Speaking of Murals
Jesse Trevino has his right hand replaced by a hook, due to a booby trap that exploded during the Vietnam War. That did not prevent him from completing his outdoor 10-story-high ceramic tile mural of an angel with a clipped wing giving a dove to a small boy, "The Spirit of Healing," that adorns the wall of Santa Rosa Children’s Hospital in downtown San Antonio, Texas. Jesse is the first Mexican-American artist to be exhibited at the Smithsonian.
Treviño likes to work on a grand scale. And his grandest project to date is his spectacular 40-foot-high three-dimensional veladora of Our Lady of Guadalupe on the wall of the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center, a non-profit community group devoted to the literature, dance, music and theater of Latino and indigenous cultures, in his old neighborhood. Hispanic Magazine, December 2003 Issue, for the complete story.
Yesterday I drove by the veladora - it is brilliantly beautiful. Much more beautiful than the representation above.
posted by BigBubba at 7:51 AM
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25 Comments:
The second picture is of a "veladora,” but not of the actual three dimensional art work. A "veladora" is a bed side lamp or candle. In South Texas and Mexico it generally is taken to mean a "vela votiva" which is votive candle in English.
BB,
I really like Trevino, and the Veladora is symbolically a wonderful choice for "subject", especially the "light within". It had some great symmetry that was lacking in the other work you presented.
My only complaint concerning the second work would be a certain lack of symmetry...perhaps like the "two" sides on the Veladora and adding something of the more "masculine" virtues... the "mildly damaged" angel leading the youthful male towards an ideal of peace... was Almost right. Peace must be painted in the greatest "proportions", but war and hatred and the need to confront them must not be left out of the painting... like the balance of the serpent... and the eagle that were on the Veladora...IMO. Also, it would be nice if the artist had a greater "mixture" of styles, to slightly differentiate the more abstract "beautiful" and "sublime" from the "real world" of nature and man.
-FJ
mr. ducky,
Gustav Courbet. I can't imagine another artist as skilled, other than those of the baroque or high renaissance. Like Maplethorpe, a wonderful technician with consumate skill in his craft. And I think I can sum him up, with a quote of his...
"in our so very civilized society it is necessary for me to live the life of a savage. I must be free even of governments. The people have my sympathies, I must address myself to them directly."
He painted directly for "your" side with a "complete toolkit" what his post-modern imitators lack. Your "two" sides of the vision in the Valadora can be seen most clearly through his eyes.
What is the beautiful? the sublime? Be-you-to-eye-full? sub-lies-eye-me? Is the vision complete in my eyes? What do I see as I look into myself? I look towards the heavens. I stare into the abyss. And then I wrap my arms around those near me, and look towards a new sun rising on the horizon.
-FJ
ps - The "early" Beckett. Awesome! But too two-sided from the shadows. Perhaps you should heed the advice represented in his "evolution" over the course of his career. Question your abstract, yet "rationale" "vision" and re-consider your hatred of "property" and "property rights". For without them, your arguments don't have any "grounds" for support. You destroy property rights, and we must all suffer Garrett Harding's "Tragedy of the Commons", and like a herd of deer trapped on some island, breed ourselves into a famine and destroy our natural environment (current course). Either that, or re-embrace the "ancient" virtues and feast like a pride of "lions" upon the herds that wander over the Savannah (natural course). Which do you choose, as you, like Courbet, tear down civilization's walls?
-FJ
Recommended reading for mr. ducky to better help him get in "touch" with his roots.
Immanuel Kant, "Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and the Sublime"
JJ Rousseau. "Confessions of a Soolitary Walker".
-FJ
pps - Should I simply stare towards the horizon? Or should I now have enough courage and conviction to begin to "walk towards it"? "I have thought too long to stoop towards action, BB?"
-FJ
ppps - I think it was Kant who said that true Beauty (like the angel's wing in the painting) must have some defect so as to allow the viewer to "understand" and appreciate by the contrast, the beauty it contemplates.
Ladies. Apply your beauty marks!
-FJ
erratum to my first post..."My only complaint concerning the 1st work..."
My dis-ordered brain must not be functioning properly this morning...
