Yesterday we took my visiting amiga americana to Cancun’s Museo de Arte Popular Mexicano (Mexican Folk Art Museum). And as usual we enjoyed it thoroughly. They continue to add to their large collection of Mexican arts and crafts, so each time we go there we see new pieces. And this time we listened to the audio tour, something we hadn’t done before, and it really added a lot to the experience.
But as we were leaving husbandito did his always-make-new-friends thing and started talking with one of the people who works in the museum. Well it turns out that the museum, surprise, surprise, has never made any money there (it’s in a bad location and is always empty). And so the owners, who also own Xcaret Eco-Park, have decided to move the museum to Xcaret sometime in the next couple of months, sometime in January according to the employee.
The good thing about this is that Xcaret is popular so people will FINALLY start seeing this great collection of Mexican arts and crafts! The bad thing is that this museum was basically the only place in Cancun to see a large collection of good quality arts and crafts. So I’m completely bummed out, but not surprised at all. I guess now I have yet another reason to go to Xcaret again.
If you are a Cancunense and you have not yet been to the Museo de Arte Popular Mexicano I highly recommend it, but you’d better get over there soon.
It is with great pleasure that I announce that Alison Chase and I have released her web site. We’ve been working on it for over a year, a lot of energy has gone into it and it’s a nice feeling to finally have it out there.
Alison Chase is a choreographer and was co-founder of Pilobolus Dance Theatre. Alison’s new dance theater production company is called Apogee Arts. Apogee Arts’ mission is to “combine innovative choreography, dance training, performance and educational programs to create an experience that engages and informs audiences in unusual performance spaces.”
Cancun has a hidden treasure, a secret little cache of culture tucked away in the hotel zone. The Museo de Arte Popular Mexicano (Mexican Folk Art Museum) is overflowing with excellent examples of Mexican folk art and crafts. Not to be missed.
If You Go
Museo de Arte Popular Mexicano (Mexican Folk Art Museum)
Location: El Embarcadero Marina – 2nd Floor (near the Pirate Ships)
Blvd. Kukulcan, Km 4.5, Zona Hotelera, Cancun
By Bus: Blue Line Stop #80, Green Line Stop #81
Tels: 998.849.4332 & 998.849.5583
Cost: Around $5 USD
Open: Weekdays 9am – 7pm & Weekends 11am – 7pm
Web Site: Museo de Arte Popular Mexicano
For the past year I’ve been working closely with the magnificent and brilliant choreographer, Alison Chase (a founding artistic director of the famed Pilobolus), on her new web site. This week we made a big push and we are very nearly there…. And so I want to warm you up with a little video of one of Alison’s more irreverent and joyful choreographic works. Please enjoy Quarryography:
One of my favorite Pearl Jam songs wasn’t even written by them. It was written by Victoria Williams. It’s called Crazy Mary. Pearl Jam’s performances of this song vary wildly, but it’s always clear that they love playing it. And boy do I love singing along to it. Hope you enjoy. Lyrics are below.
Crazy Mary – Performed by Pearl Jam
She lived on a curve in the road, in an old tar-paper shack
On the south side of the town, on the wrong side of the tracks
Sometimes on the way into town we’d say:
“Mama, can we stop and give her a ride?”
Sometimes we did but her hands flew from her side
Wild eyed, crazy Mary
Down a long dirt road, past the Parson’s place
The old blue car we used to race
Little country store with a sign tacked to the side
Said “No L-O-I-T-E-R-I-N-G allowed”
Underneath that sign always congregated quite a crowd
Take a bottle, drink it down, pass it around
Take a bottle, drink it down, pass it around
Take a bottle, drink it down, pass it around
One night thunder cracked mercy backed outside her windowsill
Dreamed I was flying high above the trees, over the hills
Looked down into the house of Mary
Bare bulb blown, newspaper-covered walls, and Mary rising up above it all
Next morning on the way into town
Saw some skid marks, and followed them around
Over the curve,through the fields, into the house of Mary
That WHAT you fear the most, could meet you halfway
That WHAT you fear the most, could meet you halfway
Take a bottle, drink it down, pass it around
Take a bottle, drink it down, pass it around
Take a bottle, drink it down, pass it around
Our favorite Hispanic pothead, Cheech Marin, is sharing his immense collection of Chicano Art with the public. I found the NPR story and the works themselves to be very interesting.
In my last post I mentioned the lack of respect for wisdom and experience that I feel here in Cancun. There’s a deeper level to this than just problems with retailers.
