Perpetual Novembers; Spring Eternal in my Mind; Late-Summer Labyrinths: Thoughts on Breasts, Mastectomies, Islamic head covering and my painting...

Sunday, November 24, 2013

Thoughts on Breasts, Mastectomies, Islamic head covering and my painting...

Covered is her head and face... a small window for her eyes to peep through... dark cobalt blue silk to her feet... Groups of people immersed in energetic or relaxed conversations, smiling faces, smiling eyes, serious expressions concentrating upon what is being said by the other, expressions of intrigue or sympathy or disappointment as the conversation goes, suddenly converting to surprise or disdain or fear quickly looking away or maintaining their burning glares or reproach as she floats between the conversations, the crowd parts as Moses parted the Red Sea... However, as if Moses' staff suddenly loses its powers she finds herself surrounded by a group of young men jeering and tugging at the dark blue silk protecting her skin from public view... She responds silently without resisting the violent grasping hands and the tearing of her covering... An uproar of cheers exploads over her intense silence as the silk covering her chest falls away exposing one of her breasts... Someone yells, "Wow! What a breast! Who would have known! expose the rest of her!" and the crowd follows with "Expose her! Expose her!" Suddenly, there's a deathly silence and much skuffling of feet as the rest of the silk covering falls from her shoulders... The young men shoot glances over their shoulders as they quickly walk away. She stands with her arms spread upwards and outwards from her sides, in the form of a cross, palms forward, as if she's asking them to return and look at her with her chest bared and her head and face covered. She looks forward, silent and intensely tranquil. One beautiful breast freed from captivity as the press may have publicized the past 50 years... and where once may have been the other breast, a series of scars from where the other cancer took its toll...

Painting my internal response to (over--on top of) my unfinished surrealist painting of the two breasts that become a highway in a desert at night (painted two years ago) that recently had me thinking of an Islamic woman exposing herself and then converted into that same Islamic woman with a mastectomy... And this is what appeared in my mind at the same time... For the moment the painting is working (for me and hopefully for you tomorrow). If I weren't a Gemini, constantly changing focusses, I would follow the fantasy of painting many women with mastectomies and without niqabs or hijabs, without religiously and politically conflicting messages, since the greatest issue always is not so much religious or political but socially-psychological and deeply personal... since each person relates uniquely to their body and the bodies of others... granted, we learn greatly from how we and others are portrayed by mass media... There was a time when the breasts were not sexual objects or symbols of youth and beauty or measurements of female material value or lack there of. They weren't symbols for anything... but the initial means for nurturing male and female babies (all of us)... So, what happens when a breast is removed? Hopefully the woman is given more time for enjoying and learning from life and sharing with those important to her and vice versa... I'm sorry we find ourselves immersed within this situation. I'm sorry anyone would have to have preventative surgery removing parts of their body. As some of you know, I live with it too... But, my personal experience of preventative surgeries hasn't made me any more concerned with the issues of breast cancer or mastectomies... Don't get me wrong... The painting is painted by a man not thinking of his surgeries, but in how he relates (the evolution of his thinking) with the various and differing issues related towards women as objects in the eyes of everyone, even women... I remember when I would have looked away... Yes, we don't like looking at scars or deformations... But, somehow we've gotta change the way we view... and respond or expect... Imagine the man who goes from girlfriend to girlfriend or wife to wife until he encounters the woman with the perfect breasts... And when he encounters the perfect breasts... he realizes that there are other reasons for leaving her... and or he realizes that breasts weren't all they were made up to be... and this isn't about the man's gaze... it's also about the woman's perspective of her own self-worth and sexuality... what she believes is beauty and if she qualifies... However...

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Unfinished "Self-Portrait at 33"

Something I've dreamed of painting since just after my ultimate surgery in 2001. I post this now since I don't know if I will have the chance to work on it before going back on the road on Sunday... The problem is I've been sick for the past 5 days, painting this for the past week, a few hours per day. Whatever the sickness is, it isn't anything I've known and seemingly changes every day. In order to guarrantee my being well anough for the intense work for the following month, I may have to leave this hanging until I return at the end of August...

"La Sonrisa de Amarillo" (Amarillo's smile).

"La Sonrisa de Amarillo" (Amarillo's smile). José and Nicolas were commenting that I should sell the shirt I use for painting, since it is covered with paint. And then José said, "better yet, I'll give you one of my shirts to paint..." It was a joke. But I took it seriously. He has shirt he bought 4 years ago in Zacatecas with a copy of a painting of a bull in a bull fight. However, the print was erased from the shirt years ago. So, I decided to use the space that had the bull. "Amarillo" (Yellow) was the dog at my in-laws ranch when Margarita and I met. Due to a bad fight, he was left with one side of his mouth and one of his ears mangled, which gave him a permanent half snarl with one fang sticking out. He died years ago. But we often mention him...

