Join COCC instructor Robin Martinez at theEast Bend Public Library on Saturday, September 29, at 2:00 p.m. for an exploration of how the despair of famed Mexican artist Diego Rivera’s first wife leads her to a rediscovery of artistic independence and creative will.

Diego Rivera and his Russian-born first wife, artist Angelina Beloff, were married for nearly a dozen years, but in the end he left her in Paris as he returned to Mexico. Soon divorced, Beloff found herself broken hearted and searching to regain her artistic spirit after years of sacrificing her artistic talent to advance Rivera’s. In this presentation, part of Deschutes Public Library’s “Know Mexico” series, Martinez explores Beloff through the epistolary novel Dear Diego, written by Elena Poniatowska. In the novel, Beloff turns Rivera’s rejection into a source of inspiration. She transforms her letters to him into monologues that review the comradeship and poverty of their life together. In the end, though deserted by Rivera, Beloff finds that his absence has also given birth to her artist’s soul.

Robin Martinez is an Associate Professor of Spanish in the Humanities Department at Central Oregon Community College, where she also serves as an instructor of Latin American History in the Social Sciences Department. She spent time in Mexico as a teenager studying Spanish, Latin American culture, and the history of Mexico while living in Guadalajara. Martinez has worked with students in a COCC Community Learning program located in Buenos Aires, Argentina, during the summers of 2010 and 2011 while they participated in language courses, field trips, and homestays with Argentine families.

For more information about this or other library programs, please visit the library website at www.deschuteslibrary.org. People with disabilities needing accommodations (alternative formats, seating or auxiliary aides) should contact Tina at 541-312-1034.