LA CATRINA

DIA DE LOS MUERTOS

calaca and flowers muertos

Catrina with Angel

This years alter

Strange Angel MATTHEW'S STORIES

........ a baby cries......... and as the heaviness the body oh the heaviness settles in somewhere you can hear a mother sing ..then it's one foot then the other as you step out on the road how much weight?...... how long and how far and how many times before it's too late? calling all angels walk me through this one don't leave me alone .. and we're not sure why......... and if you could do you think you would trade all the pain and suffering-- but then you woulld' ve missed the beauty of the light upon this earth and the sweetness of the leaving..................Calling All Angels K.D. Lang/Jane Sibery

Matthew continued

So many stories about Matthew. I have always said, "stitches or tears". These two sketches were done while Matthew was at children's hospital. One was done as I listened to the beeping of machines he was hooked up to for the night. This was for a sleep study. This is required for anyone who will be getting ear tubes. The study showed that Matthew had central sleep apnea. This means that his brain was not sending the message to his body to breath. It would just forget to breath. The other was done while we waited for a bed to open up. We were in a side room for about five hours just waiting again. (For a period there when people asked me what I did for a living, I used to say" I'm a professional waiter. I am always sitting in hospitals and Dr. offices waiting and waiting and waiting). This time Matthew had pneumonia and was dehydrated and quite lethargic but not enough for them to think he was in danger. He just couldn't stay awake . The third is of the day he was born. A day we would soon learn, brought a bundle with more than we had bargained for.

My Son

Painting of Matthew for the Pasadena Chalk Festival. This is the weekend Matthew got sick.

dancing with hat

This is my son Matthew. Matthew has Downs Syndrome. At the time that I painted this I was sitting in children's Hospital in Los angeles, late in the evening, sitting on a window seat, listening to the beeping of the monitors which were keeping my son alive. He was being treated for Leukemia( cancer of the blood). I was remembering the day he was dancing in my living room, happy as a lark and naked as the day he was born, except for the hat on his head. No inhibitions about his nakedness, free as could be, twisting and turning and flipping that hat around as if it were the greatest thing ever discovered on the face of the earth. I grabbed my camera to capture the moment. So much joy. And then this, the struggle of this horrible disease. Beeping, no sleep, and the struggle of it all. He's doing fine now. He is singing and dancing naked in the living room again, if he can get away with it!

Bailerina

caballero

This is a Mayan image for a celebration at the Eagle Rock Cultural Center. I saw someone working on Papel Picado at some event in L.A. and decided to try my hand at it. Someone saw my work. They asked if I could create Mayan or Aztec images for a celebration of the Aztec New Year. There was an art exhibit going up in Eagle Rock. That was the beginning of my work creating images in tissue paper.