Día de los Muertos

As I was working on this year’s Day of the Dead themed mail art, I realized it is 40 years since I discovered this now favorite holiday. The discovery came as a student living in Switzerland at the Museum Rietberg in Zürich. It was my first introduction to the folk art that is part of the celebration. As the years have gone by, the holiday has become increasingly meaningful to me — when I am in San Francisco, I always have an ofrenda in my home. It is a holiday I love on a visual and spiritual level.  Some years I travel for the holiday and always seek out the local celebration — including a few times in Mexico.   

Día de los Muertos

One of my favorite holidays and one of my favorite pieces from the 2011 Project.  I think I got a little carried away this year.  My entire apartment smells like marigolds.

December 12, 2011 – Guadalupe

She goes by many names, La Guadalupana, Tonantzin, the Mother Goddess, Our Lady of Guadalupe and today is her special feast day. Today is the day in 1531 when Juan Diego opened his cloak and a multitude of flowers fell to the floor convincing the Spanish Archbishop that She had truly appeared. She watches over and protects us all.

November 15, 2011 – Lucha libre

I am fairly disinterested in sports and pay little attention, but one sport I love is Lucha libre. The costumed, freestyle wrestling that comes from Mexico. But for me it is all about the spectacle, the costumes, the accessories, and the kitsch. When sport becomes surreal performance art, I am delighted. That Lucha libre comes out of Mexico is no surprise. Mexicans can be proud that André Breton declared, “Mexico is the most surrealist country in the world.” These art school smarties who bore us with their video art and dull performance pieces are no match for any Luchadores.

August 1, 2011 – Is this San Francisco?

When you live in a place that is depicted in movies, TV shows and books your reaction can range from annoying to amusing. It’s a case-by-case basis. When you live in San Francisco, you get used to seeing all sorts of versions of your City in media. It’s just wrong when locations in cities like Montreal, Vancouver and Los Angeles get substituted for San Francisco. Then again, Hollywood has taken to using the Tenderloin as a substitute for New York in the 1970’s. Movies might make you think I ride all over town on cable cars, but I have not been on one in over 10 years. Even though Alamo Square must appear in every San Francisco movie, I can assure you, that not everyone in San Francisco goes up to that park for a heartfelt chat with a row of Victorians and the downtown skyline in the background.

San Francisco gets portrayed so often, you learn to ignore most of it. But sometimes, you see the craziest stuff. Yesterday, just three blocks from iconic Alamo Square, I found a stack of Mexican comic books. They were stamped “discarded” by a library in Redondo Beach back in 1991. 20 years later they were in a pile on Page Street. El Libro Policiaco depicts an exciting adventure with the “Golden Gate Police Division.” I’ll ignore every bit of Spanish I ever learned and just say they show a San Francisco where everyone drives K Cars and trannies with amazing hip implants are dealing drugs. Mexican comics can be so bizarre. Then again, look at the way Hollywood has depicted Mexico and Mexicans.

Now, I just have to ignore the commercials on TV, apparently a band of gorillas are going to beat up everyone on the Golden Gate Bridge later this week.

July 25, 2011 – La Sandia

Sandia was one of the first words I learned in Spanish. It’s easy to remember and one of my favorite flavors of aqua fresca. I even make my own lime-watermelon aqua fresca at home. I also learned the word sandia from lotería cards. As it is a watermelon (or sandia) time of year and I knew the 2011 Project needed a summery piece dedicated to the most summery of fruits.

Recently I found a museum catalog from a show about lotería cards in Sioux City Art Center in 2005. I wish I had seen that show, but Iowa is not the type of place I get to. I wait for Leslie Hall to tour. The catalog is real find and I have now learned more than I imagined about lotería cards. Among other things, the image of the watermelon, la sandia, is important because of the colors red, white and green, the colors of the Mexican flag. The ubiquitous sandia in Mexican art is more than just about an appreciation of the fruit.

When I see images of watermelon, my reaction has always been summer. For Mexicans and Mexican-Americans there is an extra meaning in a slice of fruit that represents the national colors. America just doesn’t have a good red, white and blue fruit. But then again, the American identity is defined by being a mix of different people from many diverse places. We might be best represented by a salad with colorful fruit from all over the world.

