A Little Homage to My Mom

After much anticipation I was able to take a workshop with artist Fr. Jorge Eagar this past weekend. We were asked to bring a central image for our shrine/cajita and images that represented the 4 elements; fire, water, earth and sky.

I rifled around in the studio and pulled out a picture of my mom, tranparencies of the Tias, (my aunts), some hummingbirds left over from a recent project and an assortment of papers. Knowing my mom would be the central image, I pulled out some bottles of blue paints. Moms' favorite color. I pulled blues that I liked. Brighter colors as opposed to the muted tones that mom preferred.

As we began working, my interpretation of the elements was pretty literal. I was sure the aloe from the postcard received that morning in the mail was perfect to represent earth. I knew I wanted it radiating from behind Mom. I was a little less sure about some of the other elements until we started working and I listened to Fr. Jorge's suggestions.Shells=water, the hearts=fire, the aloe=earth and the hummingbird represents air. Mom and her sisters are pictured above. they were such a strong presence in our lives growing up. There's a glimpse of an elephant as well. Mom collected elephants after a trip to India. The house filled with them over the years.
While some of the other ladies painted their boxes and others glittered their backgrounds, (I sooo want to do that but Mom wasn't a glitter gal), I started to collage a page from a road atlas. Purely by chance, Baja California and Sonora, Mexico were in the background. Two places my Mom had lived as she was growing up.

The Chicklet and I have been playing around with decorating bottle caps. I was going to make mine into magnets but hadn't gotten around to attaching the magnets. Good thing, I added them to my shrine.

At one point I was stumped. Fr. Jorge suggested the gold doiley. I am not a huge fan of gold. I was going to politely decline but then decided to give it a shot. As you can see, I fell in love with the stuff.

I hit the after Christmas sales and gathered quite a few baubles. Tacky? Yes! Fun? Definitely!!!! I didn't finish my cajita during the workshop but spent the next couple of nights adding the beads and the baubles. I absolutely love this piece!Did you know that Monday was "Take Your Mom to Work Day?" I took Mom to work with me. I have her on a shelf behind my desk. Shes' there keeping an eye on me, LOL....
Marissa