A continuation of previous artistic musings...

Hello hello
I have uncovered the secret of clear, BIG images on here! Yay! So here is a second installation of artworks, some more recent than others. The first installation was posted on March 1st and those images have been enlarged as well, so if you have a sweet moment, jump back and look at them again, the size really makes a huge difference.
Today has been rain rain rain...yet, it is soothing and I know that those little drips will soon coax bright green buds into showing their faces, so all is well.
The season of hula hooping is coming back soon. I had some dear friends over the other night for laughs, tea, and dancing in my room. We went outside to play around with the hula hoops in the alley, and had alot of fun. It is such a meditative activity, and when you get better at doing some tricks, it feels incredibly smooth and powerful. I've heard of a boy who suffered from depression claiming that it helped to calm him down when he felt paniked. It does have a rocking-chair kind of effect to it. It is just summertime all the way, and so rythmic. Perfect for that big Detroit Techno Fest we all know and love which is really just around the corner! Yipee!

...On to the art...

A painting I did on a wooden pannel containing Mexican Loteria and a little hand-made Dia de los Muertos skeleton purchased in Mexican Town, Detroit.

Wood, paint, string, cardboard, glue

This is the inside cover of the afore-posted "Book of Leaves" (see March 1st post) which was done for an Imaginative Writing class.

magazine clippings, ink, paint, wood, metal, string

Done on a magical night with a friend who was trying his hand at painting for the first time. We got really lost in our own paintings and ended up working for a few solid hours. The large figure on the right is a spectre who has haunted my nightmares for a long time...yet, admittedly, looks much more sheepish and cute in this than in my dreams. I do think this was sort of cathartic though because he hasn't been around too much lately.

cardboard, paint

This one was done in highschool (maybe Junior year?). I was entering a self-propelled re-emergence into Mexican culture and folk-art. My family is Mexican, yet in highschool I really began to carve my own meaning from the culture and thus, develope my own identity as a Mexican American woman.
wood, art board, glue, paint, ink

I did this a few months ago as a Christmas gift for my mother in a feverish inspiration...I was so happy with it, that it was a little difficult to give away! But, it was meant to be hers, and she adores it. It hangs in her bedroom.

wood, gold ink, paint, vintage confetti, pencil, glass

The Sphinx. Note mideival symbol for oneness/infinity: the snake eating its own tail...encompassing a cracked egg, the symbol of rebirth, of breaking out of one's confines. The globe orbitting around the spinx's wound contains ancient runes: symbols used to divination, a connection with the divine in order to strenghten intuition and mirror seemingly outside events onto a self-conscious plane.
paper, acryllic paint, watercolor, prismacolor marker, ink



Angel with Egyptian wings and red poppies over her eye. Done in a time of rebirth, and awakening of the heart center which is, here covered in messy string, yet glowing in the middle.

tree cross-section, cardboard, string, paint, gold ink

(all photos taken by my very talented father: http://doucetphoto.com/index.htm )

I hope everyone is very well

madeleineeeeee

Altars

I have been thinking of the concept of the altar lately. They have been/are used by so many different cultures, belief systems, and peoples. I see them as a direct link to whatever one believes to be divine: Nature, Gods, Goddesses, the moon, fertility, the seasons. They stand as a manifestation-- a physical ode to that which you find sacred. Having an altar in your space helps you to slow down and breath. They inject powerful good vibrations into the space around you. They are a means of self-expression. The act of arranging sacred artifacts, flowers, candles, mementos, and crystals becomes an offering to the self- especially when it is placed in ones home and can be admired every day. They can be extremly detailed and complex, or as simple as a bowl of water with a floating flower in it.

The stuffed animal is a very old Steiff which used to be my grandmothers. The scarf which is draped in the backgroud has little dancing babies printed onto it- my mother wore it when she was pregnant with me. The little sparkly box is an El Dia de los Muertos shadowbox.

A shadowbox fertility altar I made.

An old favorite cardigan of mine. Poor little threads got so worn down! I eventually cut the flowers on the back out and had to throw away the ratty remnants of sleeves...

This is a self-portrait I did a couple of summers ago. It was the first painting I ever sold. I had it displayed at a gallery and hadn't been planning on selling it (I didn't even attach a price to it) but this very nice man from San Francisco fell in love with it and I decided it was time to let it go. Its sort of a two dimensional altar to myself and where I was at romanitcally, spiritually, and personally that summer

Burning sage. Used for physical and spiritual purification.
(via art.knet)

Altar for El Dia de los Muertos in Mexico with traditional orange marigolds, limes, and candles.

Oooh! How beautiful is this? From Modern Relics website. Its like a curiosity cabinet altar. So carefully arranged.

Beautiful Pagan Harvest Festival Altar with food offerings and candles devoted to each of the four elements and directions . (Yellow for air at East-- red for fire at South-- blue for water at West--green for earth at North) (via deafpagancrossroads)

A traditional Buddhist Altar. (via hoarded ordinaries)

The previous three photographs are of the work of Hilary White. I am stunned by the delicacy. They are part of a series of hers entitled "Altar". The juxtaposition between the fierceness of those wolves and the lace is stuning.

