Found Art: Angels Beneath the Volcano

 Last week, when I read that the volcano of Popocatepetl, known fondly in Mexico as “El Popo”, was producing fire, smoke, lava, ash and loud underground groans, 40 miles southeast of Mexico City, I began to worry about the angels in the churches of Cholula, right below the volcano.

The alert level near the volcano is now at the fifth step on a seven-level warning scale.  The area is closed to visitors and the next stage of alert would prompt evacuations.  I’m sure the populace would be evacuated in time, but what will happen to the churches, the most stunning display of religious art that I’ve ever seen? For someone who loves folk art, and especially angels, the two churches I visited in Cholula two years ago, decorated by the local indigenous people, seemed as close to heaven as I would get in this life.

 Cholula is famous for its views of the volcanoes, especially from Nuestra Senora de los Remedios—the imposing church perched atop the Great Pyramid of Cholula, the largest in Mexico. The décor in Remedios is typical of the Spanish baroque style seen everywhere.

But the next church I visited, lower down the hill—San Martin Texmelucan—blew my mind--both the exterior, covered with the famous Talavera tiles of the region (which were being cleaned by workmen with no safety belts), but even more so the interior, where the local Indians had incorporated so much of their culture into the portrayal of angels that fill the dome and every inch of space; some holding ears of corn or wearing feathered headdresses.  This style is what they call indigenous baroque, and baroque it was.

Another native-designed church, Santa Maria Tonantzintla, also covered with tiles, is even more of a whirlwind of angels everywhere.  You weren’t supposed to take photos inside, but I took these anyway.

 Tonantzintla, which means “place of our little mother” in the Nahuatl language, comes from the Aztec earth mother who evolved into the Virgin Mary when the Spaniards conquered the area.  So perhaps this church is protected by both Christian and pagan spirits.

 I hope that the wrath of “El Popo” does not fall on these exquisite churches, so expressive of the religious fervor of the people of Cholula, but these angels have survived earthquakes in the past and hopefully will be shielded by their divine protectors from “El Popo” as well.

Favorite Photos—Behind the Wheel of the Great Race

When I scanned these two vintage photos from my collection for my “Favorite Photo Friday” post, I thought they were just two amusing scenes of Victorians posing proudly in photographers’ studios behind the wheel of one of those those new-fangled horseless carriages.

That’s pretty much the story of these two ladies.  Don’t you love their elaborately flowered hats?  They are in front of a painted background, which is meant to give the impression that they are traveling down a country road, but in fact these ladies probably never actually had the opportunity to drive a car in their lifetimes.

Their photo is a small tintype, 2 ½ by 3 ½ inches in size that was enclosed in a paper folder with an oval opening.  Tintypes first became popular during the Civil War and continued into the 1900’s—usually, in the later years, sold as a souvenir of an outing to somewhere like Coney Island or the Boardwalk at Atlantic City.

 But this photo of two rather foreign-looking men in hats turned out to have a much more interesting story once I started looking at the clues within the photo.

First of all, this is a “real photo” postcard.  It was a process created by Kodak in the early 1900’s that allowed a photograph to be printed on a postcard backing.

These men are sitting in an impressive-looking automobile against a painted background which includes two signs saying “San Francisco 24 miles.”

If you turn the card over, you see that it was postmarked “San Francisco, Nov. 24, 3:30 p.m. 1908” and mailed to  Maria Bruner at 12 Denison , New London Connecticut.  The message part—written in a very pale and faded green pencil, cannot be deciphered but it’s clearly in Italian.  Also written on the back is the price I paid for the card: $7.50.

You can see that the driver’s steering wheel is on the right and that just below it is the name “ZUST.”

Since I know less than nothing about automobiles, I thought this might be part of an automotive brand name, but when I googled those four letters I learned a whole lot:  Zust was an Italian car manufacturing company operating from 1905 to 1917, and the most famous Zust car was the red 1906 Zust which took third place in the 1908 Race Around the World, also called The Great Race.

Now I never saw the 1965 comedy "The Great Race" starring Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon and Natalie Wood, but I found the description of the Great Race of 1908 absolutely fascinating.  The plan was to drive from New York City, USA to Paris France with a 150-mile ship passage from Nome across the Bering Strait to East Cape, Siberia.  It began on Feb. 12, 1908 in Times Square. The six cars represented four nations:  Germany, France, Italy and the United States.  The Zust represented Italy.  The American Thomas Flyer car, in the lead, crossed the United States, arriving in San Francisco in 41 days, 8 hours and 15 minutes.

