Countless people spend their lives yearning to live their dreams, but Angela Gentleman is not one of them.

After years of imagining what it would be like to have total freedom to explore and develop her artistic talents, unencumbered by professional and personal responsibilities, she finally seized the moment in July last year, and took sabbatical leave from her job as a primary school teacher, rented her home, and headed for the popular artists' colony of San Miguel de Allende in Mexico.

Fifteen months later, she is back in the classroom and her home, and busy preparing for her debut as the featured artist in the Bermuda Arts Centre at Dockyard's new juried members' show, ‘Inspiration', which opens to the public next Monday.

What viewers will see is a reflection of what might be called “the new Ms Gentleman”, for the Mexican experience has energised and changed her artistically beyond measure. Indeed, to paraphrase the song Tony Bennett made famous, she truly lost her heart in San Allende, and if all her dreams could come true, she would still be there. Which is not to suggest that she does not love her life in Bermuda, but Mexico was such a liberating experience, spiritually, culturally and artistically, that she found it very hard to leave.

“San Miguel is a place to inspire,” she says. “It is probably the most life-affirming place in terms of anyone's artistic work. It has been an artists' colony since the turn of the century, and there are writers, artists, musicians, sculptors there. The expatriate population is about 10,000. People say you go to Florida to die, and to San Miguel to live.”

And live she did.

“Every day was my birthday,” she enthused. “There was always a wonderful gift and surprise in each day that really made my heart and spirit expand. I had no preconceived notions about what I was going to do other than to live my dream, which has always been to paint.”

In fact, Ms Gentleman became so immersed in her new life that she says she “lived, breathed, ate and slept art”, even on weekends when she also soaked up the scenery, fresh mountain air, culture and culinary delights.

“I used to dream about painting, and I couldn't wait for Monday to go back to classes, which lasted from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday to Friday,” she says.

Mornings were spent at the state-run Belles Artes School for the Arts, where one class was presided over by abstract painter Erv Kaczmarek, and the formal figure drawing and painting class by Henry Vermillion, popularly known as ‘Hank Red'.

While the latter was a much more formal teacher who taught Ms Gentleman about colour and form which she then worked into her abstract pieces, Mr. Kaczmarek's was a studio class with a looser approach.

His philosophy was to encourage, rather than teach, his students because he believed that only technique, not painting, could be taught. He was there for advice and encouragement when requested, otherwise he allowed his students to develop and express their individual creativity through doing.

“He encouraged me to paint what I felt - from the inside out, rather than the outside in,” Ms Gentleman says.

Just how well this worked for her is perhaps best illustrated by the fact that much of the work she will exhibit at Dockyard is based on a chance remark Mr. Kaczmarek made to her.

“Erv works in mixed media all the time, and one day he showed me a piece of silver foil (not tin foil), and said, ‘Do you want to use this?' I said, ‘What for?' and he replied: ‘Rip it up, arrange it, play with it'. I was hooked immediately, and what I love about my paintings is the way they change in different lights. The foil really reflects in ways which fascinated me.”

In the afternoons, the keen artist studied ceramics with Angelina Perez, a Mexican whose approach to her work she describes as “so joyous that it was infectious”.

“I was fascinated with clay. I did things more in the realm of abstracted figures. All of my work is finished with coloured liquid clay, called engobe. Then I fired it, and after that I smoked it over an open fire, and then finished it with wax shoe polish to make it look old and very natural. It is so tactile you want to touch it.”

Arising out of this class, Ms Gentleman is also including in the Dockyard exhibition her series, ‘The Muses'. She also plans to continue ceramic work in a studio space.

Even now, the primary school teacher marvels not only at how much she has grown as an artist, but also at the generosity of spirit which prevailed among her fellow artists, who were more than willing to share their expertise and technique tips with her.

“San Miguel nurtures your talent. Everyone is very supportive, and they all live to share ideas. There is no hoarding of techniques. It was a great experience, and I made many friends there,” she says. “I have travelled extensively, and there is such a plethora of creativity in Mexico: music, writing, painting, drawing, and more. It is the place to be really inspired, and the ingenuity of what the Mexicans make is extraordinary.”

While there, Ms Gentleman took part in a group show, and also sold some of her work. Such was her productivity that she also had to give some away to friends to lessen her luggage coming home.

On the eve of her exhibition, she says she is “extremely excited and very flattered” to have been invited to be the featured artist in the new Dockyard exhibition.

“It was very generous of the Bermuda Arts Centre at Dockyard to include me, knowing that this is a new venture for me, and my work is unlike anything I have done before. For me, it really was stepping off the edge, but I feel now that I have done it there is a whole new direction in which I want to go. I have got so many ideas for the future, but I don't have the time at the moment. Art really is work, and it drains you of all your energy because you are totally absorbed by it, to the exclusion of all else. In fact, you have no idea that you are exhausted until you put down your brushes, say, five hours later. It is an obsession in the nicest sense of the word.”

'Inspiration' opens to the public on Monday, October 14 and continues through November 29. For gallery hours and further information see the Bermuda Calendar, or ( 234-2809.