Innocence Abroad : The Girls of Coatepec by Windsor Joe Innis

The 2nd image shows the minor scrapes on the back cover

FOR NEARLY TWO YEARS Windsor lived and painted in a peaceful colonial town deep in the plantation country in the state of Veracruz, an old and mystical part of Mexico.

In painting the young girls of Coatepec, the artist discovers the truth, beauty and fragility of the world they inhabit and often command. Though modern, middle-class children, he portrays them amid the pots and vases and antique robes and shawls of old, recalling their culture and that of their Victorian sisters in far off lands.
"Indeed, they’re not ugly Americans – they’re beautiful Mexicans.  They come from a culture informed by a sense of tragedy and community. Mexico is a place where people have a strong sense of their own identity independently of whatever identity is forced upon them by the mass media and capitalist manipulation.

Windsor’s girls are innocent because they seem to know nothing of impersonal, anonymous modern society – they don’t watch television, they don’t go to the movies, they don’t date boys, they don’t wear the latest hip clothing. Instead, they look at art, or present themselves as works of art – Windsor's models are works of high human art."