Art and Our Lady

The Virgen de Guadalupe has been making her way into our life of late.  Living in Austin, Texas, for several years, we saw her on grocery store candles and in roadside shrines.  Our Lady of Guadalupe Church sits resolutely in a challenging neighborhood on the east side and she peers out of tiny retablos at Tesoro’s Trading Company on South Congress. 

We continue to see her here in Florida.  There is a large painting of her on the side of Lucy’s Super Market in Avon Park.  I found a prayer card with her image tucked into a sign atop a gas pump.  When Jamie had a dream that a groovy shaman had tattooed Our Lady’s image onto his wrist we agreed it was time we paid more attention to this mysterious lady.  Unexpectedly we found a small poster of her at Om Gaia here in Bradenton while at the Saturday Farmer’s Market.  The sale included some strands of beads for the Hernando DeSoto Grande Parade that evening but they quickly became our first addition to the little shrine in our kitchen. Curious about her origins, I began to troll the internet for her story and found a wonderful assortment of images and information.

La Virgen de Guadalupe is known as ‘Mother of the Americas’, an image under which the many conquered nation states of Mexico were united to form our modern idea of Mexico. Having been a country of many languages and invasions, it was the appearance of the Virgin in 1531 that lead to a galvanization of Catholicism with indigenous pride and practice of the local people.  Judy King, in her article “La Virgen de Guadalupe: Mother of All Mexico” writes this:

The appearance of Guadalupe on Tepeyac, the site of the destroyed Aztec temple of Tonantzin, the Mother Earth Goddess restored the dignity and the spirit of the people. Her arrival is said to mark the birth of a new land and a new people, neither European nor prehispanic, but both, the first product of the New World. Even her physical appearance announced the newness of this world, for her face looked neither like the Spanish nor the Indian. Her lovely features are the pleasant mixture of both - she is a Mestizo, the first Mexican.
 
King goes on to say:
It has never occurred to Guadalupanas that others could see the image as flat, and tacky, a two dimensional piece of religious art. They cannot believe that others are missing out on the unconditional love that makes the Virgin multi-dimensional, alive, and a very real part of the family. She IS, after all, their MOTHER, she is always there, waiting to be consulted, waiting to be consoling, waiting to listen, waiting to speak, to enfold them in her arms, to pull them on to her lap.

 Octavio Paz, the Mexican writer and Nobel Prize winner said, "When Mexicans no longer believe in anything, they will still hold fast to their belief in two things: the National Lottery and the Virgin of Guadalupe. In this I think they will do well. For both have been known to work, even for those of us who believe in nothing."

 Inspiring such devotion, it is really no surprise that the image of Our Lady is so joyously embraced and shared, whether on the back of matchbooks, in celebrated cathedrals or on the banners of the United Farm Workers.  We create to tell our stories, to ask for understanding and to show our love and appreciation. 

   Last Saturday, at a Bradentucky Bombers roller derby match here in town, I noticed a large tattoo of La Virgen on the slim, fishnet-stockinged thigh of a Gainseville Roller Rebel.  By the end of the bout the fishnets were torn but Our Lady took her victory lap with pride and grace. That seems to be what she does best.



Nuestra Senora
(acrylic on canvas by Wren Davis Pearson)

 (This article was originally written for The Village Magazine, a publication for The Village of the Arts by VMI Media in Bradenton, FL   http://thevillagemagazine.net/2012/05/art-and-our-lady-la-virgen-de-guadalupe-around-us/  Photographs are courtesy of Google images except for the final photograph of original artwork.)

On Deciding to Become an Artist

Some days the path is very clear but recently I’ve been struggling with how to proceed in my life.  I think a recent trip to Office Depot, however, has helped me to clarify a few things.

I had arrived at the store in need of an ink cartridge for the printer as the old one had stopped working, as they always do, right in the middle of an important print job.  Entering the vestibule from the sidewalk, I could see two men monitoring my arrival.  One was tall, probably in his early fifties with styled graying hair, and his starched collar and clipboard quickly said ‘manager’ or ‘regional supervisor.’ The other man was young, average height, in short sleeves with various Office Depot badges and ribbons adorning his shirt. The men stopped talking as I walked through the sliding door and as if let off his line by the supervisor, the young man came bounding up to me like a dog set free in the park.

“What’s brought YOU to Office Depot?” he asked with fervor in his big eyes. His name tag said ALAN.  My first reaction was to take a step back so I didn’t get muddy paw prints on my pants.

When I said I was there for ink he asked in rapid succession,

“What kind? What color? Do you know where it is? I can help you.”

As I was all ready moving towards the ink cartridge aisle, he leapt in front of me and led the way the remaining few steps. Now faced with thousands of choices, his eyes glazed over and he looked at me expectantly.

“It’s HP 74 I’m looking for,” I said, zeroing in on the area I needed.

He stepped in front of me, scanning the shelves and began to babble.

“Let’s seeeeeee…….HP 74…….Do…dododododo….HP 74…….dododododo…” 

I leaned forward to select the voucher needed to take to the register but his hand shot out and grabbed one ahead of me.

“Here you go,” he said triumphantly with a nod of his head. “Just take that up front and someone will get that for you and you can be on your way unless there’s anything else I can help you find.  Paper?  Envelopes?  Stamps?”

I said no, thanks for the help, and started towards the empty cash registers.  Alan had a slightly panicked expression on his face.  The tall man was looking around with a grim expression on his face. As a cashier appeared from behind them, both men intercepted her so that by the time she got to the cash register she all ready knew what I wanted, though she congenially double-checked as she pulled the cartridge off the shelf and rang me up. The two men walked past me out the doors. Finishing the transaction, I popped the cartridge box in my purse and left the store.

Outside, the two men were leaning on the brick wall in the shade.  The tall man, who was staring out across the lot, seemed to not hear Alan who was waffling on about sales figures and computer programs. Once safely in the car, I started laughing.  What had just happened in there? It was like something out of a sitcom. What was worse, it was like something out of a human resources role playing exercise on customer service. What was designed to make me feel attended to and valued left me feeling that I, too, was being watched by a man with clipboard and that my free will within the confines of the store was something to be challenged and subjugated.

(Take a minute to watch this clip from the very funny British series, Black Books.  It started running through my head as soon as Alan descended on me!http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fyowdq4bVxQ  )

The more I thought about Alan, I came to realize I stopped being him when I decided to pick up a paint brush and create.  Once you consciously separate yourself from procedures and trends that regard you as a cog in the machine rather than as an ambassador of the message, then it becomes increasingly difficult to spin the spiel and dance the dance.  The need to create something of your own and add your voice to the universal good becomes your trend, your procedure, your message.  The desire grows to connect with yourself and others through colors, sounds, words and works, not because a man with a clipboard full of statistics says so but because it feels intuitively the right way to move forward.  Despite the natural way of it, it’s not easy to be in today’s world as an artist and yet here I am, sensing that it might just be more beneficial to create something beautiful than to sell the most boxes of ink cartridges.

Classic Cars with Bear & Wren

Senior citizens are not the only things that come to Florida to retire.  Classic cars abound here and we were delighted to stumble across nearly 100 of them at Bay Fest 2011 on Anna Maria Island a few weeks ago.  We parked up early and spent the morning admiring beautiful machines and hearing stories from their owners.   Here's the view from my camera and further down you can see the view from Jamie's!

                    Bay Fest Bear-Style from here on down!

Anna Maria Island on Dwellable