part dos! [this is going to be kind of long]

just thought i'd post while things are still fresh on my mind :] tonight was really amazing...everyone had such beautiful work, and i wish there was enough time to hear everyone's stories! i suppose this is why we have our blogs!

i already posted a bit about my thought process for last week's project, but here's the final piece.

after reading valdemar's post, i decided to use as many corn colors as i could for his face. i feel like hes really lived many lives during his short one, and is such a compilation of different cultures and subcultures, that it only seemed natural that he be compared to maiz criollo, and have that same patchwork quality.

theres his giant face for you!

as for my second unfinished piece, im starting to wonder if i should explore it further, because im starting to like how it turned out more and more. its rather simple, but each layer has meaning to me.

i decided to use the bag because the stripes made me immediately think of the american flag. i can relate to what doha said about those colors too...even though i was born and raised in america, i have a kind of indifference to that kind of patriotism that might even be on the verge of repulsion. i just cant and dont relate. america is definitely a great country and provides so much for which i am grateful for, but like every other country, it is not perfect. despite the strong patriotism prevalent among its citizens, having an american passport actually makes it more difficult for me to travel in certain countries, and i feel almost branded each time i am forced to show it. so i ripped it, to show what might lie underneath.

maguey and arroz plants! i feel like rice is to the chinese as corn might be to the mexican. i watched the video that valdemar suggested even though i couldnt understand a word, but seeing the images and listening to the rhythm of their words made me think of my own heritage. my great grandfather had opened a rice shop, and when the communists came in, they arrested him and tried to hang him. fortunately, his rope somehow broke, and since chinese people are so superstitious, they just let him go because they felt the gods must have wanted to keep him alive...hence the phrase from the chinese national anthem: "起來", or "Arise".

whether it be by communists or the spanish, invasions leave people hurt, disenfranchised. the culture and customs of the original people are marginalized. thus, the hope for the original people to arise once again.

maiz

i LOVE david zaizar's cuatro milpas. i looked up a translation of the lyrics, but i cant help but feel like im missing out on a lot of emotion and cultural meanings, which i'll just have to accept i wont ever come to fully understand. this really applies for all of the songs that we learn and sing in class...but it seems that feeling of unattainability (real word?) is only magnified when we talk about a time thats been lost.

this is what google translate gave me: 


Only four cornfields remain, 
the hut was mine, alas! 
From that little house so white and beautiful, 
sad thing that is. Pastures are no cattle, the lagoon dried wire fence that was in the yard also fell . lend me your eyes, brunette, I hold you in the soul, look there, the spoil of that house, so white and pretty sad that is. crops were losteverything off is over, alas no longer doves, or flowers or flavors and all over. usencia mourned his palms were dry lagoon ay ahy pions and carriers toditos went and nobody wasdark so I'm sad so I feel very sad to mourn remembering the happy afternoons spent in the two that place ..

even though the translation of la letra is clearly faulty, the underlying feeling and emotions manage to transcend the language barrier. the speaker in the song has lost everything, and can only remember the past while surveying the present, a sad shadow of what had been.

id started looking up aztec images, and after about an hour of scrolling through sculptures and trying out sketches, i suddenly realized that depictions of the mayan/aztec gods have a startling resemblance to my boyfriend...in a few ways at least

im not trying to compare him to a god, but he definitely has the lobes and nose down pretty good. i wonder why i hadnt realized it before!

he's half mexican and half white, but he doesnt identify with his mexican heritage very much because his father was in prison most of the time he was growing up. he jokes about it a lot, but i think theres definitely a part of him that wishes he had been exposed to his heritage more...a part of him that i suppose he never really had, but still feels like he had lost. and so its with this in mind that i decided to approach last week's project :]

he'll hate me for this, but heres a picture of him:

voz

i really wanted to do something that came naturally to me again, and to have each aspect of the piece to have some kind of autobiographical meaning.

i felt i could identify with what octavio paz said about the mexican being ripped open for his voice to be heard. it does take a lot of out a person to share and to be open about his thoughts, his emotions...it's like sharing a piece of you to your audience. it can be therapeutic and healing, but it can also be scarring--evidence of that kind of sudden emotional outburst might never go away. hence, the (hopefully) suture like sewing back of the ripped pieces. yet, what is revealed underneath can be quite beautiful, and it can still flourish.

this doesn't really have to do with anything

but i thought this was really beautiful :] its from a website called lowriderarte.com