A Tale of Two Virgins

I was recently commissioned by an acquaintance/friend of mine to paint my version of the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe (Our Lady of Guadalupe). I was pretty excited about it because a) I've been to Mexico a handful of times and love all the kitschy, colorful art and religious imagery in abundance there, and b) it meant delving a little deeper into the history and meaning behind the image (even if it meant only using Google as my main source of information). Knowing your subject matter makes it a lot easier to be subversive when needed :)

In the end, I decided to paint two slightly different versions of Our Lady of Guadalupe, knowing full well I’d probably want to keep one for myself.

One of the more interesting bits of information of the story about Our Lady of Guadalupe is how the Aztecs adopted this dark-skinned version of the Catholic image of the virgin Mary as their own. This happened after the Spanish Conquest in 1521. I suppose such is what happens when you are coerced into believing in a new religion and set of beliefs that are much different from your own. I’m only guessing that Catholicism was made more palatable for the Aztec people with an Aztec  “Mary,” including a story to go along with it about her first appearances and performance of miracles to prove her existence. I’m no historian about Mexico and the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire and these are just my opinions and observations.

As for the two paintings, I’m going to let the one on the receiving end decide which one he prefers. And the other will be for me!

Crumpets and Violet Jelly

I don't want to turn this into a blog about food right off the bat (i still haven't defined the parameters of this blog so i think i'm still okay) but sometimes the color of food (and anything else for that matter) can really get me going. My mom made this violet jelly from the violets on her lawn, and just look at the bright shade of fuchsia it is!!!

 

I knew it had to be photographed, and then i thought about crumpets. Never had one before, never made one before, all the better to do both! For the sake of the violet jelly, make crumpets!!!! So, I did. And despite my efforts, they were poor little excuses for crumpets. English Grannies would turn their noses up at my fried dough blobs. There were no tell-tale holes/bubbles/pores in them and i'm sure they were much thicker than they should have been. Not to mention being far from perfectly circular (i don't own any crumpet rings). However, i accomplished my mission. Photo was taken, and there you have it. Violet jelly and crumpets.

Blank Slate Day

It's been a blank slate kinda year so far and today is a blank slate kinda day. For one, I'm starting off this blog, all shiny and new. And I just received a visit from my lovely seamstress/artist friend who dropped off this dress for me:

It's my new Blank Canvas Dress Project dress that I am going to wear when i paint. The idea is that the more I paint (hopefully), the more paint will drip, splatter, and be wiped onto the "blank canvas," adding color and creating a new dress all together.  It's the brainchild of Melanie Wesley (AKA Dizzy Dame),  who was inspired to initiate this project after taking a silkscreening class where she was told to wear clothes that she wouldn't mind getting ink on. Her first thought was to wear a white dress...and thus the Blank Canvas Dress project was born! Six lucky painters have received one of her dresses which will be worn by the artists (including myself) at Melanie's first solo show at Estudio Luna coming up later this year!

And lucky for me, Ms. Wesley made another mini version of this dress for O. It's super cute!

She'll be my painter in training (although she's already very good at it).

I'll keep you informed of other blank slates around here in future posts!