-FJ
mr. ducky et al,
Can you spot the elements of the "sublime" in the veladora. Awesome application of the abstract... what is "veiled" in the image of the "adored" one.
-FJ
BB - You should have been an artist. I had never seen Trevino before. Thankyou for introducing him to me.
Samwich, I don't believe the Dixie Twits are on anyone's play list here in the Great State of Texas. I don't even hear people talking about them anymore.
mr. ducky,
Perhaps your vision is too jaded to notice that the virgin is also a "fertility" godess of sorts and the darker clouds in our sky that are clearing with the death of the snake. In that image lays the hope and expectation of a "re-birth". In a normal veladora, the abstract fertility elements would have been more obscured by the brightness of it's 'internal' light.
Your snake wraps itself around the eagle's throat and forces it to crash into the ground for it flies too high. Your sun has set and you stare at a new moon rising. Your "primitive" and "sublime" would absent beauty and nature and any hope of rebirth and lapse into abstract sterility.
Marcuse thought capitalism represented an embracement of Thanatos and so reached for Eros. He did not see it as a natural counterforce to the much greater and yet faltering Eros that was already present in the Church and embrace it instead. Too bad the images he saw and embraced were but abstract reflections in a mirror and so he acted to grab the tiller from the pilot for the sake of the "others" and thereby embraced Thanatos more closely and veered his boat and passengers towards the rocks. Unlike Odysseus, he wasn't used to piloting a boat. When one pushes on the rudder the boat steers in the "opposite" direction. Marcuse is no sailor. His pilot, the moon, is but reflected light. He should have tied himself to the mast more tightly, or bound himself with adamantine bonds. Only Kratos and Bia can deal with him now. And only the few have knowledge of differential calculus AND harmonics needed to "pencil in" the outlines once the "labor" has been "divided" and aims at a battle over the resulting surplus.
-FJ
I am going to try to take a picture of the veladora today and post it. The actual work is stunning because of the vibrant colors.
Farmer John, like many young Southern boys I took art lessons from the proverbial Southern gentlewoman art teacher in her back yard glassed art studio. I also took piano lessons and learned duck hunting with shotguns.
mr. ducky,
Do you "trust" your ancestors or ancient people at all? Can you discern their vision and believe that they intended to deceive posterity as to the "truth's" that they had discovered and wished to make "eternal"? You may have acquired "third-sight", but is a "fourth-sight" possible? Are you a new Alexander capable of cutting the Gordian's knot?
Celtic Art
-FJ
"Let not your heart be disturbed. Do not fear that sickness, nor any other sickness or anguish. Am I not here, who is your Mother? Are you not under my protection? Am I not your health? Are you not happily within my fold? What else do you wish? Do not grieve nor be disturbed by anything."
(Words said by of Our Lady of Guadalupe to Juan Diego)
Mr. Ducky, do you talk that way in front of your mother? Does she talk that way?
If mr. ducky could trust his vision, he should be able to close his eyes walk with "confidence". He has not yet learned to control his "bile" levels... an indication of his having only three eyes.
-FJ
Prometheus, a "titan" made mankind and stole "fire" from heaven and gave it to him. 4-thought requires a knowledge of the past,present, past's future's, and "calculus" so as to divine the present's future.
But like Epimetheus (after-thought) some can only mold animals and is willing to accept the gifts of Zeus (Necessity) like Pandora. And by so accepting Pandora, also accepts all other "gifts" from heaven.
-FJ
The Roman's openly taught their slaves all "arts and sciences" but one. The liberal arts. Liber for free. Liber for books. Books over arts. Thought before action.
Unfortunately, we have "failed" to learn from the Romans. We allowed "slaves" to learn the art of "rhetoric". Rhetoric has freed them, but failed to "instruct" them. Perhaps they should go back to school, and take the trivium and quadrivium. Only then can they truly construct the "Seven Pillars of Wisdom". At most, they can see "six". Leaving Athena... un-armoured and weapon-less. Pallas, where are you?
They do not do their "inverse" calculations, and so are deaf to the music of the spheres.
-FJ
More Frida Kahlo, for Senor Patito.
So, who's the male?
-FJ
The older I get the better I understand why the founding fathers were conflicted about class. Sometimes I observe the adults of our species, with children, and wonder who the heck is supervising them and how they have made it as far as they have.
