Making Purple in Mexico

Beautiful slideshow will take you through the traditional process of dyeing yarn purple with Murex in Oaxaca, Mexico. (Found this while inspired by my Colors book, even though I haven't gotten to purple yet. I did learn in my blacks and browns chapter that, similar to the Murex process, the color sepia comes from ink excreted by a cuttlefish.)

Last Day in Mexico

Please excuse me- the ocean is calling.

Blackbirds singing, cawing, whatever, in the dead of night

Conference of Rooks

Blackbirds, rooks, crow, ravens...whatever you call them, these birds are almost a trope in contemporary art, reminiscent of a Victorian Goth aesthetic. They are often considered ill omens. Unless, that is, they frequent your Mexican doorstep, twice the size of any normal birds, chattering away. You have to get used to them. Here in Playa del Carmen, at any rate, there are only rooks rather than the enormous turkey vultures that used to buzz around the patio in Merida. These two videos from the New York art fairs this past March capture how noisy these birds can be.


Kristof Kintera at Jiri Svestka Gallery, Armory 2010

Personally, I've had the creeps over birds ever since seeing Alfred Hitchcock's film The Birds years ago. Moving to New York city and being surrounded by pigeons as clean as rats didn't help my aversion. The turkey buzzards probably made it worse, and now a neighborhood rooster wakes me up around 6 every morning. I am not fond of birds.

What is it about these fellows that captures the imagination anyhow?

Such Great Heights

can be scary looking down.


Especially if you have a fear of heights that the idea of a rope hanging down the side of steep, ancient steps on the open face of a 15 story building can't quite reconcile. Coba is one of the last Mayan pyramids that visitors can climb. At least they have a rope.

Cenotes...

are difficult to photograph.


You walk down a spiral staircase 40 or 50 feet, and walk out in this egg-shaped cave half full of water. The artificial lighting casts shadows on the crevices in the limestone and the stalactites drip into the crystal clear water.


The water is so clear, it's hard to imagine that the rocks you see so clearly are 30 feet below the surface.



So you take multiple photos, trying to capture the effect.


Once again, you curse yourself for not buying some really expensive, nice camera before you started this long adventure. You think of all the shots you missed over the last few months of traveling. Then you jump in the cold water and swim with the black, eyeless fishies.

Flamingos!

It was a very pink weekend in Rio Lagartos, where the pink crustaceans give the water as well as the flamingos a rosy hue. These awkward bundles of pink sticks look even stranger when they fly and appear as one straight line in the sky.

Mayan Clothes, Contemporary Painters

The show Panaramico de la Plastica Yucatanese at the Center for Visual Arts in Merida, with its focus on contemporary Yucatan artists, caught me by surprise by including many pieces of women, specifically in traditional Mayan costumes.

Carol Acereto, Belleza indigena, 2008

Having been in Merida about a month now, I would no longer make the mistake of thinking the artist is idealizing the past--rather it expresses an opinion about a changing present. Acereto's painting features young girls in traditional Mayan dress, white embroidered around the square neckline. Even today in Merida women wear the traditional white shift dress to go about their lives, as do Mayan women who come into Merida for the markets. Surprisingly, perhaps, I also see younger women wearing a top in the same style with jeans--is traditional Mayan dress as in vogue as a t-shirt?

Sandra Nikolai, Chismorreo en el mercato yucateo, 2009

Sandra Nikolai's women you might see at any market, which is as frenetic as the scene above suggests, and the colors remind me of the brightly-painted buildings. The florid palette and bustling brush strokes make sense to me after walking through the sensory cacophony of the markets.

Sandra Nikolai, Otra garnachita, 2009

A tortilla maker? Whatever little street food is being made, the artist treats the subject with dignity and I love the strong lines of the hand. It seems like the Mayan heritage is being explored, and valued positively, in these works. As a middle-aged man on the street told me yesterday, Spanish was his second language--Mayan his first, and his village an hour outside of Merida continues to make hammocks as its industry.

Jaime Barrera, Homenaje a Cy Twombly, 2009

On the other hand, he spoke fluent English and worked as a waiter at a restaurant called Main St. It's a changing world. A homage to one of my favorite painters hung in the show as well, which overall testified to a variety of influences and interests among contemporary Yucatan painters.

Visitors in Mexico!

Friends have come to visit, and having the pleasure of showing Merida to them makes me realize what a special place it is. Mexicans have a saying, "Nothing ever happens in Merida," and it is meant in the best possible way. The city is a peaceful haven even within the safe, well functioning Yucatan peninsula. The turmoil and issues in the other parts of Mexico don't seem to reach here.
Today we are going to walk around the city center and look at the cathedral, the beautiful candy colored facades that hide dark rooms and spacious courtyards, and the bustling plazas with their vendors, pigeons, and children.


Maybe later we will stop at the market for a bite to eat, or at least some churros (my favorite) before dinner.

Falling In Love with Mexico

Or more specifically, the Yucatan, which thinks of itself as rather different from the rest of the country. People here are so nice--plain old nice. I've asked for directions and had a man lead me to the bus and flag it down for me, and three times when I asked the way to a certain street at a stoplight, the other driver told me to follow him. (I get lost a lot.) The people here are genuinely warm and kind, and seem completely family-oriented. Utopia.

So it's fascinating to me that every museum and religious site I go to, be it ancient Mayan or contemporary Catholic, and book about Mexico I read, stress death. I can't wait to see what the Easter celebrations have in store.

Chichen Itza: New Wonder of the World

The seven NEW wonders of the world might be a suspect commercial ploy, but the actual site of Chichen Itza, with its glorious central pyramid and extensive other buildings, is anything but. Chichen Itza was built largely between 700 and 1000 AD.

El Castillo, below, is about 80 feet high, and contains a smaller, older pyramid inside. It was dedicated to the feathered serpent god Kukucan, and is aligned with the stars. Around this time of year, the sun will the right side of the pyramid that you see here in a manner that causes a shadow along the left side that looks like a serpent. Carved serpent heads sit on either side of the stairs at the bottom of that side.


All these years later, it is astonishing to see the perfect lines of the structure.


Many other temples and buildings such as a steam bath and an observatory encircle El Castillo. The carvings, weathered and lacking their original colors, remain intricate and fascinating. The skill it took to create and decorate such structures is astonishing, and made even the heat and all the tourists worth it. This wall of skulls was was part of a smaller sacrificial site nearby.


The eagle and the jaguar were important symbols for the ancient Maya. Here you can make out eagle holding something up in its claw: a beating human heart. Removing the heart from living prisoners was done to placate the gods and ensure the return of the sun.


On a lighter note, who knew the Mayans invented tic tac toe?


Chichen Itza is one of the largest sites, and the most heavily touristed--it even has a lightshow on the pyramid at night. However, Mayan ruins abound across the Yucatan peninsula, where I am, and I can't wait to see more this weekend and learn more about the people who originally created them.