When Faith Moves Mountains and Other Geographical Experiments

Slice of Time, acrylic on canvas, 24" x 18"

private collection, Littleton, Colorado

"Experimental Geography explores the distinctions between geographical study and artistic experience of the earth, as well as the juncture where the two realms collide and possibly make a new field altogether." The spaces where realms collide--that's where hope resides.

"Experimental Geography" is a traveling exhibition, currently at the Albuquerque Museum of Art and History. Nineteen artists or teams of artists from seven countries have presented their personal "geographical study and artistic experience of the earth" through various mediums.

There is a film documenting "A Project for Geographical Displacement," a project by Francis Alys, wherein 500 volunteers formed a line to move a sand dune near Lima. Described as a "human comb," these 500 human beings "pushed a certain quantity of sand a certain distance, thereby moving a sixteen-hundred-foot-long sand dune about four inches from its original position."

Such a tangible metaphor for hope. What hope, combined with sweat and teamwork, can accomplish, on a monumental scale. That's what I call faith.

Equally moving was the "NOTES FOR A PEOPLE'S ATLAS." These were small printed digital outlines of the city of Albuquerque, on which residents had been invited to "plot their personal knowledge of places, histories, and ideas on the map of their community." The most poignant one for me included only two large penciled-in dots, loosely marking two locations, a couple of miles apart. Each was accompanied by a message. One said, "where I was raped, age 15." And, in the second location, "where I got my life back together, 14 years later." For that young woman, getting her life back together must have been as monumental as moving a sixteen-hundred-foot-sand-dune four inches. Even so, after 14 years, it budged. That's what I call faith.

Old Man Gloom Dispatched by Fire and Ceremony

Sparkus Illuminus (the Honorable and Exalted), the  berobed, besceptered man on the stage is holding court:

"Santa Fe, it's time to consider the fate of Old Man Gloom:

• Zozobra, for being a hideous 50-foot bogeyman who scares the innocent children of Santa Fe;
• Zozobra, for being a menace and making our dogs howl at the moon;
• Zozobra, for haunting our dreams and upsetting our peaceful way of life;

I ask the citizens of Santa Fe:

• Shall we now send Zozobra to a fiery death?
• Shall we burn him?"

The mob of 20,000 gathered at Fort Marcy Park, comprised of upstanding Santa Fe citizens, visitors from New York, Oklahoma City, and Albuquerque, young parents holding their toddlers on their shoulders, white-haired seniors, teens (LOTS of teens), Dems, Greens, and Republicans--roar in unison, "BURN 'IM!!!"

It's unanimous.  Sparkus Illuminus proclaims Zozobra's fate:

• "I declare that on this evening, September 10, 2009, that Zozobra, otherwise known as Old Man Gloom, shall be dispatched by appropriate fire and ceremony.
• With the execution of Zozobra, we release all anxiety, suffering, heartache, and gloom of our fair city.
• Bring on the Glooms and Firedancers!

Zozobra's fate is sealed.  The Glooms (ghostly, sheet-wearing schoolchildren) and Firedancers in red costumes, bearing torches, solemnly proceed to the platform.   At 9:00 on an evening in early September, Zozobra, a towering paper marionette, is consumed in flames to the delight of our people.  For an evening, we watch our troubles go up in smoke. 

In past years I have written notes about a particular personal trouble I wanted to release.  I have deposited that note in the Gloom Box (the contents of which are burned with Zozobra), along with other people's divorce papers, bankruptcy papers, mortgage notes, medical diagnoses--you name it--and felt the thrill of seeing all things troubling from the past year reduced to a puff of smoke, a spectacle of fireworks.

There's a time to let things go, to get over it already, to move on.   Other troubles await us, but for now: Viva la Fiesta!




(The video is from a TV station in Albuquerque.  You can't fast-forward through the opening commercial.  But once you get to the Zozobra coverage, you can fast-forward through segments.  If this ritual interests you, you might want to do that, to see the sentencing of Zozobra, some of the firedancing, some of the burning, some of the pyrotechnics.  I'll warn you though.  It's nothing like being here in person.)

Running with the Wrong Crowd

There's a line a blogger crosses. From Bad Blogger to Dirty Rotten Blogger. A Bad Blogger posts sketchily, willy nilly, in fits and starts. When she returns to blogland after an extended absence, people say wry things like, "Oh my, you live and breathe." But the Bad Blogger at least has the decency to put in an appearance for solemn occasions such as blogaversaries. The Dirty Rotten Blogger does not.

I've crossed the line. Friday was my second blogaversary, not to mention my 56th birthday. And I refrained from commemorating. I morphed from oaf to scoundrel. I'm a Dirty Rotten Blogger. Maybe that's because I'm in the Terrible Twos. At least in blog years. Maybe it's because I've taken to running with the wrong crowd.

These kids are a bad influence.

Foreground: daughter Flannery.

Back row: David (Flan's boyfriend) and son Oakley.
Their deviousness is outdone
only by this one...

This one is bad to the bone.

