Tag Archives: Retablos

Passing Time

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IMG_1162Detra de las Puertas Cerradas (Behind Closed Doors) One’s own living room can become entirely too comfortable. Shutting the drawers to the past may open the doors to the future. (retablo by Judy Dykstra-Brown)

Passing Time

The means of our escape from life are numerous and various,
and there is nothing wrong with getting thrills that are vicarious.
Movies, sports and novels are fine for entertainment;
but if you’re only viewing, there is no sense of attainment.

Looking back on your own life, like opening a book,
isn’t really living life, but just having a look
at the life of someone who you no longer are.
You aren’t really living life by viewing from afar.

Escape is necessary and our choices for it vast,
but there’s no satisfaction in living in the past.
Life is to be spent, not to be hoarded and rethought.
Better just to live the rest of the time that you’ve got!

Fond memories are something that I’m sure none of us lack,
but there’s no time of life to which I’m yearning to go back.
The only thing to do with time’s to live it and to love it.
I have no wish to turn back time, I only want more of it!

The Prompt: If you could return to the past to relive a part of your life, either to experience the wonderful bits again, or to do something over, which part of you life would you return to? Why?
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/if-i-could-turn-back-time/

What Vestige Left?

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                                                              What Vestige Left?

I think what any of my ancestors would find most surprising if they were to come back is that there is so little of them left.  My paternal grandma would look for her quilts, her embroidery and her China cabinet full of glass and porcelain and would find none of them in my house.  I spent too many years traveling, so my older sister Betty Jo and my cousin Betty Jane wound up with all of grandma’s things. The one good quilt is over Betty Jo’s bed in the managed care facility where she now lives, but she knows nothing of it or of us or of her own children, being the prisoner of Alzheimer’s that she is.

My cousin Betty Jane passed on years ago, so the China cabinet full of Grandma’s dishes is in Idaho in the house of  her second husband. What Grandma would find of herself in my house is:
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one blue bowl filled with jade plant cuttings by my kitchen sink,

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an old pottery canning jar above my kitchen cabinets––

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and remnants of her tatting, a small square cut from a pillowslip she embroidered and part of a quilt square that I used in a retablo entitled “Our Lady of Notions.” (The view above is looking down on the top of the retablo–details not shown because of the shooting angle in the view of the entire retablo below.)

judy 2Amazing that so little remains of her in my house when she had a house stuffed full of things.  Now that I am the one with the house stuffed full, I wonder what of me will remain after fifty years.  Perhaps just this blog or my books or my artwork.  Maybe that is why I am so compulsive about writing and doing art–that need to be remembered.

The Prompt: Modern Families––If one of your late ancestors were to come back from the dead and join you for dinner, what things about your family would this person find the most shocking?
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/modern-families/

Means of Expression

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Means of Expression

I have two means of telling a story–words and art.  Here are a few of my retablos :

IMG_5344Jugetes (Toys) DSC06989 IMG_5362Santa Cecilia (Patron Saint of Poets and Musicians)

DSCF9505 DSCF9531 DSC01454Self Portrait

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Hidden Kiss  Version 3Sunrise Madonna IMG_5403The Circus

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Our Lady of NotionsDSCF9529Ganesha


DSC09802 DSCF9504 IMG_5393 judy8Homage to Picasso

judy6 - Version 2Rainy Season

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Macho

The Prompt: Express Yourself!!! Do you love to dance, sing, write, sculpt, paint, or debate? What’s your favorite way to express yourself, creatively?

Shrine to the Vanishing Photo Store (Cee’s Odd Ball Challenge 39)

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IMG_0395-1                                                       Photo Retablo

When my camera conked out in Wyoming, I stopped at Best Buy to buy a new one, then realized I needed a spare battery.  Thinking it would be cheaper on the internet, I decided to wait, but I quickly learned the battery for this very new model was not available online. Researching camera stores on Google, I discovered  that one of only two camera stores remaining in Wyoming was in Casper, which we were due to travel through on our route to Cheyenne.  When we found it, there were three members of the military being served so as I wandered the shop–basically one long counter, I found this retablo, I had to photograph it. How better to worship at the shrine of photography?

When it was finally my turn, I asked why there were so few camera stores in Wyoming and received an answer I should have guessed.  The internet and large chain stores such as Best Buys and Costco had made dedicated camera stores obsolete.  I was very grateful to have found this one. I was also pleased to find that these rechargeable batteries last at least 5 times longer than the batteries in my old camera.

http://ceenphotography.com/2015/09/27/cees-odd-ball-photo-challenge-2015-week-39/

“Juguetes”– Shannon’s Creative Photo Challenge/Games

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“Juguetes”–Shannon’s Creative Photo Challenge/GamesIMG_5344
“Jugetes” is Spanish for “Games,” and I made this retablo to honor all the favorite games of the past.  Perhaps you’ll recognize the little numbers game, where we had to shuffle the tiles within a set frame to get all the numbers into sequence, or a harmonica, games pieces from different games including Monopoly and Scrabble, a toy duck, doll, toy boat, a guitar, toy horse, dice, toy car, soccer ball, paint and marbles.  The star shapes are cut from a plastic Slinky toy made in the shape of stars.  I was very happy to see this prompt, Shannon.  Thanks so much!

