Today we took a little walking tour with our host Jane and a couple of other guests.

A block away from the Casa there is a little alley on the back side of the local market. It’s a good place to stop for a soda in the shade.

a pedestrian alleyway near the casa

The Virgin of Soledad is the patron of the City of Oaxaca. Her church is near enough to hear the bells in the morning. The top of the front facade is coated in painted plaster.

the facade of the basilica of San Jose

Inside the Virgin herself is above the altar. You almost can’t see her for the rococo decorations.

virgin of soledad

City hall is right next door. The central court yard is a pleasant place to wait.

the central court of city hall

Tucked in a corner of the first floor is the time clock.

time clock in city hall

After spending time in restored buildings we went to see the bar called Los Danzantes. In a typical colonial building but with very modern decor.

sign and masks on the wall above the bar

The bar itself was made out of blocks of crushed cars.

the bar at Los Danzantes

This is one of my favorite courtyard fountains in the city.

modern interpretation of the court yard fountion

Then on to another church. Sto. Domingo de Guzman. This is the ceiling in the rosay chapel. Usually there is a lovely white virgin in here but she’s been moved for the weekend to the main sanctuary.

ornate ceiling in the rosary chapel

Tomorrow (Sunday) the city will be celebrating the dedication of this new retablo. It’s huge and very shiny. A lot of time (3 years) and money has been spent on it.

new retablo

You see the strangest things on the bulletin boards in little courtyards. This was outside the door of BlackBox, one of my favorite ‘modern’ art stores.

learn Japanese in Oaxaca

The last church of the day was the Catherdral in the center of the city. it was filled with hundreds of these bundles of lilies because Friday was the festival of El Senor del Rayo. Our Lord of the Lightening Bolt is what they call the crucifix housed in the side chapel that was the only thing that survived a fire started when lightening struck the original thatched roof.

one of a couple of hundred bundles of lilies

The city is starting to decorate for the day of the dead.

day of the dead soldier

Each time I am in Oaxaca I stop into the Casa De La Ciudad. There is always something interesting in the little sala to the right of the entrance.

When I was last there (September 2008) it was the exhibition –Los Libres, Los Viajes, y El Tiempo (Books, Travels, and Time — roughly)

los libros, los viajes, y el tiempo

The problem of how to let people look at/through older books is not often solved at all let alone nicely.

display column

Here they have scanned/photographed the covers and portions of the text from several books that tie in with the exhibit. Then bound them together and left them out for people to look at.

not something you would find on display in the USA

These aren’t sophisticated facsimilies. They’re just-good-enough reproductions that aren’t expected to last beyond the current exhibit.

reproduction of the text pages

They are scanned and then printed single sided on matte photo paper and “bound” by being stapled at the left margin. The staples are covered by cloth tape.

There was this one that fascinated Jim — the excerpt was from the antennas chapter.

an early radio manual from Mexico.

This one is fine just for the cover illustration.

that

This is a great solution to the problem of how to let people get hands on with books that can’t take the handling.

Cheap, tidy, and certainly the only way I’ll ever get my hands on Dueno del Mundo by Julio Verne.

dueno del mundo por julio verne

This was my morning cappuccino from a couple of days ago.

Life is sweet in Mexico.

morning capuccino

From someone else’s garden.

Here in Oaxaca you can buy flowers from vendors in the Zocalo. 45 pesos gets you enough baby gardenias to fill two glasses.

baby gardenias

Heavenly.

We’re just back from the Gather. (Photos here.)

Yesterday this fine fellow arrived from Mexico (via San Diego.)

He was carved and painted by our friends Jacobo and Maria Angeles who live and work in Tilcajete, Oaxaca. You can see more of their work on their web page. (If you get a chance to stop by thier restaurant I recommend the Chile de Agua Rellenos. Wicked good.)

We ordered the buffalo when we were in Oaxaca in February. The carving was already done and we chose the basic color mix but the details of the painting is always left up to the painter. It’s always a surprise when the piece arrives.