He cooked TWO birthday feasts for me,

the first one two days before my birthday.

I came home from the gallery,

walked up the back steps to find

the bad one holding hands with Cinde, Bob, Christy,

and Russ. Their heads were bowed, their eyes were

closed, and they were chanting OOOOOOOOOOOMMMMM.

"What's going on here?" I asked in indignation.

"SURPRISE! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!"

Then there's that thug Otto...

Otto, my Stephano-Pirovano-designed

dental floss dispenser,

a gift from the dastardly Christy.

My birthday cards and letters, from various low-lifes:

My mother (who surreptitiously slipped me cash,

then brazenly sang Happy Birthday on my voice mail).

The infamous Sometimes Saintly Nick

(alias Alex the Blogging Cat).

JS (knee-deep in "discernment"--

an Episcopal euphemism for parole--she emailed me her first,

highly subversive sermon).

Paschal (who penned a wicked acrostic based on my name).

Belinda and Armand (from L.A.--lower Alabama--

can't get any lower than that).

Cinde and Bob, who harbored on their premises

Christy and Russ, accessories to the birthday perpetration.

The Out-Laws (disguised as the in-laws).

The Bad Influence Kids.

Bad-to-the-Bone.

Notice all of the cards are rallying around

the large bottle of Reposada,

a gift from Flannery and David.

(I told you they are a bad influence.)

The chocolate from Bad-to-the-Bone is hidden,

as are the various items of intimate apparel.

My birthday roses, grown by my neighbor Cynde

and arranged with greenery from her garden,

in a French tin pot, adorned with a white satin bow.
She's the scourge of the neighborhood.

Four pots of Russian sage,

foisted on me by my in-laws.

They wrote the book on Bad.

A selection of headily fragranced incense

and a heart-carved case to keep it in.

A gift from my insensitive lout of a son.

(That's the hem of my skirt in the foreground.

Not that you were asking.)

My Bradley mixed-media ceramic mask.

Gifted by, you guessed it, Bad-to-the-Bone.

My brand new great-niece Allie Rae,

whose timing could not have been worse.

She arrived home from the hospital on Friday,

my birthday,

my blogaversary,

the official opening day of Santa Fe Fiestas,

the official kick-off of Santa Fe's 400th Anniversary.

Some people are dirty and rotten from Day One.

But I adore the headgear!

VIVA LA FIESTA!

AND WELCOME ALLIE RAE!

Indian Market Discovery

A Good Omen, 24" x 36"
mixed media on canvas
(my painting)

Santa Fe recently celebrated our 88th annual Indian Market, the largest juried Native American arts event anywhere. With over 1000 artists participating, our little downtown district was packed with vendors, buyers, and unsuspecting tourists who just happened to stumble into town during the most exciting event of the year. It's always a busy weekend at the gallery, kicking off with a reception on Friday night. Often I'm so tired from minding the gallery, which remains open into the night on Saturday, I don't take the opportunity to stroll through the Market. This year was different, however. Family members were visiting for my in-laws' 60th wedding anniversary--that celebration occurred Sunday evening--so naturally, they had to be introduced to Indian Market.

I'm so glad I visited the Market. There in the Emerging Artists section, I happened on the exciting ceramic sculpture of Chippewa artist Patricia Bradley. Truth be told, my daughter first spotted these evocative masks sporting the semblance of animal ears, face paint, headdresses, and various sculpted wrappings--around the forehead, over the mouth, over the eyes. "Hey, Mom, look over there at those AWESOME masks!"

Lil Brother

Princess

Dreamer

Animal Guidance

from a series of 25 mixed-media ceramic masks
modeled on the faces of the artist's children

They were powerful and carried a wild, joyous energy. I fell in love. With the art and with the artist, who struck me as a straightforward person, open to possibility. Flan snapped up what I had decided was my favorite mask. It was the only piece loosely modeled on Patricia's own face; several strokes of red paint were dashed across one eye, warrior style. I have to hand it to my daughter: she has quite an eye and she knows what she wants and when she sees it, she takes it. She's a warrior herself.

The next day I returned and saw that Patricia had sold a number of her pieces, but her tabletop sculptures--faces emerging from a mass of fired clay, with coils of metal emerging from the backs of the heads and pieces of found metal sprouting from tops of the heads, a fusion of smooth and rough, playful and sad, Earth and Spirit--remained unsold...

Sun on My Face
mixed-media ceramic

I was mesmerized again. Patricia smiled at me in this open, disarming way and asked, "Hi, what are you doing back here today?"

I confessed that I owned a gallery and that I would love to show her art. Without any pretense, she said, "I would love to leave all of this work at your gallery."

And that's just what she did Monday morning.

The whole process felt effortless, as if it were meant to be.

Place of Enchantment

I always got a kick out of driving a car with a license plate bearing the slogan "Land of Enchantment." I was disappointed when the state of New Mexico changed the design a few years ago. We still have a distinctive license plate, but it no longer proclaims our state nickname. And "Land of Enchantment" is simply perfect.

