ARTWORK BY NEW MEXICO ARTIST
ACCEPTED INTO MDA ART COLLECTION

“El Santuario de Chimayo”

TUCSON, Ariz., Dec. 21, 2005 – A watercolor painting by Melecio Fresquez of Espanola, N.M., has been accepted by the Muscular Dystrophy Association’s Art Collection. Now in its 14th year, the Collection features artwork by people from across the country with neuromuscular diseases.

Fresquez’s “El Santuario de Chimayo” is a watercolor painting of a church. The work is displayed in a hand-carved, wooden frame. The sand-colored, adobe church is accentuated by the painting’s snow-capped mountains and trees. El Santuario de Chimayo, located in Chimayo, N.M., was built in 1816, upon sands believed to have miraculous healing powers.

The painting is an original gouachelike watercolor. Fresquez made the frame of red oak inset with jaras, or salt-cedar willows, cut to size and selected for matching diameter, color and texture. The frame is an original design by Fresquez.

Fresquez, 53, is affected by facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy, a disease that causes progressive wasting of muscles in the face, shoulders and upper arms. Fresquez also has weakness in his legs. His diagnosis recently was changed from limb-girdle muscular dystrophy to FSH.

Fresquez earned a degree in pharmacy from the University of New Mexico in 1975. He did an internship at Pueblo Drugs in Espanola, and eventually became the pharmacy’s owner.

He closed the business when he received his diagnosis in 1992, and decided to pursue art and woodworking. Fresquez, however, came out of retirement a short time later and worked as a staff pharmacist at the local Walgreen’s for five years, until increasing physical challenges forced him to retire again in 1998.

His artwork has been displayed yearly at the Contemporary Hispanic Market’s juried exhibition in Santa Fe, one of the largest fine arts shows in the Southwest featuring contemporary Hispanic art. Fresquez, who became interested in woodworking in junior high school, is self-taught in art and woodworking.

Today, his work is limited to small projects because he’s unable to maneuver large items.

“We’re deeply honored to welcome Melecio Fresquez’s work into the permanent MDA Art Collection,” MDA President & CEO Robert Ross said. “His contribution to our Collection will delight all who see it as it travels to galleries and museums as part of special exhibits of the Collection.”

“El Santuario de Chimayo” in frame

The new addition by Fresquez is on display at MDA’s national headquarters in Tucson, Ariz., and can be seen at www.mda.org/commprog/art/displayall.aspx. Fresquez’s piece also will be included in MDA Art Collection traveling exhibits. The Collection was established in 1992 to focus attention on the achievements of artists with disabilities and to emphasize that physical disability is no barrier to creativity.

The permanent Collection comprises more than 300 works by artists aged 2 to 82 and represents all 50 states. Each artist is affected by one of the neuromuscular diseases in the MDA program.

Selected art from the Collection has been exhibited at the Dallas Museum of Art; Cork Gallery at Lincoln Center and Forbes Magazine Galleries in New York; Tucson Museum of Art; Bishop Museum in Honolulu; Chicago Public Library, Harold Washington Library Center; Fort Lauderdale Museum of Art; Los Angeles Children’s Museum; JFK Center at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tenn.; Fresno Metropolitan Museum; Duluth Art Institute; Capital Children’s Museum, Washington, D.C.; and the Henry Ford Centennial Library in Dearborn, Mich.

MDA is a voluntary health agency working to defeat neuromuscular diseases through programs of worldwide research, comprehensive services, and far-reaching professional and public health education. MDA maintains clinics for area adults and children affected by neuromuscular diseases at the University of New Mexico Carrie Tingley Hospital and the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center in Albuquerque.

The Association’s programs are funded almost entirely by individual private contributors.

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