July 7, 2011 – Frida

Today is Frida Kahlo’s birthday. Born on this day in 1910. There are official records which claim Frida was born on July 6, 1907. But Frida proclaimed her birthday was July 7, 1910. She wanted her year of birth to coincide with the beginning Mexican Revolution. As for the truth in this matter, when you’re Frida Kahlo, you get to choose your birthday. So for Frida, an icon…

May 10, 2011 – Papel Picado

When I moved to San Francisco I discovered Paper Picado the Mexican paper-based folk art. Traditionally it is not cut, Papel Picado is chiseled. Huge, tightly layered sheets of colored tissue paper are packed into a block. The patterns are then cut into the block of paper using a chisel. I am yet to try this, and imagine it’s much harder than it looks. I suspect the novice could chisel his hand as easily as the block of paper. The advantage of the chiseling process is it allows one to make hundreds of sheets at once. That they are on tissue paper adds to their ephemeral nature.

Papel Picado was brought north with immigrants from Mexico. It has become as much a Californian Folk Art as it is a Mexican one. Its patterns appear in other forms and have fused with other traditions. I even saw some Chanukah Papel Picado recently. The railings of the BART station at 16^th and Mission are designed to resemble Papel Picado.

Papel Picado has taken a long journey, starting with cut paper art in China about 2,000 years ago. It spread west and found its way to Spain with the Moors and subsequently the Spanish brought it to Mexico. This link has a good article from the International Folk Art Museum in Santa Fe.

May 6, 2011 – Chocolate

About 4,000 years ago the ancestors of the Olmecs came up with this wonderful, magical concoction. They used the roasted and fermented beans of the cocoa tree. The Mayans and Aztecs carried on the tradition. The history is a little muddled but it seems at some point in the 16^th Century, Spanish tourists started stopping at a place called Sí’s at the aeropuerto. They bought this delight called xocolatl to bring back to Europe. Inevitably it ended up in the boudoir of some Swiss mistress. And the rest is well, as they say, history. It’s hard to imagine a world without chocolate.

March 15, 2011 — Loteria

As a California artist, I don’t think I could do this project without including Mexican loteria cards for a piece. It seems almost everyone uses them at some point. Many artists also make their own updated versions of loteria cards. I did a little of both with today’s piece. I have been attracted to the cards and using them in art for years. I am not even sure if artists in Mexico use and are influenced by the cards as much as we are in California. For some reason many of us in California and throughout the U.S. are drawn to these little cards and images. It’s one of those instances where one culture imports something from another culture and takes off with it. Not as big as Christmas in Japan, but it’s a start.

March 2, 2011 - Olmec

Today we went to see the big giant heads at the de Young. When you think of the Olmec, it’s the first thing that comes to mind. And yes, a big giant head greets you as you enter the special exhibit. It’s grand, it’s imposing, and you could leave after that and feel quite satisfied with your museum outing. But there is so much more to the show. I may have painted a big Olmec face when I got home, but what I really wanted to do is learn to carve jadeite and make some ceremonial axe heads. The treasure trove of jadeite and serpentine carvings is amazing. All safely behind glass, but I’d love to be able to handle them. They just beg to be touched.

The exhibit is another example of why you need to see art in person when you have the opportunity. The books and photos just can’t convey the feeling you get when you see the work in person. I avoid the overused word exquisite. The work in this show well deserves to be called exquisite. If it were a new body of contemporary work, it would be fantastic in itself. At 3,000 years old, it’s rather amazing. When it comes to antiquities, an Olmec show is not going to draw the crowds that Roman, Greek or Egyptian work would, and it’s shame. From a pure artistic point of view, the Olmec accomplished things that wouldn’t be matched for thousands of years.

At the risk of sounding like a cheesy “History” Channel program, one really wonders what was going on down in Mexico 3,000 years ago. Where did the Olmec go or who came to them? There are so many different faces in the carving that you can’t help but see Asians, Polynesians, Africans and Europeans. Small figures that look at times like a fusion of the world’s cultures. There’s a pendant that looks Maori, ceramics that look Phoenician and I might have seen a small Buddha. Many of the pieces could be taken out of the context of the exhibit and then people could be asked to guess where they were from. The answers would literally be all over the map.