Elizabeth Adams's Blog, page 43

Love Takes Many Forms

Happy Valentine's Day, a day late!

Last week we spent a day at Museo Franz Mayer for the Decorative Arts. The collection is housed in a former church, hospital and monastery. One of the exhibitions displayed the treasures of the convent for the Discalced Carmelites, the order founded by Saint Teresa of Avila, the Spanish mystic (1515-1582). The treasures are presented along with a history of the order and this particular foundation, and a detailed look into the life led by the nuns.

The house had a lifesize polychrome statue of Saint Teresa, dressed like a wealthy woman of the period, in embroidered velvet with sewn-on pearls - as my friend V. exclaimed "She NEVER would have worn that!" - and of course she's right! This figure looks like a doll but it's five feet tall; sometime I'd like to research and write about the Mexican tradition of making these polychromed figures, which are most often Jesus or the Virgin, and incredibly lifelike. I think wax is applied over the paint to give a such a flesh-like appearance.

The abbess also had an extraordinary robe, embroidered (a better word might be "encrusted") entirely with silver threads.

There were fascinating documents in calligraphic handwriting, including one bearing the signature of Saint Teresa herself. 

And, of course, there are relics. A piece of the heart of St. Teresa; a piece of the flesh of her friend and mentor, the great mystic St. John of the Cross; two rose-colored fabric hearts that supposedly touched her garment; and (more touchingly, at least to me) a tiny sandal that St. Teresa supposedly wore, housed in a delicate crystal box and covered with flowers.

The women who entered this order in New Spain were often daughters of wealthy aristocrats; some are shown in life-size paintings, their heads crowned with elaborate bouquets of roses. When they took their vows of solemn profession, the nuns became "brides of Christ," sworn to a life of chastity, poverty and obedience. I did not know that this order included the practice of self-mortification, but the display included these metal whips, covered with vicious barbs and thorns, used by the nuns to flagellate themselves:

If it's hard to imagine why anyone would do this, especially women, perhaps this painting gives a clue: here is Christ as "The Divine Spouse", lying in a bed of flowers, into which are inscribed the instructions for a devout life: "Gratitude," "Love", "Penance," Renunciation, mortification.

Is it such a huge leap from teen-age girls going crazy over modern rock stars? With an image like this as one's only object of devotion, and a completely cloistered life, I can imagine love-sick, sexually-repressed young women resorting to extremes to win his favor, even though there seems to be a huge contradiction between the peaceful atmosphere of convents and monasteries, the beautiful embroideries and paintings, and what went on behind the closed doors.

El Papa

Pope Francis' image is everywhere - here he is, almost lifesize along the route his motorcade will take to the Zocalo tomorrow. On the far right, you can also see his face on the side of a phone booth.

Readers of this blog know about my longstanding interest in religions and how they intersect with culture and politics, so it may not be a surprise that we timed our visit to Mexico City this year to coincide with visitation of Mexico by Pope Francis. He arrived tonight - in fact, we watched his flight come in from our hotel room - it was unmistakable because all air traffic had ceased for a long time beforehand, and the plane was large. The tv coverage showed his arrival at the Presidential Hangar, greeted by a mariachi band and folkloric dancers, thousands of cheering (handpicked? specially invited?) Mexicans in grandstands, President Pena and his wife (they were both married when they got together, but were granted a special divorce/marriage permission by the Vatican - don't get me started), and phalanxes of Mexican cardinals and governmental ministers.

We attended Obama's inauguration, and have participated in huge political demonstrations in New York City, so I thought I'd seen crowd control and security, but none of that has come anywhere close to what is happening here. Jonathan will be covering the subject in much greater detail on his blog, but here are a few pictures from today; tomorrow we'll try to get close to the actual events and crowds, and see the motorcade as the Pope travels up to the Basilica of Guadalupe to say Mass.

Part of the barricaded motorcade route, the Zocalo in the distance. There are three separate checkpoint zones that people will have to pass before reaching the venues where the pope will be appearing, and there will be 10,000 soldiers in the city in addition to all the city and federal police and civilian volunteers.

These guards gave a big smile for the camera, though.

Yesterday in the late afternoon, we went up to one of the terrace restaurants high above the Zocalo to drink tequila and take some pictures with a bird's-eye view of the preparations for tomorrow's crowd when the Pope goes to the National Palace (on the far side of the square) and the walks over to the Metropolitan Cathedral, on the left. There are big screens that will show live video, and the Zocalo itself is gridded with pens that with contain the crowds in small enough numbers both for security, and to protect the people themselves. The rather tiny light brown structure at middle left, in the roadway, is a temporary grand entrance leading to the cathedral; when we walked by it yesterday, there was a tent containing potted calla lilies to be placed on the stage, and a metal wall that will also be filled with plants to make a green backdrop for the Pope's remarks or blessing, and, of course, for the photo op. We won't try to go there; we'll watch on tv, and try to see his motorcade elsewhere.