New House/Studio Guadalajara

Over 20 years ago our friend José "Montaña" bought a parcel of land in the center of Guadalajara. His uncle who was a constructor/mason helped José build the brick house that has 6 bedrooms. Not long afterward, José entered into his older brother's Indian crafts importation business and decided to sell the crafts in fairs around Mexico. His brothers were one of the first people in Mexico City to enter into the Krishna movement that gave them certain perks. While José became vegetarian 4 years ago, sells the Indian furniture and crafts etc, has a giant shrine to Ganesh in his house and hosts the Mahareshi at least two times a year, José doesn't consider himself a Krishna. For at least 15 years José experienced extreme success in the fairs and was able to send his children to private English Language schools (his oldest son went to University in Texas and Married there),was able to visit with his children the U.S. and India and even bought the "castillo" (castle---an insider joke) next door. For years he used it as a store house and for a shop where Mary had workers fabricating crafts and Mexican/asian Indian style clothing. Then, about 4 years ago, Mexico entered into the international economic crises and José began losing money in the fairs. (I, on the other hand, have managed the situation and the coffee business well enough to be able to improve our economy over the past 2+ years, although this year we lost half our fairs (my decision not to enter into suddenly horribly violent zones where the people are fleeing and have fair to go out to the streets.) Out of desperation, José put the house he built on the market and moved his family into the "castillo"; his children were not happy. The "castillo" was built in the 19th century and has very high ceilings and wonderful giant windows and a terrace surrounding the second story kitchen. After a year on the market, One of José's Asian Indian suppliers bought the house and decided to put it on the market. A year ago, dreaming of having an artist studio/house in the center of Guadalajara with it's majestic tree-lined streets, I asked José to contact the Indian suppliers to see if they would sell the "guest house". José replied that he couldn't locate the Indians' representative in Guadalajara. And that ended that fantasy. However, a year later, upon returning to Guadalajara, Margarita called Mary who asked Margarita if we were in need of a house. We had just rented a house for 3 months (a house infested with cockaroaches). However, I had to see the house. The moment we set foot in the empty guest house without kitchen, bathroom, closets, I was hit with the return of the dream I left behind when we left Guadalajara last November. This time I could see all the projects we would begin over the next 10 years. So, we decided to rent the house and hoped that the 32 day fair in Guadalajara would be good for us; and it was. So, now we are "building" the kitchen, we bought a new refrigerator, are having a stainless steel restaurant sink fabricated for us, are looking for good furniture, looking into nice tiling and thinking about the future one more time.

"Hummingbird Goddess of the Mountain"/"Diosa Colibrí de la Montaña"

Crucified Pregnant Woman

(Unfinished Painting November/December 2010). This was the last painting I worked on before putting aside the painting and drawing for 6 months. I don't have any artist training. I haven't ever taken a painting or a drawing class. I don't know anything about anatomy and I have NEVER seen naked pregnant woman, let alone a naked pregnant woman on a cross. That created a hell of a headache working on perspective and shadowing... How does a head hang with the arms spread outwards to the side? My dilemma. After the fair of Tepic, I asked my friend José "Montaña" to take it with him to Guadalajara. Truthfully, it created so much stress that I really didn't want to see it. The problem is that we don't have a house of our own. I don't have a studio for storing my work and supplies...

Stream of Consciousness Drawing "Your Turned Back/The Cold Shoulder" July 11, 2011

In La Isla de Mexcaltitan, Nayarit

The story goes that the group of Mexica indians had a dream one night of the great city of Tenochtitlan they would construct 200 years later in the Valley of Mexico, now known as Mexico City that later on became known as the Aztec Empire. The dream was had on the Island of Mexcaltitan, Nayarit. Upon leaving his "home" on the edge of the river Antigua in Veracruz, Cortez journeyed to the center of what is now known as the Republic of Mexico and conquered the Aztecs, with the help of the Totonoco indians of the region known as Veracruz. Cortez destroy the Grand Tenochtitlan, probably the largest pre-hispanic city in the Americas and constructed churches and cathedrals where the ancient temples and pyramids had been...

Pico de Orizaba in the Morning

I took this photo during our Sunday morning walk. We found a wonderful route that circles Margarita's parents' house; great for a jogging route. When I've run in Mexico, Margarita was my running partner. Back in 2005, when we were running in the Lakes, there were many times when Margarita ran faster than I ran. But, I always passed her on the hills... The wonderful thing about this route is that it passes through the woods, coffee plantations and sugar cane fields; a lot of hills as you can see... So, we've decided that, if we have a strong finish of 2011, we'll buy land here and build a house.