Art and Some Rants

Thought I'd post today since it might be the only time I can for the rest of the week.  This coming  Sat., Feb. 1, I'll be participating in a show in La Union, New Mexico.  I love that venue because the weather is mostly lovely (a bit windy at time, though), the people are fabulous and the coffee is strong and delish.  John and Shawn Smith are the proprietors of Johnny Lolita's in La Union, NM, and opened up their doors last year.  They specialize in their home roasted coffees, art and great conversation.  My little brother, Jaime, attended high school with Shawn and last year, when his family came down here from S. Cal, I went with him to so he could present Shawn with his award-winning photograph of their place.  I met Shawn and her very funny hubby, John...he's like the "Captain" to her "Teneel,"  maybe bad comparison since they're marriage is on the skids, but you get my point.  Through that couple, I was able to participate in my first art show in almost 20 years plus, sell my work in their shop.

Little bro, Jaime Diaz and Shawn O'Hara Smith

The Smith's also collected toys and cash for charity during Christmas and gave all the toys and proceeds to Avance, a non-profit organization that my sister is executive director.  So the Diaz family has been enriched from knowing this wonderful, giving couple....thanks guys!!  By the way, check out that blue sky..it's the real deal, folks, no photo shop trickery.

Ok, now for a tiny rant or perhaps an observation or more importantly, "Georgina needs to take a chill pill whilst watching commercials," but have you noticed all those eye drop commercials only hawk people with blue eyes, crystal clear blue eyes??  What about us brown eyed devils or green, hazel, dark blue, etc.?  Yes, I know, it's done for "effect" but come on, someone needs to stop being so esoteric and bring on some other colour eyed folks...we have problems too!  Rant said and as my father would have said, "As you were."  LOL

Speaking of my dad, an old friend of my parents just passed away, peacefully in his sleep, thank God.  He was quite frail the last couple of years and the medical professionals finally found out why his lungs were so compromised, he had stage 4 lung cancer.  You'd think with all the hospital visits in the last few years, they might have looked for the obvious, but since he was at an age that really doesn't matter anymore to these doctors, they never looked.  So farewell, Cachu, you were a wonderful man and father...had 8 kids in total, and is now enjoying the company, once more, of three of his children, two of which succumbed to cancer at very young ages.  Also, hope my dad has taken him to that "Great Bar in Heaven," to rejoin with "the boys."

Now for the art portion of this blog.  I got into Valentines Day stuff, which is a bit different for me since I'm not really into Valentines, but since I'll be doing the show this week, I know there are many who are, so I created a small series of hearts and cuties.

I love working with shadow box frames, I just couldn't resist, plus, I have a plethora of these frames, so might as well put them to some use.  The first two boxes are smaller and I used those laezer-cut wooden frame facades...love the look, now I'm really hooked on those. I also made some cute heart necklaces, stringing them on those pull chains used for ceiling fans, but for some reason, I didn't take photos of those...oh well, that will be for later. 

I'm also working on the Caged Santos doll concept, but having some engineering problems which I will figure out...it's not rocket science!  Maybe I should have paid more attention in Algebra class during my college years...nah!

I also am very excited about being on the ground floor of a new art group/organization formed by the lovely Pamela Enriquez of Las Cruces, NM. Actually it's Pam and a couple of her fellow artists in the Las Cruces/El Paso area.  I met Pam through another mutual friend from Facebook, a Canadian lady from Ontario who's been a fan of Pam's work for some time now.  I met Pam couple of years ago at the Dia de los Muertos show in Mesilla and fell in love with her work.  I visited her booth in Santa Fe, NM last summer while the hubs and I went to Spanish Market in July.  Her painting was chosen for the poster for the contemporary artists contingency.  Frankly, that's my favorite section of the show, the contemporary artists.  I do love all the gorgeous and traditional retablos and bultos made by the very talented New Mexican artists, but those contemp. artists are incredible!  So anyway, we met for the first time last Sat. at the train depot in Las Cruces and did come up with a name, "Las Manos de Oro," (The Hands of Gold) and in a couple of weeks, we meet again, hopefully we'll decided on a logo, mission statement (oey, don't get me started on mission statements) and we will be working on establishing a 501(c)(3) status, non-profit.  One of the purposes of this organization is to educate people about our Latino traditions and holidays...there's more than just Dia de los Muertos, and to promote the arts.  We'd like to grow, bring folks in from west TX, Southern & Northern NM, and maybe take it all the way to Califas (California) and states in between.  There are three of us from El Paso and the other members are from Las Cruces, Mesilla and Silver City, NM.  I'll post more as we grow.

Well, I think I better get in that kitchen and make some breakfast, but it's looking more like brunch.  I'm in the mood for waffles (ran out of Bisquick the other day when I was going to make pancakes, so I pulled out my ol' Betty Crocker cookbook from the 70's and found a fab recipe) and bacon.  I made some tortilla soup the other night and it was amazing...tweaked it a bit since I didn't want to have to make a trip to the store just for ancho chiles...had dried pasilla and chipotle chiles on hand, so I used those instead...happy ending!!  Even made my own tortilla strips...hate frying anything, but the results were delish.  Oh, one more small rant...the Super BOWEL game, may be postponed till Monday...an heard of...it's like telling your kids Santa didn't come because he had a dental appointment (got that quote from this morning's editorial).  So they wanted to play in NY, actually, NJ, in Feb.?????????  Really, didn't think that maybe there might be a weather issue...oey.  Personally, I don't care about the game or the teams, but I love the party!!  If this goes as planned I'll be making Posole.  My friend wanted me to "share" my menudo from New Years (have a years worth in the freezer) but I don't want to share and lots of people don't like the tripe meat in menudo anyway, so I'm taking posole instead...less hassle to make too.  

Ok, now I mean it...gots to run.  Have a great week, my friends, and as always, peace out.

Emails & Friends

Dear Anne

I was able to recover my yahoo mail, finally after three months.  I have never deleted so many emails in my entire life!!  It's amazing how much crap one accumulates in an email account.  I was ready to just hit that little square and delete EVERYTHING, but as I began scrolling down to see if there was anything I should save, there it was, or rather, many email exchanges between Anne and me.  I read and re-read them, laughing and recalling what we were ranting about.  I then began to cry, cry because I miss my friend so much.  Cry because I'm pissed off she left this world far too soon, cry because the good die young, or so the song goes.  But then, I began to laugh, laugh at all the conversations we had via the phone, laugh at all the silly things we did and said and finally, just laugh.  I think that Anne was giving  me a thump on the side of my skull letting me know she's there and that I WILL NOT FORGET HER...EVER!!!  LOL  I'm grateful for the time I knew her and I'm grateful for the lesson she taught us all, life's short, so go out there and raise hell, but have fun doing it too!!  So Anne, here's to you, my friend.  I promise to NEVER FORGET YOU,  but cut me some slack if I grow old and feeble, maybe feeble before I get too much older!!  

Ok, that's about all I wanted to say for now.  Am going to head on out to visit my mom...going to surprise her since I don't normally visit on Sundays.  So peace out, my amigas.