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Mija Andrade and Jon Labrousse are two longtime Eugenians who are moving to Oaxaca to expand a cultural tour and workshop business.
A previous version of this article misidentified Labrousse’s relationship with Andrade. He is Andrade’s partner. Lookout regrets the error.
The walls of Mija Andrade’s home are a little less colorful than they were a few weeks ago, as the art she’s amassed over the years is packed away and sent to friends for safekeeping.
For Andrade, a Eugene artist who is moving to Oaxaca, the big move means expanding her cultural tour and workshop business bringing artists to the Mexican state. But it’s also a farewell to Eugene for the former S.L.U.G. Queen and her partner, fellow longtime resident Jon Labrousse.
Andrade, who goes by Mija Matriz in her artistic work, has also worked as an arts administrator in Eugene. Past retreats hosted by Andrade have brought Eugene-area artists to Oaxaca, but she hopes that physically moving to Oaxaca will mean expanding the base outside of Lane County, to hopefully form a more international artistic community.
“Everything is art,” Andrade said about what draws her to Oaxaca. “The food is art. The way of living is art. In contemporary culture, contemporary art is very prominent, and art is just intrinsic to the culture. Seeing that and also recognizing how active people were in their communities was so inspiring.”
The couple has five workshops currently scheduled after their October move: one focused on assemblage and mixed media during Dia de los Muertos; a collaborative mural-painting workshop in December; and workshops in 2026 on mixed-media art, textiles and an assemblage collage workshop during Carnival.
Prices vary, but include the cost of the workshop, hotel, meals, tours and supplies. A single person wanting to attend the mural-painting workshop, for example, will pay $3,595, not including airfare.
The workshops for Dia de los Muertos and Carnival are both in collaboration with the artist Michael deMeng, who Andrade went with on a workshop for her first visit to Oaxaca 15 years ago. (Andrade is Mexican, but her family ties are in Sonora, not Oaxaca.) Since then, she’s been back countless times, with group family trips turning into her cultural workshop visits.
“I wanted to bring people there so that they could see this place where art is valued and artists are valued, and where there is this really beautiful connection between traditional art forms and contemporary art,” Andrade said.
One of the people she brought is Labrousse, a poet, musician and a former Ridgeline Montessori teacher, who went to Oaxaca for the first time last year with Andrade. He said the energy reminded him of what he loved about Eugene, particularly the liveliness of the Eugene Celebration, an annual community event that ended in 2013.
“There are a lot of folks in town that are about our age that remember that fondly,” he said. “It was such a fun, celebratory thing that is very similar in energy to — it’s a totally different thing than Dia de los Muertos culturally — but there’s just all this collective energy for us coming down and being together.”
Andrade and Labrousse roll out of Eugene on Oct. 1, weeks before the first workshop they’ll host as residents of Oaxaca, not visitors.
“It’s beautiful and bittersweet,” Andrade said. “But more than anything, there’s just so much gratitude because we do have this really unique opportunity.”
