ATENCION NEWS MARCH 2026 ARTICLE

LOVE, ART, AND A SHARED LIFE IN SAN MIGUEL:

BRITT ZAIST & HENRY VERMILLION

by Judith Jenya

In a sunlit house tucked into the rhythms of San Miguel de Allende, art is everywhere. It hangs on the walls, leans against furniture, spills across tables in the form of drawings and half-finished ideas. More than that, it animates the life shared by Britt Zaist and Henry Vermillion—two artists whose love story is inseparable from the creative paths that brought them together and kept them together for more than four decades.

Zaist, born in Jamaica, New York, is unmistakably a New Yorker at heart: direct, organized, candid to the point of comedy. She grew up on Long Island, attended a private girls’ finishing school, married young, and lived a peripatetic life dictated by her first husband’s engineering career. Art, however, was the one constant. “Always doing art,” she says. “Always.”

Her formal training came later, when she enrolled at the Art Students League of New York, studying watercolor with Mario Cooper, president of the American Watercolor Society, and drawing with Gustav Rehberger. The experience shaped her disciplined, gesture-based approach and earned her life membership at the League—a credential she describes with characteristic bluntness: “It indicates you’ve demonstrated some talent to someone.”

Vermillion’s path could not have been more different. A fifth-generation Texan with roots in dirt farming and ranch country, he is entirely self-taught as an artist. Before art claimed him full-time, he earned a master’s degree in social work, taught school, worked as a nonprofit director and lobbyist in North Carolina, sold agricultural equipment to tobacco farmers, and absorbed a lifetime of stories—human, political, psychological—that would later surface in his paintings.

They met in Raleigh, North Carolina, through an artists’ association where Vermillion was president and Zaist volunteered to produce the newsletter. Both were married at the time; both acknowledge the complications without romanticizing them. “Somehow, we got together,” Zaist says simply. “And here we are, 100 years later.”

What makes their partnership work, they insist, is difference. “Total opposites,” Zaist says, without hesitation. She describes herself as a commercial artist— “an art whore,” she jokes—happy to take commissions, particularly pet portraits, and unburdened by emotional attachment to the work. Vermillion, by contrast, is a narrative painter, deeply invested in storytelling. His canvases often begin as sketches on napkins made in bars or restaurants and evolve into layered scenes that invite viewers to invent their own meanings.

Their contrasting approaches mean there is no competition between them, only complementarity. “If you have two artists who are too close in their work, you’ve got trouble,” Zaist says. “We don’t have that.”

In 1991, the couple took a leap that would define their shared life: they moved to San Miguel de Allende. Zaist hated it at first. The pace, the mañana mentality, the lack of New York-style efficiency made the transition painful. Vermillion, more attuned to the culture, settled in easily. Over time, San Miguel became home to both.

A year later, they co-founded Galería Izamal, a cooperative gallery that would operate for nearly three decades. Zaist managed it—by her account, “herding cats”—while Vermillion provided curatorial vision and artistic leadership. The gallery grew from a closet-sized space into a respected fixture near the Teatro Ángela Peralta, showcasing both local and international artists. At the same time, they both were very involved in the animal rescue organization, SPA. The gallery moved to a new location and when increasing bureaucracy, digital demands, and sheer exhaustion made it untenable, Zaist was ready to let it go.

That moment, like many in their marriage, revealed a quiet trust. Each has made sacrifices; each has followed the other at different times. Vermillion left a stable career to pursue art full-time in Mexico. Zaist relinquished control of a gallery she had built when it no longer served her life.

Today, their rented home doubles as a living gallery and informal salon. Friends gather for music, conversation, and art. Vermillion teaches drawing—privately or in small groups—emphasizing fundamentals and serious work. Zaist, semi-retired, accepts select commissions and enjoys the freedom of choice.

At nearly 90, Vermillion continues to draw daily, mining memory and observation for stories. Zaist, who has outlived a family history of early death thanks to open-heart surgery, speaks candidly about aging with gratitude and humor. Together, they embody a partnership built not on similarity, but on respect—for difference, for work, and for the long arc of a shared creative life.

In San Miguel, where artists come and go, Britt Zaist and Henry Vermillion have stayed. Their love, like their art, has proven adaptable, unsentimental, and enduring.

NOTE:  The article can only have 750 words so the editors cut out some points.  Here they are.  Henry is a member of the artist co-op here in SMA called Galeria Blue Moon.   He has Life Drawing Sessions at our home every Tuesday night.  And he was instrumental with Jim Newell in finding a home for the San Miguel Playhouse. In his time here in San Miguel, Henry has been involved with theater – directing and acting in many shows.

