My Own Private Dias de los Muertos

Since I couldn't get down to Oaxaca this year to join Michael deMeng for his workshop during Dias de los Muertos, I have been celebrating at home, on my own, in my workshop, inspired by listening to corridos, especially those of Chavela Vargas, and especially the tragedy of la Llorona, a woman whose soul was consumed by toxic passion, amor perverso.  This is my evocation of the story, a demi-parure of necklace and earrings.  This will be part of my costume for the holiday, my own, private Dias de los Muertos, to set aside a day to commune with my own loved ones who now live in my heart and, in my hopes, in another dimension, at one with the Universe.  And also to pay my respects to la Paloma y el Sapo, whose great, passionate love and great, passionate art have enriched my life.

The necklace is made of rebar tie wire, a medicine bottle, a milagro of la Corizon, the glass lid of an old mustard pot, a yak bone mala bead in the form of a skull; sweet, rich red African pottery beads and betel nuts; the earrings are an evocation of Carl Jung's gift to Frida, the silver hands depicted in her self portraits, and made of desert-blasted rusty tin.