Miracles Happen

Dear Art of Brownsville Readers:

I write this post with much emotion. I have recently survived a very bad car accident that took place in Harlingen yesterday evening. Long story short, my truck hit the right-side concrete barricade of the expressway, swerved towards the left-side barricade and then bounced off it and rolled over a few times before I landed upside down. Fortunately I was on my way home from McAllen after traffic hour so no one else was hurt. My Forerunner is a disaster and I am blessedly whole with only a few cuts and lots of bruises and a strained knee. I was able to walk away from the scene after some very nice people helped pull me out of my truck. I was very fortunate that I survived the way I did and that so many people stopped to help me. In particular, two women jumped the concrete barricade after witnesssing the event from the north-bound frontage road. They were both Christian women who prayed and comforted me while the ambulance came for me. Having been raised in a Christian home, their morale support felt so comforting. I made it through the hospital alright but I don't think I had ever felt so uncomfortable in my life. Many tests were made and it turned out that they found a tumor in one of my ovaries. The news is incredibly shocking to me but in retrospect if this accident had not occured, I would have never known. The doctor said that most likely the tumor is benign so God hoping it can be cured.

It was a miracle that I did not die. My sister wanted me to post about this even though I was hesitant at first. She took some pictures of the truck today and the front of it is in shambles. Later on I will try to post a few up if I can. I also cannot find the power adapter for my laptop which may have been lost to the accident so I am using the last bit of my battery life. My great apple PowerBook survived with a lot of scratches but amazingly it is still working.

I wish to extend my sincerest gratitude to those have given me so much love and morale support in the past 24 hours. In particular to my family, the paramedics and staff of Valley Baptist Medical Center-Harlingen, those who helped me at the scene of the accident and to my friends in McAllen, Brownsville and Texas. Your support is getting me through this and I am glad that we have been able to laugh and cry. Most of all I want to thank God! THANK YOU SO MUCH GOD!

Okay, my computer is threatening to turn off. I don't know the complete lesson of this experience yet. All I know is that I feel so blessed and so fortunate. I feel like I have been given a second chance. I feel over-whelmed and I feel relieved. I know God is out there for sure now. I should not have survived that accident but I did and I see now that it was because someone was watching over me and I have so many blessings on my side. I just never truly realized it as a reality until now.

Love Life!

Some pics

Here are a few pics from my visit to Mexico City. I will try to add more soon. Meanwhile enjoy this picture that I took outside La Casa de Frida Kahlo.

Have a good start to the week!

Super-quickie Update

Yikes!

This has to be fast! I have to go cut the lawn because our front yard looks like the haircut from A Flock of Seagulls and at some point after that I am going take my mom to see The Interpreter and do some work. I was supposed to start the lawn two hours ago but I got lazy and started downloading songs from iTunes (catching up on my Fey, Coldplay and revisiting Belly), web surfing and researching shoe schools in Italy. It's my first day to myself in 4 weeks! Can you blame me???

My Mexico City trip you can say was a bit life altering because all of a sudden the world seems much bigger and our lifespan here smaller at the same time. So in realization of this, I have decided to speed up my plans to pursue my shoe and accessory design career, thus the shoe school research. My friend Susan and I are going to Italy in January and our plans were set on top the Pyrimad of the Sun in Teotihuacan. We even put our thumbs on top of this metal stone on top of the pyrimad! What does that mean? I don't know, but it was this small and shiny metal rock on top this tall pyrimad that kicked our butts so it has to mean something important! God, it was an amazing experience! Just being on top of those monumental man-made mountains overlooking the valley and cerros! And I don't know how I am going to make it to Italy in 8 months but I will. Life is too short and my 24th birthday is creeping nearer, and by the time you know I'll be 25, and then 30 and then 40 and then 50! I know, an exageration of worries but it is true and I'd rather take action than wait 3-4 years for something that I may or may not like. I'd rather know sooner than later.

Okay, I'll blog later tonight if I can. Sorry I have not been the best of blogeras the past few weeks. I hope you all had a chance to visit the Arte at el Ranchito event and if not, try to catch tommorrow's event with the Brownsville Historical Association. Yesterday, Symphony at the Park was also held (which I missed as well). :O( I am really out of loop but I am going to try and catch up and bring you all better news of art in Brownsville and La Frontera.

Take care y hasta luego!

