Posted in Creativity, Culture, People, Travel & Tourism, tagged Efedefroy, Mexico, Oaxaca, photographs, photos, popular travel destinations, street art, wall art, Wearable Art Textile Studio, Wizard of Oz on July 14, 2018| 4 Comments »
“Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.”
All you have to do is click your heels together three times and say “There’s no place like Oaxaca.”
And you too can be a Tehuana in Oaxaca.
Seen on the wall outside Wearable Art Textile Studio, Gurrión 110 — across from the south side of Santo Domingo.
Update: Artist is Froy Padilla Aragón (aka, Efedefroy). Check out an article (en español) about him HERE.
Posted in Creativity, Culture, Politics, Travel & Tourism, tagged graffiti, Mexico, Oaxaca, photographs, photos, popular travel destinations, street art, URTARTE, wall art on June 30, 2018| 2 Comments »
Despite Mexican elections tomorrow and the Mexico vs. Brazil World Cup elimination game on Monday, the walls of Oaxaca will not be silenced.
The latest from the walls of Gimnasio Universitario Centro Histórico of UABJO (Universidad Autónoma Benito Juárez de Oaxaca city center gymnasium) on Av. José María Morelos.
Posted in Creativity, Culture, Music, Travel & Tourism, tagged art, artists, Bob Dylan, Erika Santiago, Joan Baez, Mexico, murals, music, Oaxaca, photographs, photos, Sad-Eyed Lady Of the Lowlands, San Eyed, street art, urban art, wall art on June 4, 2018| 2 Comments »
Passing Erika Santiago‘s haunting mural along the wall outside Almacén Mexicano on Calle Valentín Gómez Farías, Sad-Eyed Lady Of the Lowlands began playing in my head.
Sometimes art brings a song. And, maybe we are all a little sad these days.
Posted in Buildings, Creativity, Culture, Travel & Tourism, tagged abandoned buildings, crumbling buildings, graffiti, Mexico, Oaxaca, photographs, photos, popular travel destinations, street art, The Positive Affect, urban art, wall art on May 9, 2018| Leave a Comment »
Even if it looks like the world is crumbling around you…
On Reforma, at the corner of Constitucion in Oaxaca — courtesy of The Positive Affect project.
Posted in Creativity, Culture, Travel & Tourism, tagged graphic arts, La Unión Revolucionaria de Trabajadores del Arte, Mexico, Oaxaca, photographs, photos, popular travel destinations, stencil art, street art, URTARTE, wall art on April 14, 2018| 2 Comments »
From boys to men, there are fierce faces watching from the walls in my neighborhood.
Color from La Unión Revolucionaria de Trabajadores del Arte (URTARTE).
Posted in Creativity, Culture, Travel & Tourism, tagged graffiti, graphic arts, La Unión Revolucionaria de Trabajadores del Arte, Mexico, Oaxaca, photographs, photos, popular travel destinations, stencil art, street art, URTARTE, wall art on April 12, 2018| 4 Comments »
Faces at Manuel Sabino Crespo and Mariano Matamoros…
Man in a green hat – Crespo at Matamoros
Man in a red hat – Matamoros at Crespo
The art of standing on the corner in Oaxaca.
Posted in Buildings, Creativity, Culture, Music, Travel & Tourism, tagged art, Magic Carpet Ride song, Mexico, murals, Oaxaca, photographs, photos, Steppenwolf, street art, urban art, wall art on March 12, 2018| 6 Comments »
On Calle de Ignacio Allende at the corner of Tinoco y Palacios, a new mural is ready to take you on a magic carpet ride.
Well, you don’t know what we can find
Why don’t you come with me little girl
On a magic carpet ride
You don’t know what we can see
Why don’t you tell your dreams to me
Fantasy will set you free
Close your eyes girl
Look inside girl
Let the sound take you away
— Magic Carpet Ride, written by Normal Cook, Robert Manuel Clivilles, and David Bryon Cole; performed by Steppenwolf.
Hopefully, this mural won’t be slapped with “pintura no autorizada” signs like its predecessor.
Posted in Creativity, Culture, Holidays, Travel & Tourism, tagged Día del Amor y la Amistad, Ketnipz, Mexico, mural, Oaxaca, photographs, photos, street art, Valentine's Day, wall art on February 14, 2018| 2 Comments »
Mural on Calle Berriozábal by young Welsh artist, Harry Hambley — aka, Ketnipz.
As we say in Mexico, Feliz día del amor y la amistad — Happy day of love and friendship!
Posted in Buildings, Creativity, Culture, Travel & Tourism, tagged basketball, gymnasium, iconic imagery, Mexico, murals, Oaxaca, photographs, photos, popular travel destinations, San Pablo Villa de Mitla, wall art on January 26, 2018| 6 Comments »
A day late, but not a dollar short, I finally made my way to the San Francisco Bay Area a week and a half ago. The days have been filled with family, friends, and appointments. However, today there was nothing on the agenda, I was worn out from all the activities, and baby it was cold outside. Thus, time to look back through photos earmarked for blog posts that had gone unwritten.
Leaving San Pablo Villa de Mitla after shopping for Pan de Muertos during Day of the Dead, we took a different route out of town and discovered a gymnasium with murals on the walls, both outside…
… and inside. Traditional, political, and colorful imagery to inspire playing your best!
You just never know what you will find when you take the road less traveled.