IMG_4713Mexican Train is wildly popular among expats in Mexico.  This particular version is called “Chickenfoot.”  Strangely enough, the Mexican name for Mexican Train is Cuban Train–“Tren Cubano!”

For more pictures on the topic of “Toys,” go here:
http://abstractlucidity.com/2015/09/16/shannons-creative-photo-challenge-games/

Marooned in Burgundy: Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge 8/18/15

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Version 3
These coleus leaves seem to be on the cusp of maroon, burgundy and fuchsia! 
DSC08673And here he is, folks, the “Greater Burgundy Flycatcher”–right here in my own kitchen!!!

PB060254 - Version 2This is a detail from one of my retablos based on Tina Medotti’s epitaph written by Pablo Neruda. This detail depicts the “foam.” The epitaph is below.

Pure your gentle name, pure your fragile life,
bees, shadows, fire,snow, silence and foam
combined with steel and wire and pollen
to make up your firm and delicate being.

SB_3875262920Here is the entire retablo.  It is the largest one I’ve done so far–26 inches high.

http://ceenphotography.com/2015/08/18/cees-fun-foto-challenge-burgundy-or-maroon/

The Rabbit’s Navel

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“The Rabbit’s Navel” Retablo by Judy Dykstra-Brown

Numerous Mexican legends surround Rabbit, and each object in this retablo depicts one of them. Even the name “Mexico” is derived from Nahuatl words for the rabbit in the moon; and its capitol, Mexico City, is built on six lakes in the form of a rabbit. If you open the box this retablo sits upon, you will find inside a manuscript that conveys the story of the rabbit in Mexican legend and how I was drawn to it. The Aztecs had a legend of 400 drunken rabbits who were the gods of pulque–a drink made of fermented Maguey–the same plant that Tequila is made of. The woman sitting next to rabbit might be Mayahuel, the goddess of Maguey, but it is more likely that she is the Jaina woman explained in the quote below from the book Maya Terracottas.

“Representations of Maya women occur more commonly as Jaina figurines than in any other medium. These Jaina figures represent two kinds of women, both archetypes of female behavior. One is a stately, courtly woman who is sometimes shown weaving; the second is a courtesan who appears with all sorts of mates, from Underworld deities to oversized rabbits. The imagery of both derives from Maya concepts of the moon, perceived as an erratic, inconsistent heavenly body, whose constantly changing character follows the monthly cycle of female menses…
…The second female type is far more active, and she projects her sexuality…she is usually bare-breasted, and she gestures, as if offering herself to others. The demure woman may be painted in various colors, but this one is generally painted blue…Nothing else in Maya art conveys sexuality more convincingly than these figures. Although they may be conceived as the moon goddess and her consorts, they also reflect human behavior. As companions for the dead – perhaps particularly for old men – they seem to promise renewed sexual activity. For the living, such Jaina figurines may have been titillating objects for private observation.” (Schele: 1986, p. 153). Cf. Kimball, Maya Terracottas, p. 23

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_photo_challenge/symbol/

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The Window

opens onto an empty lot.
Guamuchil trees and wild castor beans
rise from its slope to lift toward
where I sit above, hands engaged
in taking me away to a place
far beyond ideas.
It is that destination dreams only point us to–
that place where, perhaps, I’ll float
after the feared moment
when I’ll leave this world for good.

I dread it so, that zone,
and yet if what my fingers have just told is right,
it’s where I choose to go again and again,
escaping to that little house
down in my garden
where I keep my tools and paint
and ten thousand small objects
all of which have a particular place they want to be fastened.

I am just here to help them go where they want to go.
Where they have, perhaps, been created to go–
taking me with them to the zone,

all of us
headed toward
the inevitable.

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“The little house” is my studio, here seen from the garden. The earlier view was of the wild lot next door, seen from the window of my studio.

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A message from the zone. Click to enlarge, then hover over objects and click again to see more detail..

The Prompt: Tell us about your favorite way to get lost in a simple activity — running, chopping vegetables, folding laundry, whatever. What’s it like when you’re in  “The Zone?”

Retablo of the Patron Saint of Poets and Musicians

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Santa Cecilia is the patron saint of poets and musicians.  This retablo evolved before I did any research on her at all.  I had bought this wonderful oil painting in Peru and just let my mind go in building a retablo for her.  I had no idea who she was–thought she was just another madonna.  When I had finished, an artist friend, Eduardo Xilonsochitl, was at my house painting and building a sculpture for me by the pool and he saw her and said, “Ah, Santa Cecilia.”  I then Googled Saint Cecilia and discovered that all of the symbolism of the retablo did in fact tell the story of her life.  Some things just want to belong together and so it was with her portrait .

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16″ X 16: Santa Cecilia: Mixed Media Retablo, Wood, Metal, paper, dried flowers and leaves, Gold Leaf, Feather, Bone, Abelone, Antique Toy Rocking  Chair, Oil Painting on Canvas, Acrylic paint. 16″ X 16. Click on picture to see details.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/mad-as-a-hatter/

What Do You See? (Please Comment)

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Please help me name this newest retablo, just finished today. (Think of a retablo as a box containing a story.) What story do you see?

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(Click on this second smaller image to increase size of picture. You should then be able to Zoom in and use your scroll bar to see different parts of the image close up. Use + and – to zoom in and out.)