 Judith´s article hit the nail on the head about us. And we thank her for it.

SKETCHBOOKS AREN´T JUST FOR SKETCHING

by Britt Zaist

Before Henry and I sold the house in Centro, we knew we had to downsize. I started in my studio with the many sketchbooks I had always filled since I was young. Mine have never been just sketchbooks filled with sketches/drawings. They have been more like elaborate scrapbooks. I always thought if my mind went with old age, going thru them would be like seeing new work, meeting new friends, having new experiences. Going thru them to make the first cut was easy and fun. But going thru over 30/40 sketchbooks and choosing what to tear out and what to keep got harder. But I did it and have few regrets on what might have been kept.

I pasted all the different years together in a huge sketchbook that I had that was too large to drag around as I always would do. At the beginning of every trip-even day trips- I would get a sketchbook and I would fill it daily with everything about the trip. For a number of years, when my first husband and I lived on our sailboat, I continued to fill sketchbooks. The handwriting and drawings were shaky on the high seas but the experiences were duly written down or drawn with additions of photos, postcards, leaves, scales -whatever - to “paint” a picture of what I was experiencing. When I studied at the Art Students´ League in NYC, the sketchbooks became studies of anatomy, drawing, watercolor, oils along with stories of the wonderful events of living full time in the Big Apple. They also recorded some events such as the end of the marriage and later the beginning of a new life. You can write whatever you want in them without worry of others going thru them when they want to see your drawings. Just past a drawing over the passages that are to remain private. That´s a good way to hide a dreadful drawing as well without having to tear pages out. In 1992, I went to Africa for over a month and came up with a good idea to keep in touch with Henry. By inserting a sheet of carbon paper face down under the sketchbook page and then under that placing a sheet of airmail paper, I could take the airmail paper later to mail to Henry and keep my sketchbook intact. Worked like a charm except he never got my letters until a month after I got back.

Another plus is you can write down gripes/arguments that happen at the time and in re-reading them, see they probably weren´t so important after all. And again-maintain privacy by covering them with another “sketch”. And good sketches aren´t important. Even a lousy scribble will bring that memory right back.

I encourage “artists” to keep sketchbooks whether to record the progress in your art or in your life. When I die, there will be so many sketchbooks. If they are left on the curb for the garbage man to pick up, they served me well in creating them and in opening them again and again.

THE GUIDE TO STREET DOGS 

FOR NON-OWNERS

by Britt Zaist

We have three rescues - all from our block here in SMA (San Miguel de Allende, Mexico). MOLLY is black about 80 pounds and looks like a female Great Dane “mix”. She is very sweet, very big and not too bright. She is in our large front yard during the day and in the house at night. This house spans two blocks and she has an alcove off the front yard for her bed and toys that shelters her from the elements. She only goes out for walks on a leash with the maid as she is too strong for me. I play with her on the roof where she tears down to the 2nd floor and then the first and flies back up again at top speed. She needs that exercise.

SAM is a honey-colored Lab mix, too smart, too fat, gentle at home, brave on the streets and loves being a house dog. He is noisy, lovable, faithful with a weakness of selective car and motor cycle chasing.

BIG remains the true street dog: charismatic, talkative, a free spirit…a traveler. He´s like the date your mom warned you never to get involved with because he may break your heart and never return AND naturally, he is the favorite. We´ve never known where he goes, when he will come back and can only hope for the best. Before he was neutered, he could be gone as much as 5 days, coming “home” hurt, thin, exhausted…only to insist on going back outside for the freedom he loves. Since being “fixed”, he can still be gone as much as 5 days, coming home well and fatter than he left! We think now he has another “home” with folks who grant him the same freedom as we do and who live far away as he comes home exhausted to sleep the day and leaves at 11:30 pm and to go where? Where would he go at that hour? We´ll never know. I´m just grateful he comes back in one piece to visit for a day.

But the title states this is a guide to street dogs but so far, I have only told BIG´s tale. True street dogs who remain vagabonds (not who become pets) have to be approached in a totally different way…with respect and caution. Help with injuries is fraught with suspicion and possible danger. Large animal vets are the best for street dogs as they can handle “your” semi-wild animal. You may be convinced they “love” you but they have had experience with people that can make them frightened and defensive. Handling needs to be done calmly and slowly. They cannot be kept in the house without their howling to get out; they want to come and go at will. They don´t realize as you do that it is dangerous out there and freedom has its consequences. Where they come from or where they go-you haven´t a clue. But street dogs have you live in the present – not the past nor the future – just the now. That needs to be enough.