A few weeks ago, Felice and I joined a gathering of donors at the Arte Vallarta Museo to see the wonderful artwork of Puerto Vallarta artists on display. What I didn’t realize at the time was the full extent of the cultural development going on today in Vallarta, led by Elroy Quenroe. After interviewing him recently, I now understand why the arts are flowering in Puerto Vallarta.
Elroy is the president of the PVShares Foundation, which he started in 2019 to provide funding for art organizations and programs in the Puerto Vallarta area. PVShares supports exhibitions and programming at several different art organizations here.
For instance, the Arte Vallarta Museo (Vallarta Art Museum) is a non-profit, bi-lingual art center dedicated to expanding the local and international knowledge of contemporary and historical art and culture in Puerto Vallarta.
The PVShares umbrella also covers the OPC (Oficina de Proyectos Culturales or Office for Cultural Projects). It’s an independent non-profit arts organization dedicated to fostering dialogue through exhibitions, round table discussions, public art and arts education programs.
Also, the long-standing scholarship program Becas Vallarta is another major program now funded by Elroy’s non-profit. The Becas program’s mission is to raise funds to bring scholarships for low-income students in Puerto Vallarta through its scholarship program, which includes art students. One of the primary fund-raising activities for Becas has been the annual Becas Ball, but following several years of the pandemic, the annual event has been replaced with monthly fund-raising breakfasts at various restaurants in Vallarta.
Finally, the music non-profit IAMPV now receives funding from the PVShares Foundation. IAMPV is a non-profit organization that provides musical education to children and young adults. Young people participate in concerts by the Vallarta Symphony Orchestra and even have their own jazz group, the Salty Paws Jazz Orchestra, which performs regularly in Vallarta. Felice and I enjoyed an evening of jazz during the last holiday season featuring the jazz group at the downtown amphitheater on the Malecón.
Elroy has the perfect background to champion the arts in Puerto Vallarta. After receiving his master’s degree in architectural history at the University of Virginia, he became an exhibition designer and then architect for the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. After 13 years at the National Gallery, he formed his own Boulder, Colorado-based firm, Quenroe Associates to provide museum and exhibition design to museums around the world, including the famous Topkapi Museum in Istanbul, Turkey. He retired in 2010 and moved to Vallarta in 2019 to found the PVShares Foundation.
Check out my interview with Elroy in our video of the month to find out where the arts in Puerto Vallarta are headed.
Written by Robert Nelson, the founder of the popular online magazine Expats In Mexico – The Expat Guide to Living in Mexico and author of two books about living in Puerto Vallarta: Boomers in Paradise: Living in Puerto Vallarta and Expats in Paradise: Life in Puerto Vallarta. Visit Robert’s new website to learn more about Life in Vallarta.