The head shot shows some of the details and his little bit of a frown.

I have several pieces that Jacobo has made for me. All cats, until this one. One of these days I’ll dig out pictures of the rest of our pieces and some of our visits to Jacobo and Maria’s house.

These are match boxes. I buy them in Oaxaca Mexico. The actually come with matches in them. Though I have to throw them out before I try to bring the boxes home.

I got these two boxes in Corazon Zapoteca in Alcala street in Oaxaca. Both are approximately 2 1/2 x 4 1/2 innhes.

La Sirena is one of the cards in the game of Loteria.

The Virgin of Guadalupe is everywhere in Mexico.

Work on the balloon seller picture is complete. You can see a full-size digital version here.

(no small version today — can’t get it to resize correctly — maybe tomorrow)

The image in the gallery is a digital version that I made for Jim to use on his desktop. It mimics the effect of being printed on Arches 140 CP watercolor paper by using a colored background and an applied texture. It’s much closer to the actual printed version that I can get with a camera.

Another of the Oaxaca pictures that I’ve been working with is not so complete.

I started with this picture of the old power house in Vista Hermosa that is now the Taller de Arte Papel Oaxaca. (Art paper workshop — makers of very cool handmade papers.)

The blocking for the piece isn’t great on screen:

It prints as an even murkier mess. I think the problem is losing the detail in the shadows in the foliage. I’m going to leave well enough alone for a while and work on some other images. I like this one too much to just abandon it but I’m not making any progress for the moment.

I’ve got a shiny new copy of Photoshop CS3 and have been experimenting.

In Photoshop Creative Collection v3 (no link available) there’s a technique that mimics pen and ink. Something that is similar to some watercolor and ink work that I did a couple of years ago.

I did the tutorial and got this effect.

Which I liked well enough but I think the ink lines are a bit crude. Perhaps as a result of my not being a true ace with the graphics tablet, yet.

I’ve gone on to experiment with some other images and am slowly developing a version of the technique that I like.

For some pieces I’m building the color in Photoshop and then printing the piece and inking it my hand. I like the results I’m getting from printing on 140# cold press watercolor paper. (Usually the smoother side.) It takes ink from the inkjet well and the slight texture gives the hand inked lines a nice variation.

I’m also trying to find ways of creating a black-line layer within Photoshop. It’s tricky to get the overlay to have enough information to pick out the details of the image without overwhelming the nice blocks and blobs of color that I work so hard to make.

This is part of a piece based on a photograph that my husband took in Oaxaca. I used a handful of filters to create the black overlay. (I can go back and look them up if you want the gory details.)

I think this has promise.

Oh and if you were here with me looking out my window you’d see this.

snow — Yikes!

We spent Saturday with our friend Demetrio Bautista Lazo the weaver. In addition to eating too much. (Gracias, Maribel por la comida muy delicioso!) We went walking around the town of Teotitlan.

That’s Demetrio showing me a tree of life rug that he’s working on.

This the dome of the local church..

As was common when constructing colonial churches the walls were built using the stone from the existing Zapotec buildings. Some parts of the plaster of the new walls has been removed and the designs on the old stones are visible.

I’ve fooled around with trying to complete some of the geometric designs. There’s usually not enough of the pattern to be certain of how the whole was put together. Though as I collect more examples I think I will find enough fragments to reconstruct some of the linear designs. (Click on the thumbnails for larger versions.)

These two seem similar and may be related enough to make a larger pattern out of:

Two wavy pattern that remind me of the snail pattern used in some of the rugs.

This section of the wall contains several small bits of pattern and the image of a birdlike creature. The diamond pattern in the lower center is very common in rugs. I’ll have to ask Demetrio if he knows who the bird is.

A final picture of several very small fragments. I am suspicious of the flowery vine chunk in the upper left. It’s too naturalistic to be Zaptotec, perhaps it is a bit of some earlier church or chapel., or bit of this church reused in making repairs.

edited 25.june.2008 to correct image links