Only three of six competitors completed the race: and the Italian Zust came in third.  The Germans got to Paris four days ahead, but they were penalized a total of 30 days for not going to Alaska and for shipping their car part of the way by rail car, so the Americans, namely George Schuster, won by 26 days.  The Italians arrived in September 1908. (Throughout much of the race there were no roads, and  “Often,” according to Wikipedia, “the teams resorted to straddling the locomotive rails with their cars riding tie to tie on balloon tires for hundreds of miles when no roads could be found….The race was of international interest with daily front page coverage by the New York Times.”)

No wonder these two Italian men look so proud to be photographed sitting in an automobile which bears the name of the famous winning Italian car, the Zust.  This is clearly not the exact car that participated in the race, (photo below) but it seems to be an authentic model. This  souvenir real-photo postcard was mailed only two months after the Italian car arrived triumphantly in Paris, so this little postcard was no doubt a treasured souvenir of patriotic pride.

(P.S. I’m a day late in this “Friday” post because yesterday I drove back to Massachusetts after a week in New York hanging out with number-one granddaughter Amalía.  Good times!)

Amalía Fashionista – the Easter Parade

Granddaughter Amalía, the self-appointed fashion guru to the pre-potty-trained set, just as Suri Cruise is to the pre-school set, knew that she would have to pull out all the fashion stops during this past Easter season, especially since she celebrated two Easters in two different cities.

(Speaking of Suri Cruise, let us pause to wish her a happy sixth birthday today and say that we’re frantic to find out how the Cruises are celebrating—especially since they spent over $100,000 on Suri’s second birthday bash, threw a lavish tea party in their Beverly Hills mansion last year for her fifth, and this year have arrived in Manhattan by helicopter to prepare for today’s festivities.  The whole fashion world is in a frenzy of anticipation to learn how Suri, who already wears high heels, celebrates and what she wears.)

Back to Amalía, who is now seven and a half MONTHS old.  She celebrated her first (Catholic) Easter on April 8 in Manhattan with her Mommy, Papi and Abuelita Carmen, who had come all the way from Nicaragua bearing the lovely hand-smocked pink dress (above) with blue embroidery and a matching pink straw hat.  (Amalía did put on shoes and socks for church.)  After church and lunch at Fulton resturant on the upper East Side, Amalia and her entourage joined the Easter Parade in front of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral and had their photos taken at Rockefeller Center against a background of giant flowered eggs and topiary bunnies.

 And in a moment of pre-Easter silliness, Amalia donned bunny ears and showed off her first two teeth.

 Then Amalia and her parents and Abuela drove to Yiayia and Papou’s house in Grafton MA in time for the many rituals celebrating Orthodox Easter, which this year was on April 15.

Holy Saturday begins, for the Orthodox, with Communion after seven weeks of fasting (or at least one week of fasting for the less observant.)  The early morning Communion service at St. Spridon Cathedral in Worcester is followed by a rush to the Pancake House to indulge in the eggs and dairy that had been forbidden for so long.  Only meat is still verboten until the midnight Resurrection service. Of course Amalía didn’t fast or take communion, because she hasn’t yet been baptised.

 For Holy Saturday services, Amalia chose to wear this classic white dress with black trim accessorized with a white cardigan and a cloche hat, both in white with lavender trim

For casual wear she rocked this kimono-style onesie decorated with anime-style mermaids.

 Or this little pink frock for a trip to the park with Abuelita Carmen,

 A highlight of Easter breakfast is the sweet braided Tsoureki bread with a red egg on top.  It was Amalía’s introduction to this Easter tradition, and it became a favorite of hers at first taste.

 On Orthodox Easter Sunday, Amalía chose to make an entrance in this flowery dress with a yellow straw hat. She sat at the head of a table of 10, laden with roasted lamb, moussaka,  spinach- and cheese pies and even lobster-filled crepes  But she fell asleep before the  dessert course.

 In retrospect, Amalía decided that the only fashion faux pas she committed was this dress which she wore  while counting the eggs in her Easter Basket.   She made a mental note:  horizontal stripes are not her best fashion choice because  she’s short and they tend to make her look fat.

 On the next day, Monday April 16, Amalía headed back to New York City, mentally regretting that she’d left most of her summer sundresses hanging in the closet of their South Beach apartment in Miami.  How was she going to deal with all the social obligations that lie ahead during this freakishly warm New York weather?

 Back in New York

(For a further report on Amalía’s cross-cultural Pascal experiences, see her mommy’s blog post “Amalía has two Easters.”)

