Patterson bring together forty-nine of Mexico's most acclaimed artists in the performing, visual, and literary arts, displaying the creative energy of a nation. Invited into the artists' studios and work spaces, the author and photographer discuss with them individual conceptions of reality and their expression in media as diverse as paint, clay, stone, wood, pen, and theater. The portraits collectively uncover the tight web of interrelations existing among the arts and the artists of Mexico. Shared themes of myth and magic, church, politics, and death transcend the boundaries between forms as painters work with novelists, as poetry inspires sculptors, as acting moves fluidly into dance. No aesthetic barriers exist: painter Leonora Carrington illustrates Elena Poniatowska's first novel, Poniatowska contributes a literary vignette to the work of multimedia artist Marta Palau, Gunther Gerzso lends his painterly hand to the works of poet and critic Octavio Paz. Out of the Volcano focuses on the ability of art to be both culturally specific and universally understood. Entering Mexico's culture through its art, this book is a far-reaching profile of a vigorous arts community.

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