Little Bodega on the Prairies: Portage Avenue shop specializes in authentic Mexican art
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 21/10/2017 (2349 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
For the second year in a row, Susan Smandych, owner of La Bodega Imports, will be an official vendor at Central Canada Comic Con, which kicks off Friday and runs until Oct. 29 at the convention centre.
During the event, Smandych, whose shop at 955 Portage Ave. has an expansive array of home and garden decor brought in directly from Mexico, will be selling an assortment of trinkets associated with Day of the Dead, an annual, three-day festival that begins at midnight Oct. 31, and is observed by people of Mexican heritage, around the world.
‘One woman told me my store is good for her soul, which is about the nicest compliment I’ll ever receive’– Susan Smandych
“It’s really interesting how popular Day of the Dead has become, especially with kids and teens who are familiar with it from the animated movie The Book of Life,” says Smandych, referring to the celebration that encourages people to remember deceased friends and family members, by building altars called ofrendas in their honour, and adorning them with gifts such as pan de muertos (a type of sweet roll), candles and cheerily painted, hand-crafted skulls.
“I’ve also run a booth at Folklorama’s Mexican pavilion the last two years. When adults stop to ask ‘What’s with all the skulls?’ more times than not it’s their children who explain the significance, before I even get a chance to.”
Here’s a question: what is a 67-year-old, Saskatchewan-born grandmother of five doing running a store called La Bodega, the Spanish term for warehouse? (Smandych, who hails from Kamsack, Sask., laughs over how excited she was in 1959, when her parents bought a television set for the first time, so everybody in the household could cheer on their beloved Saskatchewan Roughriders.)
The answer begins, oddly enough, in Muskoka, Ont., a scenic community bordering Georgian Bay that Smandych and her husband George Genno called home for almost 20 years. In 2005, not long after the pair retired from their respective careers, they began to spend as much time in Mexico as possible, she says.
“We stayed primarily near Playa del Carmen, but I very proudly say we weren’t in the tourist areas at all. We found if we went a few miles across the highway, or a bit further north, we had a far more authentic experience.”
In 2009, during another of their extended stays, Smandych accepted a part-time, volunteer position with a condominium association. One weekend, her superiors dispatched her and her husband to a trade show in Guadalajara, to check out pieces of furniture they were interested in buying. While there, the couple took in a tiangui, which Smandych describes as the Mexican equivalent of a farmers market.
“People from all over the country show up. You see them arrive with all manner of hand-made goods tied down on wooden pallets, piled way above the cabs of their trucks,” she says. “There’s food, music… Anyways, after being completely blown away by the vivid colours and talent of the various artists, George and I looked at each other and said, ‘Could you imagine a store in Canada selling this type of stuff?’”
Smandych, whose Spanish improves “after a glass of wine,” founded La Bodega in Muskoka in 2010 as a seasonal business that operated from May to October. Sales were decent, but because the region’s population — around 60,000, tops — limited the business’s growth, she decided in 2014 it was time to “go big or go home,” by relocating to an urban centre, and staying open year-round. One of her two daughters had been living in Winnipeg since 2004, so moving here was an easy choice, she says.
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Smandych chuckles when she explains she doesn’t have to hit a gym to stay fit.
The first thing she does when she arrives for work in the morning is prop open her doors and push, pull and drag a mix of planters, fire pits and mirror balls out to her parking lot, which faces Portage Avenue. Before moving into the 1,000-square-foot space in May 2015, she researched its location — it was a UPS store in a previous life — and learned that more than 50,000 cars pass by on a daily basis.
“So yeah, I try to put as much outside as I can, summer or winter, to grab people’s attention,” she says, noting her daughter and three grandchildren, who call her Abu — short for abuela, the Spanish word for grandmother — conveniently live a few doors away from the store.
Inside, Smandych stocks the handiwork of about 60 Mexican artisans, most of whom she has spent time with, either at their home or place of work.
“It’s very important to me to meet with the people I deal with in person, because the last thing I want to see is little kids running around some lead-filled factory,” she says, standing next to a pair of seven-foot-tall chimineas, which she is fairly certain are the only ones for sale in Canada of that size.
“I’ve probably met directly with 80 per cent of my artists, while the other 20 per cent I’ve checked out as thoroughly as I can. Any time working conditions seem even a little bit off, I back away immediately.”
Smandych smiles broadly and says “Oh my, where do I start?” when asked about the personal relationships she’s forged, since getting La Bodega off the ground.
“First of all, I have an absolutely wonderful friend in Guadalajara named Danny Ruiz. He’s a cab driver who, as soon as I figure out where I want to go, makes it happen. One time I told him I was looking for Talavera (a type of pottery made in select regions of Mexico) and the next thing I knew, we were out in the country, driving down roads that are barely navigable because of all the potholes, until we got to this little workshop surrounded by cows, with 10 or 11 people quietly working inside.”
On another occasion, a 60-year-old craftsman named Ubaldo invited Smandych and her husband to stay with him and his wife, Gloria, in San Miguel de Allende.
On the second day of their visit, Ubaldo, who makes tin mirrors, asked Smandych if she was interested in meeting other artisans from the area. No sooner had she said “of course,” than he wedged his wife, daughters and grandchildren into the cargo section of his decades-old pickup truck, squeezed himself into the front seat next to Smandych and Genno and hit the gas.
“I still remember he had this stick shift — the really high type — that he worked as if he’d been doing it all his life. We drove to Dolores Hidalgo, which is known for ceramics,” she says.
After paying a short visit to his 97-year-old grandfather, Ubaldo took Smandych to meet a half-dozen of his artisan friends. On the way back to his house, he explained to her how, at one time, he could have called on as many as 5,000 crafters, but because of knock-offs being manufactured in countries such as China, that number had sadly dwindled to a tenth of that.
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“Do you mind if I swear?” Smandych asks, when questioned how people react, when they pop into her store for the first time. After we respond “Hey, knock yourself out,” Smandych mimics a recent customer by taking two steps through the door, stopping in her tracks and announcing, loud enough for all to hear, “This place is… awesome!”
Another of her favourite anecdotes is when a person hurriedly approached her one recent afternoon, explaining he had come to the store straight from the airport.
“He’d spent the last 10 days in Mexico, apparently, but had forgotten to buy gifts for a few people on his list, so he was stopping here first, to grab a few things,” she says, adding a fair number of people who moved to Winnipeg from Mexico and Central America also drop by semi-regularly, not so much to shop, but instead to get a small taste of home. “One woman told me my store is good for her soul, which is about the nicest compliment I’ll ever receive.”
(Smandych works closely with the Mex Y Can Association of Manitoba. The volunteer-run organization, which promotes Mexican culture in Manitoba, will celebrate Day of the Dead on Nov. 4 at Caso Do Minho Portuguese Centre, 1080 Wall St. “There will be free workshops for kids and a party that night, featuring local performers,” says past president Aline Tezcucano. “We love Susan’s fabulous selection and her community approach to work directly with artisans from Mexico. She will have a vendor’s table there, as well.”)
David Sanderson writes about Winnipeg-centric businesses and restaurants.
david.sanderson@freepress.mb.ca
David Sanderson
Dave Sanderson was born in Regina but please, don’t hold that against him.