Found Art: The Diners of Worcester

The city of Worcester (where I live) takes great pride in the city’s architectural landmarks and its contributions to modern civilization. Worcester boasts a number of “famous firsts”, including barbed wire, shredded wheat, the monkey wrench, the first commercial Valentines, the birth control pill, the first perfect game in major league baseball and the yellow Smiley Face icon.

 We have Coney Island Hotdogs with its famous neon sign, and the Boulevard Diner where Madonna ate spaghetti after a concert at the Centrum.  We have Table Talk Pies and Sir Morgan’s Cove (now Lucky Dog) where the Rolling Stones in 1981 gave an impromptu free concert. We have Mechanics Hall, where Henry Thoreau, Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Teddy Roosevelt,  Susan B. Anthony and Hillary Clinton have  orated and Auburn Park, where Robert Goddard sent the first liquid fuel rocket into space.

Worcester takes special pride in the  diners that  can still be found throughout New England and as far as Florida, because most of them were originally built  by the Worcester Lunch Car and Carriage Manufacturing Company which produced over 600 diners between 1906 and 1957.  The Miss Worcester Diner still stands in its original location across the street from the former factory.

Every year the Family Health Center of Worcester asks artists to donate examples of their work to the Art in the City Auction.  This year’s auction will take place on Friday, May 4, 2012 at Worcester’s famous Mechanics Hall.

I like to donate paintings or photographs to Art in the City every year, because the  Family Health Center provides health services to over 33,000 patients from greater Worcester, regardless of their insurance status or ability to pay.

Last year I donated four matted and framed photographs of Worcester landmarks which I had originally taken for an exhibit called “Welcome to Worcester” in  2010.  The show was put together by Elizabeth Hughes of the Futon Company on Highland Street. The photographs I donated last year featured the Owl Shop, the famous sign of Coney Island Hot Dogs, and photographs of the Miss Worcester Diner and the Boulevard Diner.  All the photos sold, and the diner photos were especially popular, so this year I’m donating  embellished digital photos of Ralph’s Diner (where the owner, Ralph Moberly’s ashes are buried beneath a tombstone in front) and a different shot of the Boulevard Diner at night.  I also contributed a photo of the Owl Shop’s neon sign against the bell tower of City Hall, and the clock tower of the Worcester State Hospital, long condemned and in danger  of being torn down until it was decided to replace it with a copy of the original building.

If the photos continue to prove popular with the public, I hope to photograph a half dozen more of the classic dining cars that still survive in Worcester and its environs, because the lovingly maintained, art deco details of these neighborhood restaurants, both inside and outside, are certainly found art.

Favorite Photo Friday: Patriotic Kids

 What I love about these three photos is the way the children embody the attitudes of their three different countries at the time the photos were taken.

Look at these three French siblings photographed in Paris. You can tell they are well-behaved, maybe somewhat stuck-up and very proud of themselves and their fine clothes.  The young man is wearing a derby and a silk scarf at his collar   The older girl has ribbons on her hat, a bit of lace at her throat and high- button shoes.  The smaller girl has sausage curls, lots of bows on her hat, fine lace on her collar and cuffs.   After magnifying what is on her chest, I think it is a pin representing the head of an ermine and some ermine tails.  (Feel free to disagree.)

 Although these French children are holding toys--a hoop, the stick for spinning the hoop, and a large ball in a web-like bag--you get the feeling that if they were taken to play in a park, say the Tuileries, they would never get their clothes dirty or scrape their knees.

 I’m showing the back of this cabinet card, because the photographer’s  advertisement for his “artistic photography” is interesting.  Chambertin is at 63 Boulevard Rochechouart beside the famous Circus Medrano (which these three no doubt attended) and facing the Concert Hall La Cigale (which is still on the same street, hosting various acts, most recently Cee Lo Green). I can’t figure out why the photographer posed these children so far from the camera and then vignetted the photo, leaving them surrounded by white space.  Maybe that was the “artistic” part.

Next consider these three German children, also posed in a photographer’s studio  (Karl Bechmann, in the town of Schonheide).  Props like the fence and vine behind the girl and the bench the boy is sitting on and the great three-wheeled wicker push-chair for the baby, give the impression they’re outside. The boy seems to be in a military uniform—with  a Prussian-style helmet and epaulets on the shoulders.  He looks ready to go to war, and seems protective of the baby.

These three blue-eyed children are sterling examples of the “Aryan race” that Hitler would talk about decades later, but  we can’t accuse them or their parents of being proto-Nazis, because this photograph, also a cabinet card like the one above, was taken sometime between 1870 and 1900.

