On the Art Of Healing...the Curanderos/as

Once a year about this time people come from near and far for symposiums, workshops, etc. on the art of curandero (a). I love going over to watch them when they have a health fair out on the plaza on campus (University of New Mexico). It is a sight for me to behold.

I also love to record the event by way of photos, but it is difficult to do without being disruptive and disrepectful. For the most part, I sit and absorb.

Many people come to these healers in hope that they will cure their ailments. I find dissonance in the way we westerners live our lives; always in search of the quick fix without much regard as to the cause of our ailment. We fall so short on the mind/body/spirit connection. We express alarm at the ever increasing rise in diabetes as we reach for our fries and our sodas. And then there is the false notion that the pill perscribed by our doctor will take care of the problem...

I find it all very discouraging and dismaying, yet I am hopeful that we as a society will learn and get smart about it. I guess I'm just impatient as I see how it affects my family as I stand by helplessly and watch the slow destruction.

I'm hoping that perhaps, perhaps in my little bit of venting here, I can serve to influence at least one person out there who will take this to heart. You can't just rely on a healer to heal you; the healer needs you to help them to help you...

Patriotics from the 47th Outpost

You know, I thought I was being clever; I had burned this image to a cd and took it with me to Hawaii so that I could post it on July 4th. Hah! What was I thinking? As you can see, it didn't happen. Anyway, looking at Raine's post reminded me that I hadn't done this one yet. It is from our series of glass negatives that we are in the midst of what will prove to be a lengthy, self-imposed research project. This negative has no names, dates or catalog number on it. I doubt that we will ever discover who these people are. However, we do know that most of the images we have are from the 1909-20's time frame. I suspect that most of them are from 1912-1918. I have a feeling that this one may have been taken somewhere around Jan. 6th, 1912 when New Mexico became the 47th state to join the union. Why else would a couple include a flag in their portrait? Well, ok, I suppose if one of them is running for office. There are a few other images in the glass negatvie collection that have people with flags. I will confess that I did add the sepia tone, but other than that, what you see is what it is. And, isn't that TWO flags stitched togeher to form the backdrop? I wonder too, if there are 47 stars on that flag...anyone with eagle eyes out there???

'I'iwi Image Revisited...

You wouldn't know by looking at my blog that one of my passions is in hand pulled prints. Specifically etchings (intaglio) and all the techniques that go with it. I have my own press bed that I bought a few years back when we had a particularly successful year (knowing that the price only goes up on these things and I was able to lock in on a price by putting it on lay away). The folks at Takach Press here in Albuquerque are sooo nice.

Anyway, since I had posted info in the previous blog on the 'I'iwi birds, I thought I'd pull this out of my stash and review.

The first image is a pen and ink drawing that I did from the cover of a National Geographic magazine. No, I didn't trace or anything. I penciled in where I needed to be and then went over with my Rapidograph pen (I've had a 30 year love affair with those pens).

The pen and ink image was transferred to a zinc plate and etched accordingly. Many images are pulled in the process to check and see if things are etching as you want it to in the acid bath. The zinc plate size is 6" X 9". I then went back and created different tones via the aquatint method. I still wasn't happy with the outcome and then took it way past the point of no return which is the final image. I still don't like it as it is impossible to create editions from this plate as I took the etch too far. The colors on the print were all done in one pass via selective wiping.

Speaking of selective wiping, I am about to take a master class in regards to this at New Grounds Print from a Oaxacan artist, Enrique Flores. I am excited and intimidated at the same time. I also do not have new images to work with! Yipes! Guess I'll have to keep it simple and bring in old plates to print from.

One Week Later...

This morning I was driving across town with John; he had an appointment with the oral surgeon to remove 4 impacted wisdom teeth (yipes). He's recovering fine and is humgry! I was commenting to him that exactly a week ago we were on our way back from Hawaii sitting in the airport at Phoenix. It's taken me a good two days plus after we got back to unpack and do laundry, get the house somewhat caught up, download the over 1,000 images that I took, cull through them and upload them to the Walgreen's Photo Center for printing. I am not done with that part yet! To make matters worse, I've taken MORE photos on Thursday, Friday and Sunday! But, I DO love the new Nikon I got for graduation...

Posted here are some images from Hawaii; it's hard to choose what to post. From the top we've got a wild orchid growing in the yard of the house we stayed at in Volcano Village. The next one of the little tree on the moss is like a natural Bonsai tree; we call it the Octopus tree and it gets pretty tall (but not in this case). It was on the rainforest trail onthe way down to the crater on the Big Island. Then there is the ginger flower stalk (many different kinds of ginger in case you didn't know). The next one is of the red 'I'iwi birds that live in the rainforest. My brother and I were treated to a rare glimpse of four to five birds feeding and flitting aroun the ginger plants. Usually you'll see one and they are hard to view as the fly around in the forest canopy just out of your visual range. We've never seen this many at one time in full display. There are two birds that are pretty visible in this shot.

