Sometimes the sights along the streets of Oaxaca make me chuckle.
And, I just have to stop and record the scene.
Posted in Creativity, Culture, Transportation, Travel & Tourism, tagged car, Mexico, motorcycles, murals, Oaxaca, photos, popular travel destinations, street art, urban art, wall art on April 4, 2024| 4 Comments »
Sometimes the sights along the streets of Oaxaca make me chuckle.
And, I just have to stop and record the scene.
Posted in Creativity, Culture, Holidays, Travel & Tourism, tagged Armarte, Mexico, Oaxaca, photos, political messaging, popular travel destinations, stencil art, street art, urban art, wall art, women graffiti, women's faces on March 8, 2024| Leave a Comment »
Celebrating March 8, International Women’s Day, with women speaking from the walls of Oaxaca.
From ARMARTE, a women’s collective dedicated to using the arts as a tool for social transformation.
Posted in Celebrations, Creativity, Culture, Holidays, Travel & Tourism, tagged Day of Love and Friendship, Día del Amor y la Amistad, hearts, Mexico, Noel Gómez Lorenzo, Oaxaca, Paulina Solís Ocampo (choreographer), photos, popular travel destinations, street art, urban art, Valentine's Day on February 14, 2024| Leave a Comment »
On this gray Valentine’s Day in the “City By the Bay,” I left my heart in Oaxaca…
¡Feliz Día del Amor y la Amistad! Happy Day of Love and Friendship!
Posted in Agriculture, Celebrations, Creativity, Culture, Food, Travel & Tourism, tagged Carina Santiago, corn, Día Nacional del Maíz, food, Los Guardianes del Maíz (documentary), maíz, Mexico, murals, National Day of Corn, Oaxaca, photos, popular travel destinations, street art, Teotitlán del Valle, urban art, wall art on September 29, 2023| 6 Comments »
Today, September 29, Mexico celebrates Día Nacional del Maíz — a day honoring the sacred maíz, symbol of the country and base food crop for most of the nation. In Oaxaca, one never has to look far to see corn and not just in fields. Corn is depicted in murals, featured in decorations, and (of course) on most every dining table, most every day.
In the words of cocinera tradicional Carina Santiago, at the beginning of the trailer (below) for the tremendous documentary, Los Guardianes del Maíz / The Keepers of Corn, “Corn was not domesticated by man, man was domesticated by corn.”
Posted in Creativity, Culture, Travel & Tourism, tagged Mexico, murals, Oaxaca, photos, popular travel destinations, San Antonino Castillo Velasco, San Pablo Villa de Mitla, street art, urban art, wall art on August 17, 2023| Leave a Comment »
Posted in Beverages, Creativity, Culture, Music, Travel & Tourism, tagged agave, Dos Botellaas De Mezcal (song), Dueto Dos Rosas, La Santa Cecilia, maguey, Mexico, mezcal, murals, Oaxaca, photos, popular travel destinations, street art, urban art, wall art on June 29, 2023| 10 Comments »
From the streets of Oaxaca, maguey to mezcal in murals.
And then comes the music, “Dos Botellas de Mezcal” (Two Bottles of Mezcal).
Cheers! ¡Salud! ¡Dixeebe!
Posted in Animals, Creativity, Culture, Environment, Flora, Travel & Tourism, tagged carved animals, Heriberto Castro López, Indian Laurel tree, Llano Park, Mexico, Nahuatl language, Oaxaca, Parque Juarez El Llano, photos, popular travel destinations, street art, tree sculptures, tree trunk art, urban art, wood carving on May 23, 2023| 9 Comments »
The violent storms Oaxaca experienced in mid April brought down 30+ trees in the city, including one of her beloved old Indian laurels in Llano Park. And, when a tree falls in Oaxaca…
Talented artist, Heriberto Castro López, grabbed his chainsaw and chisel and, with the blessings of the powers that be, turned the fallen tree into a public work of art, a language lesson, and a plea for help.
A monkey, a jaguar, an eagle, a rabbit, an iguana, and there’s a snake in there somewhere — all animals iconic to Oaxaca — emerged.
