What Does This Mean To You?

I have this idea to post this image and hear what stories and titles you come up with for this piece.

I know some of you know the story behind this but please don't share just share what comes to your mind or heart when you see this. I will share my story behind this piece after I have heard from some of you.

Preguntas para mi Abuelita (Questions for my Grandmother) and a lovely conversation

So I went to my first vendor’s market place at a fundraising event to sell
my calendars and cards. I was lucky enough to be at a table right next to
a woman from India (Uma). I was admiring her lovely jewelry
https://www.facebook.com/TruKreations but feeling shy because the place
was very crowded which I find overwhelming with my limited vision. And
quite honestly because I ride that line between introvert and extrovert.

When the show started and things quieted down Uma and I started talking
about culture, traditions and child rearing. She was telling me about how
she has lived in the United States away from her family long enough that sometimes her daughter
has questions about their background that Uma does not have an answers
for. Her daughter Tara (I did not confirm the spelling) has a special time set aside every week to have a
conversation with her grandmother back in India. When Tara has one of
those questions about their background Uma encourages her to talk with her
grandmother.

I was so excited about hearing this story because in my family we have
lost so much cultural knowledge. My mother’s parents both died when she
was very young and she was brought up in foster homes where they knew nothing
of my mother’s culture. I named my art piece “Preguntas para mi Abuelita”
(Questions for my Grandmother) because as I was creating it I was
wondering did my family participate in Dias de los Muertos.

The little town of Tierra Amarilla in New Mexico where as you may remember
my mother was born is in a region which celebrated Dias de los Muertos. I
know my grandmother would have been able to provide me with a lot more
information so instead of naming this art piece after the Days of the Dead
I named it what it really is for me. A desire to have those conversations
that Tara is lucky enough to have with her grandmother.

OK, I have to give one more shout out to Delight of Africa
http://delightofafrica.com/
Uma in her generosity shared some of her vegetarian hand pie from Delight of
Africa with me and the flavor was simply amazing. I have been wanting to
try some African recipes to find something for next years calendar and now
I know where to take a West African cooking class.

Winter Wisdom

Pam's Love

Winter Holidays

La Familia de la Tierra Amarilla

So this is my first attempt at blogging  please forgive any awkwardness and feel free to give me feedback.

I decided to share about my art because it has been a journey through finding my voice and telling stories through images. Some people have been interested in the stories behind my images and I thought this would be a venue for sharing and hearing from other.

This is the story of how this all started and where I am headed.

When I was a child we were poor and many friends who had more resources had helped our family in various ways over the years. My mother wanted to give Christmas gifts in appreciation and I think also from some sense of obligation because she believed that acknowledging people who had given of themselves to our family was important. So we started making calendars to give as Christmas gifts and it cost very little but people loved the sentiment and watching my sister and I grow as artist. My sister and I grew up and to varying degrees dropped our art because as financially responsible adults jobs and other passions took up our time.

When I lost my job somewhat unexpectedly and ended up on dialysis I stopped looking for work. There I was back where my mother had been so many years ago with limited money for Christmas/Solstice/Chanukah gifts and lots of friends helping me out. When trying to figure out a gift for my then new boyfriend I went back to the old standby of a calendar and It was taking enough time that I thought if I get this printed I can have gifts for a lot of my friends and supporters.

Those first calendars were all about reflecting the season, a holiday or a family member's birthday. Winter Wisdom was inspired by the Winter Solstice, the Crone and the statement "When I am an old woman I shall wear purple". I based the woman on my mother who has worked to embrace her time as a crone and has lovely grey and white hair. The crone is balancing the moon cycles as can only be done with time and wisdom. As I approach 50 I respect that we each have our time the maiden, the mother and the crone so I think it is important to create images of a crone in a positive light.

Winter Wisdom

Pam's Love was created for February 2011. February is the month my sister Pam was born.  Pam had just passed in October and as I was in shock and disbelief that she was gone. I created this image as a tribute to her love of cats, birds and pink roses.

Pam's Love

My art was all based on the year and my exploration of various traditions in Winter Holidays it looks like a traditional Christmas scene but if you pay attention there are 9 candles with a blue and white theme,it goes back to my growing up with Chanukah being celebrated all around me. As an adult I have had a fascination with the earth based religions and the tree bows are my honoring of the old Druid practices. And as I grew to figure out my inclusive holiday greeting I realized that all of the winter holidays have candles, fire and light so I often say may your holiday season be bright and picture candles as a universal symbol of the season.

Winter Holiday

The last piece "La Familia de la Tierra Amarilla" is based on where I am beginning to move with my art to exploring those images that are often hard to find in the world. When I was a teenager I started seeking out greeting cards with brown women on them because I wanted my mother to see reflections of herself when I gave her cards. I remembered my mom talking about only finding blonde blue eyed dolls for us as kids so when she found a brunette doll for my sister she was so happy. In the late 60s she wasn't going to find a brown doll but a brunette doll was a pretty big deal. This is what inspired me to look for cards with brown women and often the cards had brown women with brown babies or children. Since I knew how much being a mother meant to my mom I bought these cards. Only recently did I realize that I had to make a choice reflect my mother or reflect myself but never did I find an option to reflect our 2 tone family. I am sure on some level I realized I could see reflections of myself all around which is why I chose to reflect my mom. On some level I think I also saw myself as a brown child in a white body. It has taken year to get semi comfortable living in my skin and owning my whiteness. In creating the image "La Familia" it almost is a way of saying I have a rich tradition behind me look at my multi tone woman based family.

La Familia de la Tierra Amarilla

This multitonal family is also true for many of my friends who are having children with partners of differing colors and ethnic origins. I have so many friends with Anglo Latino mixtures in their children, these kids and young adults run the spectrum from very light and fair to beautiful browns with shiny black hair so I am looking at where I see holes in the art world and thinking about where I want to create images.
 

The multi chromatic family is one of many aspects that I plan to write about over time as I post images. I also hope to find a way to work on my writing style as I have something called written expression disorder and had to attend remedial English in high school, in college, for my B.A. and I finished my schooling off with English for the dummy graduate student. Too bad my sister is no longer here to edit my work.

Happy Diwali to all and I am off to make Sunday brunch.