Posted in Creativity, Culture, Travel & Tourism, tagged garbage, graffiti, Jonkye Feral, Mexico, Oaxaca, photographs, photos, popular travel destinations, street art, trash bag, wall art on January 10, 2018| 6 Comments »
Posted in Buildings, Creativity, Culture, Travel & Tourism, tagged art, Mexico, murals, Oaxaca, photographs, photos, pintura no autorizada, street art, unauthorized painting, urban art, wall art on December 5, 2017| 1 Comment »
Walls of murals may be welcomed and encouraged in Tlacolula de Matamoros and Villa de Zaachila but, alas, such is not the case in the city of Oaxaca. Remember the image on my Surfin’ safari post in September?
Calle de Ignacio Allende at the corner of Tinoco y Palacios
And it wasn’t even finished — it is even more impressive now!
However, do you see the two sheets of paper defacing the mural?
Here we go again… Like Color and culture, unwelcome and Lapiztola’s incredibly moving mural on the side of Museo Belber Jimenez, the authorities have declared this wonderful piece of art did not have their permission and will, most probably, be painted over. Don’t they have more pressing problems to deal with? Hint: The multiple buildings “en mal estado” scattered throughout the Historic District that are in danger of collapsing onto pedestrians and drivers.
Posted in Creativity, Culture, Exhibitions, Libraries, Travel & Tourism, tagged California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles Public Library, Mexico, murals, Oaxaca, photographs, photos, popular travel destinations, street art, Tlacolula de Matamoros, Tlacolulokos, urban art, Visualizing Language: Oaxaca in L.A. exhibition, wall art on November 30, 2017| 19 Comments »
Last week in Tlacolula, as friends and I were studying the “¡Solo Dios perdona!” mural by the Tlacolulokos collective, the storekeeper next door advised us that if we liked that one, we should check out another spectacular Tlacolulokos mural a few blocks away. So we did.
He was right — it was indeed stunning in SO many ways! We came face-to-face with three strong, proud, and beautiful Zapotec women of Tlacolula wearing their stories.
There was the traditional white blouse with its crocheted yolk, the black and white rebozo twisted into a head covering, and there were the prized gold and pearl earrings.
But, so too were the tattoos of iconic Catholic imagery of Virgen María and Jésus wearing his crown of thorns juxtaposed with pre-Conquest grecas of Mitla, a Spanish galleon, and the heart-dagger of betrayal. This is one powerful mural! And, the story doesn’t end here in Oaxaca.
It is estimated that 250,000 Zapotecs live in the greater Los Angeles area — “making it the largest concentration of Oaxacans outside of Oaxaca thus earning its unofficial title among Oaxacan in the United States as Oaxacalifornia.” (The Voice of Indigenous Resistance in Oaxacalifornia) Thus it was appropriate that Cosijoesa Cernas and Dario Canul of the Tlacolulokos collective were invited to create eight massive murals, “Visualizing Language: Oaxaca in L.A” for an exhibition at the Los Angeles Public Library. They hang “below murals by Dean Cornwell, whose depictions of California’s history, completed in 1933, ignore Native Californian cultures and ‘fail to recognize the suffering of native peoples during the European conquest, as well as their exclusion from society…'” (New Murals Celebrate the Culture of Oaxaca in L.A.)
The murals at the Downtown Central Library in Los Angeles will be on exhibit in the library’s rotunda until January 31, 2018.
Posted in Creativity, Culture, Travel & Tourism, tagged Mexico, murals, Oaxaca, photographs, photos, popular travel destinations, skeleton, street art, Tehuana, Virgen de Guadalupe, wall art on November 9, 2017| 10 Comments »
The transportation workers of the CTM (Confederación de Trabajadores de México) pretty much shut down main roads into and out of the city on Tuesday (just ask blogger buddy Chris) and Sección XXII of the teachers’ union yesterday blocked streets, today picketed government offices, and are now moving full force into the zócalo and surrounding streets.
Sigh, but don’t cry for Oaxaca. Ten thousand years of history, this valley and her people will survive. Listen and watch Lila Downs sing La Martiniana and remember its words…
Porque si lloras yo peno,
en cambio si tú me cantas, mi vida,
yo siempre vivo, yo nunca muero.
~~~
Because if you cry, I’ll be filled with sorrow
Instead, if you sing to me
I will live forever, I’ll never die.
Posted in Creativity, Culture, Travel & Tourism, tagged Ayotzinapa, corn, graphic arts, La Unión Revolucionaria de Trabajadores del Arte, Mexico, Oaxaca, photographs, photos, popular travel destinations, street art, URTARTE, wall art on October 16, 2017| 5 Comments »
URTARTE — La Unión Revolucionaria de Trabajadores del Arte (the Revolutionary Union of Art Workers). You have no doubt seen their work around the city of Oaxaca.
The black and white lines of resistance defending heritage corn from an invasion by the moneyed interests of el norte.
Demanding justice for the 43 student teachers from Escuela Normal Rural Raúl Isidro Burgos in Ayotzinapa, Guerrero — still disappeared after three years.
And yesterday I discovered this masterpiece…
Celebrating the creativity, hard work, and dignity of the women and men living in the villages of Oaxaca.
A reminder of the people whose roots run deep into the soil and who make Oaxaca such an exceptional place.
Mexican Peso Converter
View From Casita Colibrí 
Oaxaca’s wallpaper
Posted in Creativity, Culture, Politics, Travel & Tourism, tagged graffiti, Mexico, Oaxaca, photographs, photos, political art, political commentary, protest, stencil art, street art, URTARTE, wall art on May 29, 2018| 4 Comments »
Protest art continues to paper the streets of Oaxaca.
It’s there in black and white against walls of texture and color — greeting the morning’s light and disappearing as shadows fall.
Today, the faces of rage, resistance, and anguish are not only looking down from walls, they are seen at eye level in Oaxaca’s zócalo and streets. They’re back… The annual occupation and blockades by Sección 22 of the CNTE (teachers’ union) has begun.
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