Where else will you witness a scene like this?

That's what Bennie and I saw Monday evening, as we drove north out of town, past the village of Tesuque, and turned left, headed for that dramatic structure nestled back into the mountains. The short journey through pinon-studded high desert was enchanting, in and of itself, but the real enchantment lay ahead.

We parked and descended into the soaring space of the Santa Fe Opera House, an open-air venue. Four tall diaphanous curtains swayed on stage. The murder victim sang an aria from behind those curtains, which served as portals into truth and the subconscious. Beyond the stage, the almost full moon revealed itself, time and again, from mountains of cloud cover. The cloud forms mimicked the actual mountains beyond. It was a magical backdrop for "The Letter," the world premiere of the opera based on Somerset Maugham's play.

The occasion was Bennie's birthday.

When we returned home, we found the Spirit chairs illuminated by the same moon. Someone was singing an aria in the distance, in the direction of the foothills. The sound was faint, barely discernible. At the same time, it seemed to come from that very chair.


Just another night in our back yard, a Land of Enchantment.

Dreaming It Forward

Magician, 36" x 24"
private collection, Washington, D.C.

This past Thursday I participated in a global healing event. What did I do? I slept on it.

I got the idea from Laura's blog From the Couch. She got it from 350.org.

The event will recur on the 23rd/24th of each month, culminating on the night of October 23. The idea is to go to bed with the intention of dreaming of "global healing for Mother Earth with dreamers from around the world."

Here's what I dreamed on July 23rd:

I am eating a chocolate cake which is sitting on a table. I am nibbling, taking one small bite from the cake, then walking away, returning to the cake, taking another bite, walking away, returning, eating another bite, etc. The giver of the cake says to me, "San, could you leave a little for me? I'd like some too."

I then find myself teaching in a classroom. My students are young people. I am taken with how fresh they look, how eager their faces appear. They are hanging on my every word. It's bit unnerving; I feel my presentation is kind of dull--I am referring to a textbook which doesn't inspire me. I am also becoming aware that a noise from outside the classroom is drowning out my voice.

I walk down the hallway to the room where the sound is coming from. I open the door and find a bunch of old folks square dancing with their music turned up really loud. A couple come to the door. Her hair is in disarray. Both of them have their mouths open in surprise, surprise that their music could be heard from outside the door. They seem, however, happy to turn it down.

As I turn to walk back to my classroom, I have an idea for a writing assignment for my class. I will show them two pottery disks, one of them shiny new and unblemished, the other with a complicated weathered surface. I will have them write about which disk is more beautiful, and why. I feel excited. I know the students will be inspired and I can't wait to read their work.

So, now I ask for your interpretations of my dream sequence...

detail, Way of the Sea, 60" x 48"

Recovering from Vacation

A few things I did on my summer vacation to Chicago and Michigan:

• On the plane from Albuquerque I sat two seats behind actor Gary Farmer. An odd coincidence, as I was already planning on his being the subject of my Meme of Fame 4/7. (I'd last seen him a couple of summers ago when I helped him hang a large painting on the wall of his now-out-of-business gallery, a block from our own. There you go: Meme of Fame 4/7 is now complete.) We exchanged awkward pleasantries in the O'Hare terminal, then went about our separate misadventures.

Farmer and Johnny Depp in Dead Man.

• My spouse got his suitcase locked in a turnstile at the El station. The turnstile would not budge. My spouse therefore became locked in the turnstile. He would not budge. An attendant had to disengage the luggage, and thus my spouse, with brute force. The attendant broke a sweat wrestling the steel bars in their death grip. We haven't a clue exactly how it all happened. Just lucky I guess.
  
• My spouse excused himself for a restroom engagement during a performance of The Enigma Variations at the concert pavilion in Millennium Park. He simply vanished. It was truly enigmatic. Then again, I might want to disappear after that turnstile stunt. Come to think of it, I never saw that man before in my entire life.
  

Everyone was whispering,
'Where did Bennie go?'

I went searching for him...

...only to find him napping on the sculpture terrace
of the new wing of the Art Institute.

• In Michigan I was caught trespassing on the grounds of a private residence I'd mistaken for a funky collectibles shop. I mean, how many antique birdhouses, disintegrating farm implements, and sculptures of giant hands cradling the planet Earth does one family need? Shove your rusty hay rake. Take your vintage sausage grinders. Please.

And call your dog off.

• Upon arriving at the steps leading down to Cherry Beach at Lake Michigan, a panic-stricken family was coming up, slapping at their arms and legs. They shouted warnings of a proliferation of giant and hungry flies. They weren't kidding. Here's Bennie coming back up the stairs, pursued by a swarm of famished flies.

Don't let the smile fool you.

Those insects mean business.

• Arriving at Club Lago on West Superior in Chicago, salivating in anticipation of fried calamari and linguini, we discovered a big sign at the entrance, explaining that the restaurant was closed due to damage incurred by an exploding chimney next door.
  

They say they'll be back.

And so will we...

We just love vacations.