 I tried to identify the helmet on the boy—with a buckle and some insignia on the front—but I had no luck.  If anyone out there could tell me more about the helmet or date the photo exactly, I’d be very grateful.

 Finally we have these two smiling American tots.  They are completely ready to go to war—the little boy even has his gun in its holster.

Many photo collectors specialize in military photos—from pre- Civil War to the present—and they would be able to tell me everything about these uniforms and what the insignia means.  But I’m woefully ignorant of militariana, so please fill me in.

 Clearly these American kids were photographed  about fifty years after the children in the French and German cabinet cards.  It’s an odd photo, measuring 3 by 5 inches and is mounted on tin. I wonder what event this photo was meant to commemorate?

All three of these groups of children are innocent representatives of the views of their parents and their countries.  They have no inkling of the devastating wars that will soon rend their world and kill huge numbers of their generations.  I just hope that these youngsters, so secure in these childhood photos, all lived to grow up.  

I’m a What-Kind-of Crone?

                                                          Joanna DeVoe from her website "KickAss Witch"

Never having been given a title any more imposing than “Cub Scout Den Mother”, it was a shock to learn from a fellow blogger named Joanna DeVoe that she had featured me on her March 23 post as a “KickAss Crone”—one of six so honored!  I quickly clicked on her blog “KickAss Witch: Putting the "K" in Magic” and read the “Witch List: 6 KickAss Crones”. 

This is how the post began—and I must say I have to agree with Joanna’s thoughts:

The Witch List : 6 KickAss Crones

You know what bums me out? The way our culture portrays women.

It especially breaks my heart to see the way women over a certain age are bullied into feeling like they need to cut, inject, starve, or otherwise manipulate themselves to look younger &; therefore more viable as human beings.

It's not just the media that does this. The public does it, too.

I see the way some commenters on popular blogs will recoil in horror at a woman's bony hands or "disgusting" cellulite then turn right around to throw eggs at her for having unnaturally inflated lips or a frozen brow.

When it comes to trying to please the masses, it's a damned if you don't - damned if you do situation. So, let us all fondly recall the words of 90's girl punks, L7, "the masses are asses", and live for pleasing ourselves.

"I look forward to being older, when what you look like becomes less and less an issue and what you are is the point." -Susan Sarandon

Some cultures have croning ceremonies (1000 cool points for pagans), celebrating the magickal rite of passage in which a woman moves from the mothering phase of her life to step fully into her power as a person of age & value. She is publicly revered for the strength she's acquired over the decades and honored as a source of wisdom.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if we all started doing this? Why don't we?

And- as far as our youth-obsessed media goes, I will give them (a little) credit for having the decency to occasionally feature kickass public figures like Betsey Johnson, Helen Mirren, Gloria Steinem, Diane Von Furstenberg, and Maya Angelou.

However, there are others, less conspicuous but vibrant & inspiring none the less, and I want to take this moment to shine a light on a few of them here.

So, in no particular order, I happily present you with 6 Kickass Crones...

And then there I was—number four among a half-dozen women of a certain age. They included a woman who writes “Style Crone”  who, after losing her beloved husband of 32 years to cancer has “rather than letting herself go in a pool of bottomless grief, poured herself into her passion for fashion,” wrote Joanna.

Next came a 54-year old raw-food chef, herbalist, published author and proud mother and doting grandmother.

Then Joanna described a  woman who has an “unabashed approach to spirituality, which is a quirky blend of witchcraft, kabbalah, tarot, quantum physics,  Gnostic Christianity and whatever else she sees fit.”

Also on the list was a woman who “at 66 years young is a master herbalist, an educator and a published author who teaches the Wise Woman Tradition of using nature to nurture our way to balanced health.”

And finally—the only lady on the list even older than myself: Ernestine Shepherd, who at the age of 73 became the world’s oldest body builder. Up at 3 a.m. every morning, she spends her days running, lifting weights and working out.”  (And you should see her muscles, which would give Arnold Schwarzenegger pause.).

Well, this was a pretty  high-achieving and intimidating group of crones to find myself among! 

Joanna herself is a limber, skinny and sassy, California blonde who looks much too young to be a crone, but introduces herself as  “a KICKASS WITCH. I believe in the transformative power of LOVE, the alchemical process of FORGIVENESS and the magick of setting & holding an INTENTION to manifest the kickass life of your most cherished dreams. I believe it's never too late to be what you might have been. I BELIEVE IN ROCK & ROLL! I believe in meditation, daily exercise, raw organic vegetables, nature walks, a great book, and a hot cup of tea.