The animals seem appropriate, as Parque el Llano (aka, Paseo Juárez, El Llano de Guadalupe, and Alameda de Nezahualcoyotl) housed a zoo from 1945 to 1971 (dates not verified) — hence the gold painted lions at the four main entrances to the park.
However, this time the animals aren’t confined to cages — they are free and calling on us to save this planet we all call home before it’s too late.
Many thanks to Heriberto Castro López for his “Llamado de Auxilio” gift to Oaxaca.
Posted in Celebrations, Creativity, Culture, Holidays, Travel & Tourism, tagged Día de la Madre, Mexico, Mother's Day, murals, Oaxaca, photos, popular travel destinations, street art, urban art, wall art on May 9, 2023| 7 Comments »
May 10 is Día de la Madre in Mexico and to honor the mothers, grandmothers, mother figures, and the daughters, whose future is in their hands, some recent murals seen in the city and countryside.
The celebration of Mother’s Day migrated south from the USA in the early 20th century and was embraced and promoted by the Catholic Church AND the anticlerical Revolutionaries. Their reasons being:
around the 1850s the Liberals… were nervous about women’s growing participation in the public sphere. Establishing motherhood as venerable and the home as sanctified… would give women a sphere of their own where they could be boss. Also, it would keep them off the streets and out of the workplace where they had begun to compete with men for jobs. Under their watch, everyday motherhood became an exalted madre-hood…. The twentieth-century Revolutionaries who succeeded them took the idea and ran with it, adding in 1922 a ritual, Mother’s Day. [Madre: Perilous Journeys with a Spanish Noun by Liza Bakewell, p. 84]
As for keeping them out of the workforce, according to a report citing the 2010 census, 33.3% of women work and this doesn’t even include those working in family operated enterprises. However distasteful the reasons behind the establishment of Mother’s Day in Mexico, it does nothing to diminish the need to honor these beautiful, hardworking, formidable, and loving women.
And to the girls and young women, may you be empowered by the strength and love of the maternal figures in your life to reach for the stars, live without fear, and be whatever you choose to be.
Posted in Celebrations, Churches, Creativity, Culture, Holidays, Neighborhoods, Travel & Tourism, tagged Alfombristas Mexicanos, cross, Easter decorations, Lent, Mexico, Oaxaca, olive trees, papel picado, photos, popular travel destinations, purple, sotol flower art, street art, tapetes de arena, Templo San Matías Jalatlaco, urban art on April 6, 2023| 11 Comments »
Purple papel picado (actually, plastic) began appearing above streets a month ago. And, in the past few days, the atrium of Templo San Matías Jalatlaco has been decorated with olive trees, sheaves of wheat, and crosses embellished with flowers woven from the base of Sotol leaves.
Yesterday, Calle de Miguel Hidalgo in front of the church was closed to traffic and the Alfombristas Mexicanos colective from Huamantla, Tlaxcala began creating a beautiful tapete (rug) made of colored stones along the length the block.
Purple decorations can also be seen festooning the fronts of homes and businesses in the neighborhood.
You might ask, why all the purple? According to the Ecclesiastical Sewing website, purple symbolizes “the royalty of Christ, His passion and death for our sins, and the coming of spring.” For more of an explanation, click on the link to their website.
Posted in Buildings, Creativity, Culture, Travel & Tourism, tagged crumbling walls, Mexico, murals, Oaxaca, photos, popular travel destinations, street art, urban art, wall art on January 25, 2023| 18 Comments »
One of the joys of living in Oaxaca de Juárez is being able to walk most everywhere I need to go. On this particular day, I headed 2 km. south to Veana Oaxaca Mayoreo in search of more plastic chairs for my terrace. Though the route, which took me down Calle de Xicoténcatl, wasn’t one I normally followed, nor along the most scenic and/or quaint of streets, it still had scenes to surprise and delight.
Given that my mission was successful, the young male sales clerk hoisted the six chairs I’d purchased and carried them half a block, where he set them down on the sidewalk at the next intersection, telling me this was the best location to hail a taxi. An empty taxi appeared within three minutes. More reasons why I love Oaxaca!