GARDENS OF NEW SPAIN

From the Brownsville Historical Association:

Please join us for a very unique presentation by William W. Dunmire on his new book:

GARDENS OF NEW SPAIN:  HOW MEDITERRANEAN PLANTS AND FOODS CHANGED AMERICA

Bill Dumire's illustrated talk tells the story of how crops, longhorn cattle, and new foods made their way from Spain to the Texas frontier, and how native Indians responded.

Our menus today connect back to those Hispanic colonial times.

Books will be available for author signing and purchase after the program.

Book price $24.95 plus tax = $27.01       Limited number available

Checks payable to the Brownsville Historical Association
 
When:     Monday, April 25, 2005   7:00 p.m.

Where:    Brownsville Heritage Museum
               1325 E. Washington Street
               Brownsville, Texas  78520

For more information, please call (956) 541-5560 (Tues-Sat, 10:00 -4:00)

This event is FREE and open to the public

Refreshments will be served.

Regrese!

I am back from el D.F.! I had A LOT of FUN and my experience was so eye opening and the lessons I learned were so unexpected....in short, the most enriching aspect of my trip to Mexico was not art as I was expecting (even though the art was AWESOME!)...but what really impressed me the most about Mexico was my family. It's a long story and I have to go to bed soon because I have an early drive to work tommorrow and I just got in from Mexico City....but what I can say right now is that I am so humbled and so grateful for my wonderful family and how they opened their homes and their hearts to my mother, my friend Susan and I without the bat of an eye. I have a HUGE family in Mexico City (about 70 offspring from my grandparents alone) and I met so many wonderful people and the warmth and love they gave us...I am just so touched and moved. I also met the family of my dad's mentor who is also a taxi driver in Mexico City and drove as around our first and last days there. When my dad was in his teens and without a place to go, he and his family opened their home and hearts to my father, so in essence they are family too and I felt to humbled just at the fact that they loved us like family as well. Gosh, I was just so impressed with the Mexican family dymanics (at all three homes I stayed in, I found 3 generations living under the same roof with room to grow!) And they were all so nice and so loving... I didn't want to leave and I even inquired as to how much it would be to rent in Coyoacan...who knows maybe later...but I hope to go back soon!

A Drawing to Show

Aqui Estoy. (my talent that is).

I don't think I have ever officialy shared my own art on this site so this is completely new. This is a study of Raphael's detail of Santa Barbara from "Sistine Madonna", 1512. I used to make a lot studies of renaissance paintings in art school but have not made one in about 2 years. This one I made two nights ago. I began at 11:30pm and finished around 3:15am. Regardless of my lack of sleep that night, I had a lot of fun making it. I was using a cheap No. 2 pencil so I had some trouble blending and getting the right tonal values and effects I wanted. There also are some proportional aspects I can work on and I had to make up the right part of her face because the picture I was drawing from had cropped her face up to her right cheek, so the ear and the hairstyle is mostly my doing. But beyond anaylytical criticism, I think I did a pretty good job with my limited medium. I have had a recent surge of inspiration and I am going to make the most of it. I have made some more shoe drawings...my earlier ones you can take a look at from my website.

The quote that I wrote next to it is from the Last Canto of Dante. Here it is:

In that abyss I saw how love held bound
Into one volume all the leaves whose flight
Is scattered through the universe around;
How substance, accident, and mode unite;
Fused, so to speak, together, in such wise;
That this I tell of: one simple light.

Pretty much I made this study from a book I just read called "Birth of Venus", which takes place in Florence during the Renaissance. The picture is used on the cover of the book and the quote is from the novel itself (Just in case you are wondering, I am not to well versed in Dante. I just really liked the quote.) The book left an impression on me because I am completely amoured with the Renaissance and it's history. Seriously...I am obssesed with Venetian painting (especialy Titian) and own books on the Medici art and history.

I will be taking my sketch book with me to Mexico so I can't wait to see what inspires me there and what artistic inspirations I bring back with me. I will be heading to Frida Kahlo's house! I can't wait to be standing on those pyrimads and to look at the works of Rivera, Siquieros and Orozco with a more appreciative eye than the one I had at age 12. Bueno, I really do have to go now. I'll probably blog next week because I won't have access to the internet until next Tuesday. I hope you all have a great weekend! Hasta Luego!

WOO HOO!

