fade, fading, faded...para las mexicanas

i thought a lot about the concept for this week, and i wanted to do something very different...especially in comparison to last week. i was so guarded in my piece last week, and i wanted to do something that revealed everything, in some sense anyway. 

i feel like i basically wrote a journal entry (hopefully in more interesting and poetic language than in an ordinary one) on the piece of wood, before writing the lyrics to some hymns that came to mind over it. and then i smeared lotion over it, smearing the already difficult-to-see words. Throughout the night, the lotion absorbed into the wood. In this picture, the lotion has already faded, but you can still see some remnants of the lotion.

who knows if what i was going for translated well to the viewer...our class never got to my piece, so i dont really know what sort of feelings were evoked when they looked at it. but i think im satisfied knowing that it was viewed. the process of making this piece was like compacting a lot of the things ive been going through lately into one small block of wood, guarded and restrained, yet free flowing in a way. and i wonder if this is how some of the singers felt too, taking feelings and emotions from their own personal lives into their performances, yet never truly divulging it all. it just wouldnt be wise.

letra de perdida de los panchos, on the back

i think i love flaco de oro

I don't have a favorite yet, but his music is so beautiful! I can see how women still found him attractive, and how he was able to woo Maria Feliz :)

Little lantern that just brighten,
my empty street
I saw many nights crying,
knocking on your door
It take more than a song,
A piece of my heart
But take nothing more than a kiss
Chilly, naughty, bitter and sweet

It take more than a song,
A piece of my heart
But take nothing more than a kiss
Chilly, naughty, bitter and sweet

He always looks so nonchalant and aloof in his photos! Who knew such a withdrawn looking man was capable of such songs. When Agustin Lara falls in love, he falls hard. 

Either that, or he's just great at sounding like he does.

facets of romanza

when a man is smitten by a woman, he sees her everywhere, no?

I found the words for this week really intriguing in their connection to romanza, so I guess it kind of makes sense that I had a hard time coming up with my concept. But after finding my materials, it became easier to come up with the ideas.

I focused on the word trovador. The expression of love in those times was so different from now...there's something very delicate yet passionate about it, a beauty that comes from the restraint and chivalry that is expressed through poetry. I was reminded of other ways in which revealing little can mean so much more, and I thought of the way a geisha physically reveals so little that every glimpse of skin that she gives is supposed to be almost tantalizing. 

And so geishas will paint their entire faces and necks white, sometimes leaving a patch of skin with a few tips left bare. I saw this as a version of the relationship that a trovador has with his lover...expressed completely, but still controlled, in small private doses that makes it all the more concentrated.









I feel like there is an aspect of distance, of being unable to cross it at least for the time being. He loves from afar, but still drawn by her essence, which I tried to convey with the grain of the wood, the way it traverses this particular side.

her handkerchief, his shadow

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