October (dios de los muertos) in March...

     First, I am sorry I haven't posted for the better part of 3 weeks.  I been busy READING for a change.  First I bought the new extended version of Rob Brezsny's book Pronoia.  Then last Saturday I was at the Barnes and Noble fundraiser for MECCA and the only copy of Michael DeMeng's new book was just begging me to buy it.  (Personally I think Michael put a spell on it but that's a whole other story).

And, on top of reading I have been working on a new piece.
     After going to Oaxaca for Dios de Los Muertos last year with Michael and a group of amazing people from all over the country my art (and my beliefs about death) will never be the same.
     In the Mexican culture (at least in Oaxaca) there are two days every year that our dearly beloved dead ones come back to party with the living.  On November 1st the babies and young children come back.  On November 2nd the adults return.  Having lived in San Fransisco for many years with it's large and politically active Hispanic community, I was already familiar with the Day of the Dead and longed to go to Mexico to experience a real Dios de Los Muertos.   Thus I already had a pretty good collection of Day of the Dead skeletons.

          I got this beautiful lady from a fellow who is from Oaxaca but now has a shop in Albany on Solano Blvd.  I pretty much knew when I bought her that for the first time I had no excuse not to go.  So I went.  (If you been reading my blog all along you already know all this....sorry for the repeat but bare with me...)

     That said, I am writing you today to give you a glimpse of what I been working on in the last few months.   It started with a single striking image I saw in Oaxaca.  A half alive and half dead Frida.

     This is not a very good reproduction of the image that has changed me in ways I may never be able to fully articulate.  Of course I love Frida (like everybody else).  She's practically a saint in Mexico. But what struck me was the portrayal of her as half dead and half alive.  Here in the rational northern portion of the Americas there just isn't a place for a reality like this.  In Mexico, magical realism and all it's various cousins are not only alive but thriving.  Frida can be physically dead but her soul lives on forever in the hearts of the Mexican people who love her.   I experienced this again and again while I was down there.
     Having had my own near death experience I knew I had to make a piece of myself, half dead or dying and the other half coming to life.  (Pretty much what has been going on since the brain injury).  I also wanted it to be 3 dimensional. 
     My friend Rogene who I met just a week before I went to Mexico (she was going too) has been working with paper clay making her paintings more 3 dimensional.  The moment I saw her work I knew that was the medium I wanted to try for my piece.
    I also wanted some of the other art in my Day of the Dead collection to influence this piece.  

     I love the floral painting on this vase I bought years ago at the Castro St. Fair.  I also love the flower bursting forth from the eye.

       The picture of this skull was shot through a window so it's not great.  I wanted it so bad but it was carved out of wood and hand painted and way out of my price range.  Alas I came home with a not so great picture of it.  I love all the monarch butterflies.  Is it all the bright colors used by the Mexican artisans that keeps their skulls looking so friendly?   That and all those big shiny white teeth?  It's as if dead people in Mexico are always laughing.
    For my piece I was pretty sure I wanted to use a huge cigar box I scored in Amsterdam.  Opened, it has a book like quality to it.  And that would mean one half would be for the skull and the other half for something else.  But what would be on the other side?   And are all those weird white flowers really necessary?

     It was probably the cover of Rob's book that had me thinking about anatomically correct hearts.  Or perhaps it was the aftermath of the Valentine's show and working with the Americanized version of hearts for what seemed like an eternity.
     Either way last Thursday, sick and tired of the rain, I drove 100 miles as drops the size of golf balls bounced off my windshield to get to my favorite bookstore, Powell's in Portland.  Once there I went to the anatomy section and took several pictures of anatomically correct hearts.  Here's what I got...

The piece is coming along slowly but surely and once I get it done you'll be the first to know...
 Thanks for reading my friends and your comments are always welcome.... and yes I am going back to Oaxaca again this year for Dios de Los Muertos.  And I may just stay a little longer to learn some Spanish.   Who knows..  Here's a few more hearts for you to ponder..

Sofia Reyes, famous crafter of 'black pottery'

After a visiting the several shops where they make alebrijos we came upon a tiny town where the famous potter Sofia Reyes lives.  Sofia is 90 yrs old.  We were so honored when this living legend gave us a demonstration of her technique.  She uses NO pottery wheel. Instead she balances the clay on two inverted dishes.  The picture to the left shows her transforming a lump of clay into a vessel.  Note, only the hands are moving.   She has been doing this all her life and has also taught her daughters and their daughters to make the black pottery.  The pottery is fired in an outdoor, underground 'kiln' of sorts.  It looks like a simple hole in the ground though I am sure there is much more technology to it than that.  I had no more room in my luggage by this point so I did not buy anything from her amazing inventory.  But many of the group I came with did.  While we were in her shop much ruckus could be heard in the streets.  Turned out a mini parade was going by with all the town's children dressed as muertos.   I went back to sit on the bus with Damien the handsome and flirtatious driver who offered me some local made bread.  I had to refuse since most 'local's' food is made where they have no running water and it is way too easy for a gringa like me to get sick.       But as I was waiting for the others to return I saw a lovely little old lady walking home in the rain and I took a picture of her thru the bus windshield.   I thought it came out pretty sweet.  Next entry is a vignette with pictures of the visits to the alibrijas wood carvers....                                                                                                 

 

                                                    

Dios de los Muertos

     Perhaps because I lived in San Francisco for so many years with it's enormous hispanic community my version of Halloween in much more akin to Dios de los Muertos; a celebration of those who have died.
     Every year on November 1st and 2nd all over Mexico people 'celebrate' the lives of their beloved dead ones.   Lovers, brothers, mothers and sisters not to mention 1st and 2nd cousins and anyone else deemed important.  Little skeletons of these special people are made, often doing what the person being honored used to do.  In my collection of 'skeletons' one is a camping scene.  Two skeletons with yellow hats are sitting under a full moon playing music as they lean up against a Joshua tree.  Laying at their feet, is a sleepy eyed dog, just waiting for the next adventure.  The most recent addition to my 'skeleton family' is a sexy woman in a red dress showing just a bit of leg.  I love the playful nature of Dios de los Muertos which is why I have been wanting to go to Mexico during the holiday for over a decade to celebrate.
     I am so happy to say this is the year.  Because (due to my own recent near death experience) I couldn't possibly go alone I am going with Michael deMeng (google him, he's fab)  and a group of a dozen or so others.   Michael is an awesome assemblage artist who I met several years ago at Artfest.  He was teaching a class on using old polaroids as mini canvases.  The end product was a 3 dimensional piece that you looked into as if it was a little world inside a 3" x 3" frame.   I would have dig around really deep in my old files to find the pictures.  So you will just have to trust me on this one when i say they were 'fricken awesome'.

  


    It's occurring to me as i write this that both of my most recent pieces have had a distinctly hispanic edge to them.  In my piece called 'the resurrection of Yo' she looks to me like she was born and raised in Oaxaca.  The piece I did at Art and Soul begins with a drawing of a skeleton's head with a blood red path that flows from the area where the doctors drilled into my head.  No wonder the minute I saw the drawing I knew I had to work with it.  (There's a small picture below... before I worked with it and another one after.  I am aware that many might see it as a tortured soul sort of piece.   Especially if you don't notice all the music that frames the collage.  But it was really done in the spirit of Dios de los Muertos; a tribute to my previous self and to the new person I hope to become.

      Nothing like a 'near death experience' to turn one's life around.  And I am so looking forward to this trip to Oaxaca, Mexico and all the transformations it promises to bring. Many, many pictures when I get back, I promise.