Woo Hoo! I'm back home in Brownsville. You know what my favorite part is about driving home from McAllen? The drive down Boca Chica from the Expressway towards Central Blvd. I love passing by the three resacas and seeing the sunset, palm trees, weeping willows and ebony trees reflected off the water. Sometimes I may be lucky and catch the sight of a group of pelicans perched upon a dormant ariator or of a stork poised for a portrait by the edge of the resaca. But I have an even bigger Woo Hoo in store for you all....you all ready?......

WOO HOO!

I am going to Mexico! Since I am going to Mexico, perhaps I should yell "AAAIIIIIEEEEE!!!" Yes, indeed my pilgrimage to Mexico, MEXICO (no D.F. needed here) will be happening. I am intent on getting my Garden State/Barbaric Yawp moment on top of The Pyrimad of the Moon!

I will also be looking into the Wal-Mart controversy at Teotihuacan. I agree that it is disrespectful for Wal-Mart to build so close to such a monumental and significant site in Mexican culture and history, but I also feel hypocritical typing this as I wear my black sweater and polka dot shirt which I bought at Wal-Mart. So first I am going to get my first-hand observations and then write a piece about it for The Backword for their May issue.

This vacation will also be a cultural pilgrimage of sorts as I go to rediscover my origins. I could say that this is my first "Chicano" initiative, though many of my past projects can be seen as such. If I am a social and cultural, Mexican-American activist, why don't I just call myself Chicana? I don't know...but I am still not comfortable with it and so maybe when I return from this trip I will understand my feelings on this better. I know one time at a lecture, I caused a stir when I brought up the issue of the "Chicano" label. Afterwards, people would ask...if you don't consider yourself Chicana, then what do you call yourself? Some people were more befuddled than concerned, but I just couldn't see why having a label is so important. There is more to me than just being Mexican-American, but it is a part of me that I do celebrate and pursue to understand...so does that instantly make me a Chicana? This is complicated indeed. Aver que pienso en cinco dias.

OK I got go now. I am falling alseep as I type this and I have to wake up early to catch a flight. I'll try to blog again very soon! Hasta Luego!

Amigos Artistas: Art at El Ranchito

Amigos Artistas & IBC Bank present
Art at El Ranchito
Spring Art Show

Photography
Paintings
Sculptures
Ceramics
Mixed Media

Featuring Local Artists
Saturday, April 23rd, 2005
10am - 4pm
IBC - El Ranchito Park
221 El Jardin Heights, Brownsville, Texas 78521

Admission Free!
Donations accepted.

Raffle for "Los Viajeros II" oil painting
by Felipe Morales
will be held during this event, along with three art pieces from previous and future Amigos Artistas Exhibitions

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Go and check this out folks! It's going to be a lot of fun and a one of a kind of event in Brownsville that I hope will come to be repeated often. So go and support local art and help in the development of a stonger art scene in our community! It all starts with your support!

Brownsville Pictorial History

Hello Everyone!

I want to inform you all of a new Brownsville Website called A Pictorial History of Brownsville, Tx Past, Present, & Future: Growth & Development which is maintained by Brownsville architecture and photography enthusiast Tony Lehman Jr. You can check out his website at: www.brownsvilletexasonline.com

It is a great resource for Brownsville pictures and more will be added to it with time. Now the beauty and history of Brownsville has an even stronger presence on the internet! Go check it out and congrats to Tony for doing such a great job!

Quickie Update

Sorry so long folks. I am still in McAllen working and I don't have internet access at my place. Yesterday I went to April's ArtWalk in McAllen and it was a lot of fun! I went to the Klein Gallery where I actually saw two paintings of a Brownsville resaca with palms and it made me a bit homesick. I hope to be there soon because I have some pictures to take care of for two photography projects I want to finish, one long over due wedding album and one more recent graphic design.

On that recent note, I wish to extend big thanks to Chris Davis over at Cafe Brownsville for donating a digital camera for the Art of Brownsville! YAY! If you all may have noticed I took off my donation box because Chris was so nice to donate his camera to me! TAOB readers, I encourage you to visit Cafe Brownsville to read more about all things Brownsville. Thanks once again Chris! :)

Also, go check out the April issue of The Backword.com. They always have awesome features to read!

Ok, gotta go! Take care folks and I'll try to blog again soon!