Street Art In San Miguel: Yazmin Prescott, An Artist For Beauty

By Colleen Sorenson

Yazmin Prescott is well known for her beautiful murals on the streets throughout San Miguel and also in many private homes.

She is equally well known, along with her sister Linzee, for painting the dance floors commissioned by many of the best wedding planners in town. They keep very busy. "For 4 or 5 years now, dance floors for weddings are the main income. We paint in a team of artists and graphic designers, working on-site and finished all in one day. Dance floors can be the whole floor of the wedding and it has to be magical because it's the best day of their life. It is danced on and then it's taken up. It's painted over and then you let it all go. It's so much fun."

Private commissions for murals come mostly from word of mouth and also from those who see her murals on the street. "I listen to a client, I am a translation of what they have in mind, I am a tool. I can do whatever they want. Now, they start to look for my style for what I do and they want a translation of what they want through my art."

Painting on the street has been the most fun. With 13 of her 15 outdoor murals in San Miguel still in public view, she prefers the street because she paints what she wants and has the opportunity to directly connect with more people. "On the street, my painting is for me and I am just doing a feeling, something more general. And I paint the best when I am painting for fun, from my heart, then there is magic." Her favorite mural is 'Mother Nature', a stunning commission in Colonia San Rafael which was "so much fun because I had so much freedom with it."

Sharing her stories from the street, we laughed about observations of those passing by. "There is always going to be someone who will intentionally give a negative comment just for a reaction. It's not personal, it's them. Only some are horrible. But 70% are super nice and 30% won't say anything." The instant reactions, connecting with people and those bringing little gifts make the street fun. Finding it a good way to be recognized, her first mural, in 2020, was a shared experience painting with her sister Linzee on a little triangle building in Colonia Guadalupe. "We decided let's just do one so people can see what we do. It was so amazing. When you paint with people it's so much more fun. Of course you have to like the person and like the way they paint."

The beautiful mural was painted over with a change of tenants.

After painting in many community projects around San Miguel, we talked about her experiences and future participation. "It depends on the project, is it my cause? If there are too many demands, it is more like a job, then I want to be paid." She believes artists should be paid for all community projects and only those artists who are just beginning and who are allowed to paint what they want might paint for free.

Yazmin has lived in San Miguel her entire life, growing up outside the city in "the countryside with birds, wildlife, no neighbors, no nothing. I have two sisters and one brother. And I love animals, they all have their own language. School was downtown and every day my mother drove us there and back. My mother is a painter, my grandfather was a muralist and my father is an architect. Since age five, I am drawing and painting by copying the illustrations from children's book."

With an education in International Relations, after a couple years Yazmin decided it was not for her. "I wanted to go to discover the world, other ways of thinking. I wanted to live there, I wanted to be part of it. I just didn't think of the bureaucratic part and the politics of it. 80,000 others were applying for the same job. So the job I wanted was not available."

In 2017, Yazmin made the important leap to a fulltime artist. "My style is very soft, very feminine, beautiful and sort of 'undone', letting the person to figure out 1/3 of it. My art is meant to soothe the soul, I want a good feeling for the passerby."

Her smile radiates as beautiful as her work.

Contact Yazmin Prescott at: WhatsApp 442 173 1526

Colleen has long been an advocate for legal painting on the streets. She shares stories of artists who have shared their talents with us.

www.colleensorenson.com