contraseña

More experimental collageness at 4am.

amigas

Woke up early this morning thinking about all the friends we’ve enjoyed this summer. Dear friends, Jane Braddock and Carol Mode visited us for a week, and we had too much fun exploring, talking, shopping and eating. Jane woke up each morning to the loud, recorded jingles of competing propane companies blasting throughout our neighborhood. I’d find her reading downstairs surrounded by the smell and sounds of coffee brewing. We’d sit and chat about the sights and sounds of Mexico then I’d usually walk across our newly cobbled street to buy pastries or bolillos or huevos for breakfast. Most days we’d all get out and explore Patzcuaro while other days we’d just hang out at the house, cooking or piddling. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning, Becky, Jane, Carol and Susan walked down to Plaza Grande for Tai Chi with Bob, while I stayed in and worked on a commercial gig. One day we hired Ulysses, a local healer, to give everyone massages while it rained outside. I haven’t had many professional massages so it was a real treat to have the tips of my fingers and toes given so much attention. And face and back, and my head in a towel sling rocked back and forth followed by a stretch and pop of the spine. All was well and I was feeling healed with my face facedown in the donut thingey. Until the donut fell unexpectedly… along with my face. Luckily, I didn’t suffer any major damage, and the healer apologized. Then, after some realignment I tried to relax by thinking about the rain, trying to separate its sound from that of water trickling from our courtyard fountain...then, Bam! Again! I think I chipped a tooth. So much for relaxation and trust. All gone. I spent the next half hour tense and nervously awaiting the next drop. Actually, the massage was pretty great and I am definitely less toxic. Other highlights from our friends’ visit included: a visit with Didier at Real Aduana, a drive to Santa Clara del Cobre, listening to Becky and Jane in the back seat practicing dirty phrases in Spanish, dinner at the EcoHotel, Andy's birthday party with plastic wrestlers on his cake, dinner at Bob & Rosa’s with five virgos, and a beautiful Thai meal prepared by Jane (she traveled here with her own jar of chili paste). Seems like we were always eating and/or talking about food. I enjoyed sharing my red book with Carol one afternoon, and talking about art, teaching, and her upcoming trip to London. We explored the town together, as couples, and in threes...Patzcuaro’s funky bumpy, cobbled streets proved to be an excellent excuse to hold hands. Everyone traveled home safely with their treasures, so now we’re anticipating a reunion in Nashville and tasty meals on colorful tablecloths.

santa anna

I dreamt Nemo caught a bird last night. I was walking out into our courtyard and saw a little wren just ahead of him, standing in the grass; he didn't see the bird and the bird didn't see him, and when they met...Nemo took the bird in his mouth. Nemo turned towards me with that guilty little look he used to have, not making eye contact, sort of noncommittal and feigning innocence, like "nothing's going on over here folks, let's just keep moving it along." That's all I remember, but it was fun seeing him again.

Too much going on to fully capture it all but we're just in from a lovely evening with friends thinking about all the amazing people we have reconnected with, folks we have history with, new friends we're excited about, and Tennessee friends we've lured to paradise. Yesterday, we drove out to Santa Anna, near Patz, to see Artemio and Silvia's new house/studio project—an awesome adobe brick structure on a nice plot of land overlooking Lake Patzcuaro. And we had a beautiful meal at their friends Veronica and Patrick's next door overlooking the mountains and the rains coming in. So much good food, wine, bread, and conversation about art, life, and dogs. And hammocks. Vero wowed us with her spectacular ceramic figures and a demonstration of her beautiful technique, then Patrick concerned me with his improbable homemade muzzleloading shotgun held together with a zip tie and a couple of nails. And later, his great marionette-like ceramic figures. Anne, Dave, Marcia, Bob and Rosa...an afternoon to remember and Guinness got to run, run, run.

pulpo

Just looked out my window to see kids playing in the dirt and kicking soccer balls. The sky is a crazy cerulean blue broken up by white, billowy clouds and the sounds of dogs barking, and recorded messages advertising propane gas and pastries. All strangely reminds me of pop beads and Richpond, Kentucky and digging for treasure in my grandparents' machine shed with Eddie and Emily. Sitting and digging in red dirt surrounded by worn timber, machinery, jars of screws and nails, and garden hoses. Waiting for Moc to call out: "Time for supper!" And of course, we'd dig for a few minutes more then climb over the wooden fence and run through the clanging metal gate next to the garden into the freshly mown yard past the well house over stone pavers under the covered patio that Dad built, past the old stone grinding wheel over two concrete steps up and through the screen door with the little green bean smudge on the door handle into the warm, wood paneled room past the old butter churn and Poc's chair, into the kitchen and onto a wooden chair at the round kitchen table where we used to help Moc separate the rocks from the beans. We'd sit down and eat white beans and cornbread with hamhocks and homegrown, sliced tomatoes with iced tea or iced water in pretty glasses...city water from the Stahl's, poured from clean, plastic Chlorox bottles. Everything tasted wonderful and we would tell each other stories. Moc washed the dishes then we'd sit in the den and watch Lawrence Welk and she'd sit next to the TV facing us, and she would tell us stories about her life on Hanging Fork Creek. We'd try to watch the regularly scheduled programs but her stories about life on the farm are the stories that stay with me...stories about children getting eaten by hogs or drowning, and of gypsies and Freetown and flying in airplanes. Stories, family stories, lots and lots of stories. I know them all by heart.

¡mentira!

Poor Mickey with his face all painted out like that. ?! Walked all over Patz this morning, scribbled, then met with Derli about producing my new book, Vulcanizadora, at the Jesuita this fall. Yeah! 3-4 color screenprint, including a linen cover, silver metallic ink and mescal (ha). Got a show lined up for spring 2011 at the ex-Colegio. Can't wait for spring. Speaking of spirits, the old mescal dude showed up this afternoon at the print shop. 150 pesos for one liter. He's about 90 million years old wearing a white cowboy hat carrying a burlap bag containing a plastic gas tank full of mescal, with a clear plastic tube used as a delivery device. Everyone lit up when he arrived and started looking for empty Ciel or Santorini bottles to fill. He filled mine.

retorno con pollo

Oh, the handpainted signage just kills me...so beautiful, so delicious. And the handpainted type...yum. I love taking snaps of it all, smashing it all together when I get home, and smiling at the results.

vulcanizadora nino

More vulka is more. Detail from my second nonsense book to be printed at the Jesuita this year. Second in a series dealing with rough edges and auto repair. This one is planned as a three color serigraph, concertina-style book featuring angry globelike creatures and stolen typography. I'm cornering the market.