As I've said before, I admire this Pope, as popes go, and hope he'll be safe here. In order to make the points he wishes to make, he will be visiting some very dangerous places, and as we've watched these preparations in such a complicated and chaotic city it's been obvious that no amount of planning or force could guarantee his safety here. I can't help but be reminded of Jesus' entry into Jerusalem, the people who revered him, and the governmental powers who wanted him silenced. So I hope all will go well.

Color Therapy

Hola! I'm in Mexico City for a couple of weeks, and deliberately taking a break from blogging, but I thought I'd post a few pictures from time to time for those of you who aren't connected with me via Facebook or Instagram. It's still "winter" here at this high altitude - some of the trees are bare, the spring trees and flowers are just starting to bloom, and the Mexicans look like they're freezing, and are wearing coats, scarves, boots and hats, while we are basking in the sunshine and warmth. The days begin cool - in the high 40s or low 50s, and then warm up to the mid-70s. Except for some pollution, always an issue here, it's been bright and quite beautiful.

Having done most of the main "tourist" things in the past, we're visiting the current exhibitions but mostly just trying to be here, in this complex culture, learning more, doing deeper, trying to observe more layers of that complexity. I have immense respect for the Mexican people: their dignity, spontaneous warmth and generosity, their pride in their culture and history, the way they have borne such suffering and sorrow and continue to do so. There's a lot to learn from them, and I feel privileged to be able to spend some time here each year.

On Saturday, Pope Francis will be in the city, and we're hoping to be able to catch a glimpse of him and to try to capture in words and pictures some of what this event means here. So stay tuned, and even if I'm not writing anything lengthy before returning to Canada, I'll be putting up some pictures. Here's the link to my Instagram feed, and that's where I am hanging out on a more daily basis. However, Jonathan is publishing regular blog posts at jonzphoto, where he is posting his own photographs and text, and you might like to take a look over there. He'd be happy to hear from you too.

Multiple-Color Printing

There are several methods for making multiple-color relief prints, and in every case, the tricky part is the registration of the colors. In a reduction print, the same block is used throughout. You print a number of copies of the first color, then carve away a bit more, print another color, and so forth. By the end, of course, the block cannot be used to print another edition because most of it has been carved away. But the registration issues only involve placing the paper in exactly the same place every time.

When printing from multiple blocks, both the paper and the different blocks have to be in register for every copy. But nothing is destroyed in the process; you can print editions with different colorways, start over, add additional colors by making another block. I've made a few two-color prints, but this was the first time I tried three. Above are proof prints of each of the colors that will be combined onto one sheet of paper in the final print. Below, the blocks used to create them.

One block, called the key block, contains the most helpful information for keeping everything in one place - in this case, that's the black one, with the most complex detail. The other blocks are based on it and have to be created in perfect register. This is not particularly easy, because of the amount of handwork involved in tracing a mirror image onto a substrate that's going to be carved by hand.The blocks have to be exactly the same size, and held by some sort of system - I used a jig that I made out of matboard, mounted securely on a slightly sticky mat of a vinyl material used to line shelves. There also has to be a method for placing the paper in the same place for each color impression: I used finely-ruled lines on the edges of the matboard; for a larger print I would use a pin-registration system similar to that used by offset printers in the days before digital pre-press.

Below, the blue block and red block have been printed. The black lines of the key block will cover the gaps that you can see in the image, for example around the upper hand, and the triangular motif of the gown below the neck. (For the final edition, I mixed a slate-blue color rather than the brighter blue shown here.)

I'm just learning about the technical problems involved, but I have to admit, it's the kind of challenge I like - and it fits pretty well with my early days as a graphic designer, when we cut masks out of rubylith and had to figure out the registration of multiple-color jobs ourselves, setting them up manually. And it's OK with me not to have an absolutely perfect result - part of the unique beauty of a hand-pulled print is that it is just that: handmade. We're so used to computers making everything perfect. This is an ancient process, and I like it for exactly that reason.

 

From the Studio this Week

Olive. I'm experimenting with multiple-color relief prints...more on that in a day or two...and papers other than my usual Japanese rice papers. This is on lightweight Rives BFK, printed by hand: paper which is just substantial enough to be used as a card.

 

And it's been back to drawing. You've probably seen many of these objects here before! I like the relative speed and looseness of this fountain pen sketch.

 

And an ink and watercolor wash drawing of some broccoli rabe on a blue ceramic dish, done last night while dinner was in the oven. It feels good to be drawing again after a long break over the holidays.

 

 

 

In-between

 

 

 

On Sunday afternoons, I leave the cathedral around12:30, have something simple to eat -- a sandwich, a bowl of soup - and then walk through the underground city or along the streets for two hours, before rehearsal for Evensong begins. The walking is exercise for my shoulders and legs, to shake off the stiffness from holding a music folder while standing in concentration, but also for my eyes and head: long views instead of arm's-length, bright light, the busyness and movement and indifference of the city forming both a respite from, and a heightened awareness of our practice: a detailed focus on six or seven centuries of liturgical music, performed to the best of our ability. The city swirls around me, rushed, fragmentary, neon, bought, sold -- and I am in it, part of it, and also there, in that other place, where out of the gathered silence emerges the first note, an enormity.