I sometimes feel that living here I myself can’t get wiser, can’t gain wisdom. I feel that I spend so much of my energy here just trying to live a “normal” life that there isn’t extra time for study or reflection and there isn’t cultural support for growth. I feel that the problems I have because I live here are often so big, so un-fixable and so ultimately hopeless that the only way I could prove to myself that I was taking a positive step forward, that I was using my wisdom, would be to pack up and leave.
The shortsightedness in the way Cancun businesses are run is just the beginning, just the tip of the iceberg. The bigger issue is the way that society operates here. Life is hard enough here that you have to become selfish and shielded in order to survive here. And so most people think only about themselves, they don’t concern themselves with the betterment of society, they don’t concern themselves with other people’s well-being and they don’t value (or even notice) the wisdom of those around them.
Of course I’m generalizing. Of course I can name 10 people right now who do care about others and to whom wisdom does adhere. But I can name 100 who are so self-involved, so stuck in the rut of just surviving here that they are not learning, are not getting ahead, not helping make this a better place. It makes me really sad. And it makes me question my own judgment for staying here this long.
[Before you bitch at me that I should pack up and leave let me say that you are right, and we plan to, but we need to finish some projects, sell the house and plan the move. And it will probably take us a year to get out of here. So in the meantime, I’m here, like it or not.]
As I was thinking about this lack of wisdom issue the lyrics to Pearl Jam’s song “Immortality” kept running through my head. So I thought I would share the song with you (especially with Susan and Joyce). The video is here and the lyrics are below. This song is rumored to be about the suicide of Kurt Cobain. The video a little rough, but Eddie is masterful as always and Mike’s guitar solo will make you remember that there is a God. Enjoy.
Immortality by Pearl Jam
vacate is the word…vengeance has no place on me or her
cannot find the comfort in this world
artificial tear…vessel stabbed…next up, volunteers
vulnerable, wisdom can’t adhere…
a truant finds home…and a wish to hold on…
but there’s a trapdoor in the sun…immortality…
as privileged as a whore…victims in demand for public show
swept out through the cracks beneath the door
holier than thou, how?
surrendered…executed anyhow
scrawl dissolved, cigar box on the floor…
a truant finds home…and a wish to hold on too…
he saw the trapdoor in the sun…
immortality…
i cannot stop the thought…i’m running in the dark…
coming up a which way sign…all good truants must decide…
oh, stripped and sold, mom…auctioned forearm…
and whiskers in the sink…
truants move on…cannot stay long
some die just to live…
The last couple of days in Colorado with my daughter were great. I took her to the new wing of the Denver Art Museum on Saturday. The new wing was designed by Daniel Libeskind and it was a thrill to set foot in this amazing building.
We went first to a temporary Impressionism exhibit in Libeskind’s building. My daughter was raised looking at pictures of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings and could identify the work of Monet, Van Gogh, Renoir, Seurat and Degas when she was 5 years old. So this exhibit was a treat for her.
After that we decided to visit the Contemporary Art galleries, also in the new wing. I felt like a million bucks when I saw how happily my daughter flitted from one piece of art to another. She got up close to each piece to study materials and brush strokes, she talked to me about the meaning and power of each work and sometimes she sat on the floor to look at certain pieces from a different angle. She was so excited about the pieces she was seeing that it just filled me with pride. I’m not always sure I’m a good parent, but when I see her that informed and that excited about art I figure that I must have done something right somewhere along the way.
When I turned 35 my husband gave me Lasik surgery for my birthday. I think he was sick of seeing me suffer the pain of hard contact lenses. Back then I had to carry eye drops everywhere and could never tell when a speck of dust would force me to pull over the car, or dismount my mountain bike, it was a royal pain in the eye. So I got the surgery. And I stopped being nearsighted. And I never looked back (couldn’t resist, sorry).
Except I didn’t stop thinking like I was nearsighted. I still look at things closely. I still find myself stopping to enjoy the way the light hits a flower or a spider web. And often I find myself training my camera on things other people wouldn’t bother with. Sometimes it’s a fresh tire track in soft mud, or the bark of a tree, or the rust on a pipe that’s lying next to the road. If it has an interesting texture or color, or great light, it becomes the subject of my myopic photography.
People around probably think I’m weird, because I do stop whatever I’m doing when I see something that must be photographed. But maybe that’s the curse of my training as an artist. The art comes first, always.
Here are some recent examples of the stuff that stops me and makes me pull out the camera:
