His works are present in different parts of the world

by Araceli Martínez

Omar D’León, one of the most recognized Nicaraguan painters and poets of the last 50 years, passed away on the morning of August 26 in Camarillo, California at the age of 93. “My beloved uncle Omar d’León left this morning to meet the Lord,” announced Lauren Lacayo Vaisman, niece of the Nicaraguan painter and poet.

Meanwhile, the vice president of Nicaragua, Rosario Murillo declared “on this day that she makes her transit to the presence of the Lord, we want to send a hug of solidarity to her entire family, to that entire family of artists as well, hugs to Magda, Gregori Lacayo and other relatives who are there and are here, but we are all united by love, appreciation, and recognition of Omar D’ León.

“We ask God to rest in his peace in his love, and in the peace and love that he projected so much in his paintings, which are extraordinary, great greetings then, and a big hug to his whole family.”

The artist was born in 1929 in Managua, Nicaragua. His parents were David Estanislao Lacayo Herdocia and Guillermina Estrada de Lacayo. He studied nine years at the National School of Fine Arts in Nicaragua where he was a disciple of Rodrigo Peñalba, who lived from 1908 to 1979, and is considered the father of modern Nicaraguan art.

His earliest inspirations were the Pompeii frescoes, where he saw the use of cross-hatching and applied this technique to his love of the Impressionist school. He is best known for his brilliant graphite paintings of magical scenes inspired by mythology.

In 1970 he founded the “Museum-Gallery 904” in Managua. The museum’s collection encompassed the arts of Nicaragua from pre-Hispanic to contemporary times.

However, during the December 1972 earthquake, D’Leon’s museum and studio were partially destroyed and later looted and robbed.

After the Sandinistas took power in Nicaragua, he moved to Camarillo, California in 1976, where he lived with his sister Magda Mynard.

In 1982, one of his paintings was reproduced in the form of a United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) stamp.

His works can be found in many museums such as the Museum of Contemporary Latin American Art in Washington DC, Duke Durham University in North Carolina, the Ponce Museum of Art in Puerto Rico, the Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach, the Institute of Chicago Art and the Cuevas Museum in Mexico.

But also in the Central Bank of Nicaragua, the Ruben Dario National Theater, in the Armando Morales and Rodrigo Peñalba room of the Palace of Culture.

In 2012 he received a tribute at the Granada International Poetry Festival. There he declared that he had little time left to live, but he was not worried. “When the end comes, let it come.” D’Leon lived another 10 years.

But in a letter addressed to the public on December 22, 2021, sent when he was unable to attend the presentation of his exhibition Omar D’ León: Color and Identity, and published on his blog the emotional state:

“I still exist in intermittent temporal reverberations: free, creative, empowered by beauty, magic and love.

“I am exempt from grudges and nefarious isms. I am not a politician. I am an agronomist, archaeologist, writer, sculptor, painter, poet, draftsman and creator. I keep a very strict discipline in creativity and in the search for art. I would like to receive in life what I deserve, because now that I am deceased, those honors and pomp will be of no use to me, because my ashes have no reason.

“I am a happy lonely hermit, with an enormous cargo of great loves, of happy memories, of beautiful muses, pleasures, of some faithful and beloved friends, of gratitude with life, with the Creator and the earthly paradise, which has exiled to deadly monsters and ephemeral global demons.

“Only true art is divine and eternal; he is in need of music and peace; and it is the fear of the barbarians… There is still time to save our planet”.

And he apologizes for not being able to be present at the exhibition, “due to unavoidable commitments to museums and galleries in the United States, but he said he was grateful for the tribute to his painting.”

Amy Jones says in The Color of Freedom that D’Leon’s work “is imbued with a mystical quality, knowing abundance in paradise and the anguish of losing it, holding the light of grace to find a way through heaven.” fear and torture to be rewarded with pure vision and the ability to engrave on canvas”.

She adds that “He infuses echoes of Pompeii frescoes and classical Greek ideas of philosophy, community, and beauty. He imprints the European Impressionist painting imported into his country by his mentor with qualities of magical realism that are quintessentially Nicaraguan.”

Some of his poetry books are Estancias del Canto (1985-1993), Tedio Terrestre (1995-1998) and Canto Inoxidable (1999).

The poetic work of Omar d’Leon has been published in different publications. One of his most remembered and appreciated poems is El Canto Nicaragüense, written between 1960 and 1961. Here are some excerpts:

Where will you go walker when

the memory still attends you and

leave you these airs

of my warm Nicaragua!

What will happen then when time passes us by and

hostels in other hostile lands?

And when the indefatigable heart

for new arrivals

lay down before eminent oblivion

your evocation of this small country,

our Nicaragua…

What will germinate you then,

because transit is always objectionable

and insidious!

May these songs be the portals that define

Our beautiful country, full of complacency

in this cloudy and fruitful, uncertain and fatal weather!

The heartfelt reactions to the departure of the painter and poet could be seen on social networks.

“My condolences. An enormous legacy leaves us. A wonderful person and Master. I met him when I was 14 years old and I was visiting his studio in old Managua. I admire and respect him. Peace to his remains and glory to his life and magnificent work”, wrote the painter and engraver Mario René Madrigal-Arcia, highlighting his artistic legacy.

“Today, Nicaragua lost one of its greatest artists and thinkers: Omar D’Leon, who passed away this morning… We extend our sincere condolences to his family and friends,” wrote René González, president of the Nicaraguan Institute of Hispanic Culture. .

“Omar D’León… A pride of Nicaragua and Latin America,” highlighted the painter Maria Antonieta Lugo, granddaughter of the painter Genáro Lugo.

“National art and the Homeland lose one of the fathers of Nicaraguan painting. Our condolences to his family, especially to Lauren Lacayo, his niece and representative,” teacher Róger Pérez de la Rocha wrote on networks.

Claudia Ashby Cepeda, conocida como La China en los tiempos hippies de la Roosevelt en la vieja Managua, dijo: “Omar d León, maestro divino. Ya vuelas en el universo, dibujando y cantando a la vida”!

by Jocelyn Wiener

Ethnic News Services

A union representing 2,000 Kaiser Northern California mental health workers this morning announced plans for an open-ended strike beginning Aug. 15.

Among the reasons union representatives outlined: high clinician workloads and patients waiting weeks or even months for mental health care. Even as demand for care has surged, frustrated therapists are abandoning the health giant, said union spokesperson Matt Artz.

“We don’t take striking lightly,” Sal Rosselli, president of the National Union of Healthcare Workers, which represents the clinicians, said in a prepared statement, “but it’s time to take a stand and make Kaiser spend some of its billions on mental health care.”

Deb Catsavas, a senior vice president at Kaiser Permanente, said in an emailed statement that the threat of a strike is “sadly, a bargaining tactic this union has used every time it has bargained a new contract.”

Calling the union’s tactics “unethical and counterproductive,” Catsavas said the two sides were “close to an agreement” and that Kaiser is “committed to bargaining in good faith to reach a fair and equitable agreement that is good for our therapists and our patients.”

The company has drawn increased scrutiny from lawmakers for its mental health services in recent years. In May, the Department of Managed Health Care announced that it would be conducting a non-routine audit of Kaiser’s mental health services.

The union and Kaiser have one more bargaining session planned for Friday, Artz said. He said Kaiser Northern California’s mental health workers, including psychologists, social workers, therapists and addiction counselors, have gone on strike for short amounts of times six times in the past 4 years. This would be their first open-ended strike, which means the union is not establishing an end date.

Kaiser has 4.6 million enrollees in Northern California, Artz said, though that figure does not reflect how many currently access their mental health benefits.

In a letter sent Sunday to the Department of Managed Health Care, which regulates health plans, the union asked the department to ensure that Kaiser continues providing mental health care to patients during the strike, rather than canceling appointments.

Amanda Levy, deputy director for health policy and stakeholder relations for the Department of Managed Health Care, said the department is continuing to monitor access to services for patients impacted by the strike.

“The law requires health plans provide enrollees with medically necessary care within timely access and clinical standards at all times, which includes during an employee strike,” she said in an emailed statement.

Despite growing efforts at the state level to enforce mental health parity laws, Kaiser mental health practitioners say they still struggle to provide adequate and timely care for patients.

Sarah Soroken, who has worked as a therapist at Kaiser Fairfield for six years, said access to treatment has worsened during her time there. She said the pandemic has aggravated the situation, with more patients seeking care, even as more therapists are leaving.

“Right now we’re at a crisis point,” she said. “Things are worse than ever.”

Kaiser is not the only provider facing a shortage of mental health practitioners. Complaints of shortages also have been raised by counties, school districts and non-profit organizations around the state. Artz said some Kaiser providers are being recruited to work at telehealth start-ups, where money is good and work-from-home options abound. Others are entering private practice.

The union says the rate at which mental health clinicians are leaving Kaiser nearly doubled in the past year, with 668 clinicians leaving between June 2021 and May 2022, compared to 335 clinicians the previous year. In a union survey of 200 of those departing clinicians, 85 percent said they were leaving because their workload was unsustainable or they felt they did not have enough time to complete the work, and 76 percent said they were unable to “treat patients in line with standards of care and medical necessity.”

Some of these concerns are not new, although the pandemic has exacerbated them.

In 2013, the Department of Managed Health Care fined Kaiser $4 million for failure to provide adequate mental health treatment.

In a hearing this spring, lawmakers raised concerns about the state’s plans to move an additional 200,000 Medi-Cal members onto Kaiser, given problems with mental health treatment. Democratic Sen. Scott Wiener of San Francisco has introduced a bill to significantly increase fines for health plans that fail to comply with state laws.

Another bill of Wiener’s, SB 221, which took effect July 1, is intended to ensure patients don’t face long delays for follow-up treatment through commercial providers like Kaiser. Specifically, the new law, which was sponsored by the union, requires that patients receive follow-up mental health care within 10 business days unless a provider determines that a longer wait will not be detrimental to the patient.

At a virtual press conference in late June, Kaiser mental health practitioners said the health giant wasn’t close to meeting those requirements.