make me think about Mexico, so looking over last summer's photos from that quick trip to Oaxaca to visit friends I'm posting these:
an interesting restaurant with a pretty good menu where I went for lunch with Angel:
check out what the counter's made of--
the saint above the door
an interesting restaurant with a pretty good menu where I went for lunch with Angel:
the very funky ceiling with vines & artwork
los mocahetes antiguos (old mortars & pestles made of volcanic-looking rock)
around town -- a bit of relevant graffiti
and since today's Sunday ...
this was from the textile museum in Oaxaca -- a needlepoint Our Lady of Guadalupe. If I had to choose an icon, this is my favorite (I used to collect Guadalupes & even made a few). Why?
She is a dark-skinned mestiza saint who appeared in a vision to Juan Diego, an indigenous peasant. She is purely Mexican although clothed in the vestments and hoopla of Catholicism. She is a saint of the people, of hopelessness & of hope. She can appear in a tortilla, at a traffic stoplight, in the center of a maguey cactus plant (used to make tequila and mezcal). She is a true icon whose psychedelic origins hint at magic. Ordinary magic. Even the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) named their "mobile city" in honor of the Virgin: it is called Guadalupe Tepeyac (Guadalupe appeared to Juan Diego on a hill in the Tepeyac desert, near Mexico City). Need I say more?
No comments:
Post a Comment