Winter Walk

After the past few days of arctic winds, today feels almost warm. I walk to meet a friend for tea, a half-hour walk, bundled in scarf, hat, down parka with its coyote-trimmed hood, gloves, warm boots. Parents pull little children on sleds; a few cyclists ride through six inches of snowy slush on studded tires; on the distant edge of the park, the upper bodies of hockey players glide back and forth behind the boards of the rink, frictionless and silent. In Oslo, Helsinki, Moscow, other people are doing the same things, we're used to it, sixty years of it in my case, the way we stamp our feet when we enter an interior, feel the heat against our cold cheeks, undo the zippers and push back the hoods, strip off a few layers of wool and fleece, present our faces for two kisses from those who're already inside.

Pennsylvania

January 17, rural Pennsylvania. This is a Quaker house of many books, in every room, collected over a lifetime. The shelf closest to my bed where I wake is devoted to religion and spirituality: I glance over the titles and see biographies of William Tyndale, Francis of Assisi and Gandhi, but the focus of the collection is Quaker thought and Quaker history. It's Sunday, and my brother-in-law and sister-in-law are already at Meeting. A soft morning light filters through the bare branches of tamaracks, and a dozen mourning doves peck and coo beneath the bird feeder in a gnarled old quince.

I read a little of William Penn's writings, and then look him up and realize I know next to nothing about this man I think of as a founding father and colleague of Benjamin Franklin's, but who was actually born 60 years earlier. As a young man at the time of Cromwell, Penn was imprisoned in the Tower of London for his Quaker beliefs, disinherited by his aristocratic Anglican father, but eventually released and reconciled. He received his inheritance and a grant from the King, and founded the province of Pennsylvania as a haven for England's persecuted Quakers, advocating peace, pacifism, the equality of men and women. His writings and thought were greatly admired by Voltaire, and later by that other Pennsylvanian, Franklin, but Penn - too generous, and a poor manager - finally died penniless in England.

The calendar tells me it's Franklin's birthday today: unlike the Wikipedia (also celebrating, but only 15) Franklin would be 306 today; Penn, 372. Those centuries compress as we drive through the countryside of Bucks County, past one colonial homestead after another, built of solid fieldstones, set into a landscape of streams and rolling fields that Penn must have loved, and Franklin and Washington no doubt saw with their own eyes. A revolution, and pacifism: how did those ideas coexist then? Penn wrote: "My prison shall be my grave before I will budge a jot: for I owe my conscience to no mortal man."

 

Reconstruction

Two hours in the dental chair, two syringes of Novocaine, one new crown. We talk about David Bowie, Donald Trump, Bernie; Florida, Mexico, Montreal; mattresses, computers, violin sonatas, discothèques. The chairside conversation moves seamlessly from English (with me) to French (with the dental assistant, who is Indian) with smatterings of German, Italian, Spanish. Trump isn't electable, I offer, through a mouth packed with cotton. "Oh yes he is, my dear," says the dentist. "'Give me your freedom, and in exchange I'll give you back everything you think you've lost.'" He is Romanian, and knows dictators, and I haven't the ability to argue, with all these fingers and metallic objects in my mouth.

When we're finally finished he says Auf Wiedersehen, and raises the chair. I answer Danke schön, and rise slowly, massaging my neck, and when I glance over at him, he's doing the same thing, grimacing. "Where did our twenty-year-old bodies go?" I ask, and laugh. He smiles: "We're aging gracefully," and puts his arm around my shoulder. "And with humor," I add. "Black as it is!"

Outside on St Catherine street at 2:00 pm, snow is falling steadily. I gulp lungfuls of the cold, damp air before entering the underground, buy a carrot muffin that I stash in my purse, and then stop in a public bathroom where I'm shocked to see my paralyzed face in the mirror, one side of my mouth frozen and drooping; I look like I've had a stroke. I pull my scarf around my jaw and take the metro to Papineau, where I wait in the snow to catch a grimy double bus north, feeling battered and hungry, and wondering when the anesthetic will have worn off enough that I can eat something without biting a hole in my face.

But when the bus starts up the hill, we pass a cherry tree, still loaded with bright red fruits, each cluster sporting a topknot of snow, and when I turn around to watch this marvel recede in the window I notice that the young woman behind me is studying a difficult classical piano score. I can't see the composer's name, just that it is a prelude, probably Bach, and I take a deep breath as I press the buzzer for my stop and allow the world to rearrange before stepping out into the clean snow.

Scenes from a Park, Before Snow

I looked up when the branches swung.

White gulls were eating black cherries.

-Tomas Transtromer

It is the sky's being so grey

that makes the ground begin to shine.

-Tomas Transtromer

Maybe this is the only way to avoid fear

Settle into fear like one inhabiting slowness

Ghosts we all possess

Simply waiting for someone or something in the ruins.

-Roberto Bolano