DIA DE LOS MUERTOS

OAXACA
I spent 9 wonderful days in Oaxaca, Mexico, at an assemblage workshop with Michael deMeng , where I was fortunate enough to be in the company of some terrific artists AND enjoy all of what Oaxaca has to offer during dia de los Muertos.  The entire city celebrates the feast with comparsas (parades), ofrendas (altars) to ancestors, costumes, music, dancing, flowers, and wonderful people. Four days of celebrating culminates with a visit to the cemetery where families sit vigil at the grave of relatives.  Marigolds and candles, copal incense, treats for the deceased, children in costumes, and at one cemetery, a carnival outside! It is a magical place.

Calaveras in traditional dresses

Calaveras costume of recycled bottle caps

DOD ATCs

Graveyar

According to the Mayan Calendar, the world was supposed to end in Novemember 2012. The theme of Michael's  class was to make a time capsule or something that related to the end of the world.  I was the underachiever of the group and stuck to a simple and recurring structure for my art piece. It is pretty humble compared to some of the incredible assemblages of my classmates, but one that I was comfortable with.

Time capsules capture something current that people may look at 100 years later and find it curious, nostalgic or maybe extinct. I think family dinners are becoming extinct. Family dinners used to be the place where you could catch up on the things that happened during the day, complain about teachers, complain about work, share ideas and advice, etc.  It's pretty hard now for people to slow down enough to sit together for dinner or to leave their smart phones and I-pads long enough to converse with each other.  So many parents work too many jobs and can't be there to participate in a family dinner.

 My little cigar box house has a kitchen timer on the roof that actually works! A raven watches over the vines with skeleton heads on the ends that are growing up the sides of the house.

The inside is a kitchen scene with chandelier, a captains clock on the wall, a table and chairs with nobody in them and mother standing in the corner wondering where everyone is.