Roses that were in my front yard in Detroit..I swear this bush had blossoms on it well into November! I can't wait for them to come back.
Also don't know where this came from... but can I go there now? Please?

I took the above two photos in the Smokey Mountains in Tennesse last summer.


Mmmm I don't remember where I found this...but it is so haunting. Very wintry. The spring is well on its way here. There have been many showers and I saw dozens of robins on my walk this morning. I am definetly a summer person. Yet, I cannot help but feel a little wistful as the snow and cozy nights disapear. I have enjoyed the blindingly bright days with crunchy snow underfoot and wearing wooly tights and socks. I took alot of solitary walks around the city. Broken down buildings and frosty graffitti...snow covered truck yards and tires. I saw so many little stray kitties.

madeleine

Bright Star

Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art--

Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night

And watching, with eternal lids apart,

Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,

The moving waters at their priestlike task

Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,

Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask

Of snow upon the mountains and the moors--

No--yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,

Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,

To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,

Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,

Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,

And so live ever--or else swoon to death.

-John Keats

-madeleine

Festival

I feel its fitting to talk a little bit about Joanna Newsom, seeing as she has just recetly released an album (Have One On Me), and I also have been a fan of hers for quite some time now. The above video is a wonderful rendition of hers of an old folk song which I think is notable and adequatly carries her aesthetic.
Something that I have admired about Newsom is her poetical structure. She is a master of words...word meanings, as well as the emotions they invoke simply with their sounds. Particularly on her album Ys, she floats really well between two extremes: A knocky, walnutty, clinking, twig snapping kind of sound vs. one which is operetic, classically natured, river flowing.

Joanna has been quoted with saying that she derives a great deal of her inspiration from folklore and folkways, which is fitting, because her music conjures up a strange, child-like nostalgia. It somehow reminds me of taking walks to the library with my mother, or laying in bed under lots of quilts...she taps in to something so intimatly human and old-worldy. I find myself effortlessly day dreaming whilst listening to it: particularly Ys with its long long long songs and pseudo myths about animals and moons and herbs.

This train of thought leads me to think about an essay I wrote for an English class last year. It was focused on the tribal and ritual practices of Mexican rural cultures. The main focus of my essay was comparing and contrasting these highly spiritual yearly rituals with the rituals that the Western world take part in. A few topics stick out in my mind, although I cannot locate the paper on my computer. Firstly, it is common for festivals in impoverished communities to be considerably more lavish than those in more wealthy areas. In this case, those who have less construct more colorful costumes, decorations, and tend to dance,drink, and generally party harder. How intriguing!
Another point of my essay was centered around the fact that Westeren culture revolves around commercialism, consumerism, and plastic. (Have you ever walked into a CVS and paid attention to the amount of plastic around? Scary stuff) This grey "culture" is handed to us by larger companies...it is usually not about enriching the soul or spreading love or bettering the self, but rather stimulating the economy and giving scary companies power. Yikes! We are sadly lacking in earth-based ritual and celebration! Therefore, cultures such as the Mexican culture are particularly striking. Here is an excerpt from an excellent photography book called In the Eye of the Sun: Mexican Fiestas. The photography is by Geoff Winningham and the introduction is by Richard Rodriguez, a very interesting openly gay Mexican man who is a public speaker and highly respected member of the Latino community. These are his words:


"Days, entire weeks, before a fiesta takes place, the preparations begin. There are costumes to sew. Masks must be painted with beatitude or pathos, the demonic snear, or the animal grimace. There are flowers to weave. Mole to boil to green. Wood must be fashioned into angelic wings. And the beast must be selected, cornered, its screeching neck slashed by thick unsentimental hands, its fear separating from its blood... Secular Europeans and Secular North Americans have lost faith in the divine, or perhaps in themselves as ceremonial creatures or perhaps in themselves as creatures at all. Our landscape is sterile, intellectual; we have bricked out heaven." R.Rodriguez

To bring things full cirle here--
I beleive that Joanna Newsom, with her strong folk-based lyrics and sensibilities, is an example of injecting humanity back into our lives, and that it just what makes it so stimulating, hopeful, mystical, and inspiring. There are quite a few soul-conscious things going on today; art and music wise.
I think it is so important to include some sort of self-reflective ritual into ones life...be it sitting in silence for a few moments every night...taking a nature walk...letting the full moon naturally cleanse you. We in the States may not be living on "old land" or have ancient cathedrals, but we are living through olds souls, as is everyone. We, after all, are all sacred.
madeleine

p.s. due to saving these images improperly, I do not know their source! Anybody know them? Images on the internet start to float around without names attached to them after a while it seems... the three center images are from the aforementioned book.

The Lavish Photography of Eugenio Recuenco

Recuenco is a visionary photographer from Madrid, Spain. His work is lushly beautiful...highly stylized and theatrical. Crystal clear.

madeleine