot of ceramics based on motifs from the ancient Mayan past, and we collected some textiles as well. So the exhibit is mainly photography -- about 100 pieces -- along with a video of various ritual dances," ceramic pieces, masks, garments and large canvas prints.

Not coincidentally, 211 Cafe has its own Guatemalan connection. Owner Mauricio Guerrero is from Guatemala City and celebrates the one-year anniversary of the business with this exhibition.

"211 Cafe's business is coffee," he explains. "But my objective is to be more than a coffee shop. The 'magic of the coffee' is to connect people and show culture of the country where it comes from -- the same as the art is a way of expression not only of emotion but of the heritage and history of the artist. That's why I always have the idea to open the coffee shop for the artists that want to show their work -- not only paints but photography, poetry, theater, music, etc.

"I chose Chris' work because [it] is a different point of view of Guatemalan culture that I, as Guatemala native, could not have."

NAN What's Up on 10/28/2016