If you watch the video on her web site at www.kickasswitch.com, you’ll learn that Joanna has evolved from a divorced single mom with an autistic child, living in Hollywood with no one to help, chemically dependent, suffering from agoraphobia, into a self-confident, hula-hooping, life consultant who’s now  “proudly sober, meditates and exercises every day and has developed her own repertoire of things that work for living the kickass life of your dreams.”

If following her rules for living can spread some of that bliss and confidence my way, I’m on board.  After all, I’ll have to work to keep my title as a KickAss Crone!

Found Art – A Show of Magical Hands

Not long ago I read that  Sotheby’s is planning to sell  a collection of photographs of hands amassed by businessman Henry Buhl in the 19 years since he paid  $75,000 for his first:  a photograph by Alfred Stieglitz of the hands of Georgia O’Keefe.  Sothebys will sell 400 pieces from the Buhl collection on Dec. 12^th  and 13th, including the original Stieglitz image, which is estimated to go for over a million dollars.

 Reading this delighted me, because I too have been collecting hands for years, (not photos, but all kinds of representations of hands.)  None of my collection will ever be sold by Sotheby’s, but at least now I can consider my collection “art”.

 Hands have always seemed to be spooky, magical, beautiful and filled with power.  I looked up  “hand” in “The Book of Symbols” from Taschen and learned that, on the walls of the cave of Pech-Merle in France, prehistoric artists outlined their hands in red ochre and black cinder over 20,000 years ago near  drawn images of horses.  Even at the dawn of human consciousness, the image of a hand seemed magical and important.

The prehistoric hand print in the cave reminded me of what a friend said after visiting a Hindu temple in India where the walls were marked with the red-henna handprints of young widows on the way to their death, because their religion decreed that they had to commit suttee— a widow must throw herself on the funeral pyre of her dead husband . “All those hands,” he said sadly.  “They were so small and there were so many of them.” 

 Of course in a Hindu wedding the hands of the bride and groom (and the guests), lavishly decorated in henna with symbolic figures at the mehndi,  are important symbols. Here are the hands of the bride, Neela, at the fabulous wedding in Jodhpur that we attended several years ago.  The bride and the groom had their feet and hands decorated.  Both their names were worked  into the bride's design--which the groom had to discover for himself  (If you want to know more, check out my post “The Hindu Wedding – At Last!”).

 Here are some photos from my collection of hands.  As I’ve mentioned before, I collect way too many things, and I love them all and consider them “found art.”

Probably the most valuable in my hand collection is the two-part Namaste altar  (at top) showing the elephant god Ganesh and Lakshmi, the goddess of prosperity, each seated on their animal mounts (the rat and the owl).  When the ivory hands are closed, they form the traditional greeting “Namaste” which means “”The divine in me honors and recognizes the divine in you.”

 In the kitchen I have one wall covered with objects that incorporate hearts, (told you I collect too much) and several of these are the “heart-in-hand”  design that I always thought was an early-American kind of valentine.  But I discovered that the heart-in-hand is actually a symbol of charity, which originated with the Shaker sect: “Put your hands to work and your hearts to God.”  It is also a symbol of the fraternal order of Odd Fellows.

 The Victorians were very big on hands—in vases, pin dishes, calling cards, brooches and just about everything.  Here is a small display case of tiny hands.  The metal ones at the top are part of a drinking game.  The one at the right reads “You pay -- Jack Daniels -- 1866”.

The largest hand in my collection is this one carved out of wood—it’s about two feet across and I put a carved wooden angel in it.  (Did I mention that I also collect angels?)   Next to it, to show its size, is an articulated hand of the kind used by artists as a model.

 I absolutely love this “Hand of Christ” also known as “La Mano Poderosa”—“The most powerful hand”.  It symbolizes the wounded hand of the crucified Christ with representations of the Holy Family on the fingers—Baby Jesus on the thumb (because he’s the most important), Virgin Mary on the index finger, followed by St Joseph, then St Anne and St. Joachim, Mary’s parents.  The red marks represent Christ’s wounds.

All hands seem magical.  The red one above, from Italy, is making a gesture meant (I think) to ward off the evil eye.  The hand in the center is a reliquary that is holding a bone that is probably said to be from a saint and therefore efficacious in sending one's requests to Heaven. 

It’s no wonder that we cherish plaster impressions of our toddlers' little hands and use fingerprints for identification—each hand  is unique and hands can be as eloquent as faces.