To give you a sense of scale of the crater that we hiked through, you can see my brother and the rest of the party in the foreground. Really immense crater. The shrub with the red flowers is the Ohia Lehua.

Then we jump over to the coastline of Moloka'i; those are crab holes there on the beach! My son loves chasing after them at low tide (in the mud; we've all done that growing up on the island).

The beautiful beach is on the west end of Moloka'i; we call it the Maki Horse beach (it really has a different Hawaiian name). Maki means, 'dead' in Hawaiian and a long time ago someone found a dead horse on the beach and then that became the reference name for that beach.

The last image is the southeast shoreline of Moloka'i. If you look really hard, you can see the wharf jutting out on the very top part of the image. Maui looms in the back where the clouds are.

It's a long journey to and fro, but I'll be doing it again next year since we have a family reunion happening on Moloka'i.

Last Night in Hawaii: Obon Festival

There is something to be said about not scheduling every single moment; especially when away on a trip. The only thing I requested for the last part of our Hawaii trip was going to the beach on the North Shore of Oahu which we did on Saturday (the 14th). We had a blast!

That was followed by a spontaneous dinner at PF Chang's ( a new experience for my family in Hawaii).

But the icing on the cake was an Obon Festival near my brother Robert's house. You know, the trip to the beach and the fabulous dinner at PF Chang's already made it a perfect day. I didn't think it could get any better. But, I've only been to one other Bon dance when I was growing up on Moloka'i when my friend, Karen Harada took me to the festival that took place near her house.

It was so neat to see all the different generations participating in this; singing, dancing, playing instruments and drums. I wonder if these kids ever go "Goth"? I would say, probably not since they have a strong sense of who they are while growing up and a strong connection to a community.

My niece, Catherine was thrilled to be able to dance (anyone can dance even if you didn't know the steps, you just jump in behind someone you want to follow). At some points in time, you catch on to some of the words in the songs being sung since many parts are repeated.

John hung out with my brother, Robert while Catherine and I did our thing. His comment was, "that was different"! Even though it might not be the adrenline-laced experience that teenage boys seem to seek out, I'm glad he got the chance to experience it and see what other cultures do.

My internal time clock is still on Hawaiian time as I write this; just having gotten back home a mere 24 hours ago. When I go home to Moloka'i, I feel like I'm doing time travel (back in time), so there are many things to readjust to as I get back into my life here in New Mexico.

It was a wonderful trip home packed with so many different things that it feels like I've been gone a month instead of 16 days.

Aloha Oe to the Big Island

OMG...last day here on the Big Island and tomorrow morning I say goodbye to my sister and her family and Mark heads back to New mexico while John, Jason and I head off to Moloka'i. I'm not so sure how the week went by so quickly, but it did. Went to several beaches, saw honus swimming (red leather back sea turtles), saw the rainforest, hiked through Kileaua Iki and Kileaua (I might not be spelling this correctly!) craters on Friday. We didn't get to see lavas flows as there are none flowing at this time. They actually have a "lava hot line" that you can call to get the lastest on lava activity. The beach we went to on July 4th was awesome; right above Kailua Kona area called Hapuna State Beach Park. Huge, white, sandy beach with nice wave action and the water is warm. We even saw a very young honu there right in front of us! I would say that if you yeally wanted to give exploring the Big Island a worthy try, a good two weeks are needed. So, the trip is at the halfway mark. And, sadly, we must bid a loving Aloha Oe.

Greetings From Hawaii

Just about every other year I make the trek home to see my family. When I lived on the West Coast, it was often every year. In printmaking, there's a term called 'registration' where one overlays an image over an existing one (for avrious reasons; sometimes the images are multiple). When the marks you make to reigister where you want the next image is isn't accurate, your images are off from one another; like being 'off-center'. That's how the inside of my head is at times when I go home. I don't know if I can really articulate this feeling, but other people who move great distances to call another place home can probably relate to this experience. This weekend I'm on Oahu with my brother and his family. Tomorrow my sister and I and our children head back to her home on the Big Island (Hilo) for a week. From there, I migrate to Molokai t ovisit my family there. A week on the Big Island is a new adventure for me, so I am looking forward to it. The most amzing thing is, I'm only taking ONE camera with me. I normally haul several cameras with me for different functions. This time, I am trying to see if I can live with just one camera. After all, that Nikon D200 I just got is a pretty damn good peice of equipment! So, here I go, cold turkey!