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I’ve travelled to , Mexico’s second-largest city, to explore the thriving arts scene. And Tlaquepaque, now considered one of the city’s neighbourhoods, is an essential stop: The pueblo mágico (“magic town”) has long been a magnet for artists and crafters working in clay, wood, leather, jewelry, fabric and paints. Mansions built in the 19th century by wealthy Tapatios (Guadalajara residents) have more recently been transformed into restaurants, hotels and galleries.

Leaving Galeria Rodo Padilla, our group of travel writers wanders the area, ducking in and out of other galleries. We pause in the street for selfies with art, including a striding bronze giant swarmed by tiny figures. Further along, a caped bronze wizard dangles a Dali-esque clock. Live music drifts from restaurants. Painters hawk their works.

Beneath shade trees, a nine-piece mariachi string band in matching royal-blue outfits and sombreros performs, the singer belting out the chorus: “In this country, my country, your country!”

Our trip coincides with Guadalajara’s annual , but year-round it’s common to chance upon live music in the streets, particularly in Plaza de los Mariachis — considered by some to be the birthplace of this festive music — and in Tlaquepaque.

We arrive at , the ceramics studio where Rodo and brother Paco Padilla learned the craft from their father and grandfather. Today, Paco’s children, Francisco and Mariana, run the studio. Francisco shows us the walk-in kiln his grandfather built 70 years ago. We pass an elderly artisan who works here, hunched over a pottery wheel, turning clay into plates. “He was born doing that,” says Francisco.

But the history of the craft goes much deeper than any family business: “When the Spanish came, they already made ceramics and used ancient techniques we still use now,” says Francisco.

“Tonalá is where everything started because of the clay,” Mariana explains of the village, now a Guadalajara neighbourhood near Tlaquepaque. “The clay has lots of minerals, so it’s a place with unique pieces.”

It took the brutal Spanish conquistador Nuño de Guzmán and his captain, Cristóbal de Oñate, several attempts to establish Guadalajara. The site was moved multiple times, including to pre-existing Tonalá, before it was finally settled in 1542 in its current location, where now stands in Guadalajara’s historic city centre.

The Padillas teach us their traditional technique of applying coloured dots on monochrome backgrounds. Our canvas is a ceramic skull. “With the dots, you can make a flower, a branch — anything you can imagine,” says Francisco. I apply an even coat of garish purple, let it dry, then dab on yellow, red and white dots. Loading the brush with paint, I practice the roll of the wrist that creates a teardrop.

Purple skull safely stowed, we return to Guadalajara’s Centro Histórico, itself a work of art, laid out in the shape of a cross, with the twin-towered Guadalajara Cathedral at its heart. Four plazas surround it, each punctuated by bold works of art. At the edge of one, I climb to the top of Jose Fors’ “Arbol Adentro,” a giant bronze head sprouting a living tree.

At the end of another, we visit the UNESCO-listed , a 19th-century orphanage turned museum, to see the striking modernist frescoes of José Clemente Orozco. In the late 1930s, the one-armed artist covered nearly every surface with 58 works, including “Man of Fire” within the dome, a kind of Guadalajaran Sistine Chapel.

Throughout the museum complex of 23 courtyards and rooms, I find hundreds of works by contemporary Mexican artists. Among them stands a found-art object, a dust-caked bicycle. Until recently, it hung on the wall of one of the city’s oldest bars, , a tequila-fueled haunt where a drunken stranger forgot his bicycle in 1957. When we pause there for after-dinner drinks, we find a poster of the beloved bicycle over the bar with the words “They didn’t steal me, they didn’t sell me.”

A short stroll from the Guadalajara Cathedral, we pass temporary stages for the main event of the annual international mariachi festival: a performance by the , backing up two 14-piece mariachi bands, at Teatro Degollado — on the very ground where Guadalajara was born. We take our seats in the five-tiered interior, which is resplendent in red velvet and gold, and crowned by a mural based on Dante’s “Divine Comedy.” For two hours, over 100 musicians fill the operatic space with pure Mexicana.

Invigorated by the festivities, we decide on a nightcap. At , an anchor of the city’s thriving LGBTQ+ community (Guadalajara co-hosted the international Gay Games in 2023), we take in the hyperenergetic drag show that happens every weekend. Three performers lip-sync and gyrate around the room, celebrating each and every patron.

It’s a far cry from Rodo’s innocent cherubs but a fitting, frenetic ending to our wide-ranging Guadalajara arts and culture adventure.

Darcy Rhyno travelled as a guest of Guadalajara Tourism, which did not review or approve this article.