Of course one's class does not ensure one's intellect and therein lies the conundrum. Perhaps the ancient Chinese were on the right track with their civil service system. Of course it would not work for us since the pseudo intellectual progressive liberal education wonks have determined that testing our little darlings is worthless and traumatizes the little dears. There is also the considerable delimna that our civil service system has nothing to do with merit, but rather the very important to productivity considerations of race, gender and political correctness.
We have a recent lesson in the relentless bungling of a bureaucracy devoted to political correctness. Ever wonder why the shuttle problem with foam has been a recent problem. Why didn't these problems exist years ago? Because NASA decided that it was very important that the foam comply with EPA regulations. The old foam formula was replaced with a new EPA regulation compliant, life threatening foam.
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Mr. Ducky, people like you are going to cause a world wide shortage of tinfoil.
Post Script...
Did anyone watch C-SPAN's coverage today of the Iranian parliment? You should have seen the artwork behind the speaker's podium. I think it's worth a discussion as a work of "art" all by itself... BOTH halves of it. One doesn't have to read Islamic to understand the "right" half. Just wish someone would translate the "left" half for me (Islamic "text"),
-FJ
Samwich, I was 38 years old when my grandmother died. Out of respect for her wishes I never smoked a cigarette in her presence. Foul language in the presence of any family female was out of the question.
I spent hours and hours at my grandmother's side being told about genteel conduct and refined behavior. Today while admonishing my granddaughter about some unladylike behavior I told her that my grandmother used to do the same to me about gentlemanly conduct and I was grateful for what she taught me.
Koreans are even more respectful of their elders. On the birthdays of grandparents the grandchildren prostrate theirselves on the floor in obeisance when they bring their birthday greetings and gifts.
BTW, Samwich, the reaction of Texand to the Dixie Twits was immediate. No long running debate. Literally here today gone tomorrow.
On the adoration of the Virgen de Guadalupe. I put this in the same category as magic garmies, end times prophecy, ritualistic worship and many other religious foibles. The definition of this category (mine) is "excess baggage that is non essential to the basic philosophy of Christian belief." The excess baggage is dangerous to one's soul if it is the focal point of one's spiritual life. I do not believe that the excess baggage, in and of its self, constitutes a mortal sin since I am a hard core Calvinist Baptist. We believe in one, and only one, mortal sin.
Lost in Space ; Were both space-shuttle disasters the result of putting environmentalism ahead of the lives of the astronauts? - Cover Story
Lost in Space. Posted Aug. 4, 2003, By John Berlau. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, better known as NASA, said in July that it had found the "smoking gun" that caused the space shuttle Columbia to break apart as it re-entered the Earth's atmosphere on Feb. 1: a piece of foam that had peeled off the external fuel tank and struck the shuttle's wing 1 minute and 22 seconds after liftoff.
But many experts looking at the tragedy that killed seven astronauts say there is a deeper cause. They say that the metaphorical smoking gun should be painted green.
Because of demands that the agency help to front for environmentalism, and under pressure from the Clinton-Gore administration's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) led by Carol Browner, NASA had stopped using Freon, a fluorocarbon that greens claim damages the ozone layer, in its thermal-insulating foam. NASA found in 1997 after the first launch with the politically correct substitute that the Freon-free foam had destroyed nearly 11 times as many of the shuttle's ceramic tiles as had the foam containing Freon. The politicized foam was less sticky and more brittle under extreme temperatures. But apparently little or nothing was done to resist the environmentalist politicians.
Bill Goss: Let Military Pilots Fly NASA’s Space Shuttle Like a Military Aircraft
....... And here’s a new piece to the puzzle in regards to the tragic loss of astronauts at NASA. What few know is how the Environmental Protection Agency’s constraints might have been a part of our space shuttles — our national treasures — falling from the sky. Why? Because, according to an op-ed piece in the Florida Times-Union, NASA began using Freon-free foam insulation at the request of the EPA even though this more politically correct foam insulation substitute was less sticky and more brittle at high temperatures than the foam that had previously contained Freon (a substance environmentalists claim damages the ozone layer, although not quite as badly as a space shuttle coming apart in the upper atmosphere might damage it.)
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