There are some in the Flickr album.
By the way, I've been meaning to say this: Our connection here sucks, so I have to shrink and kill all of my pictures, which is why they're so crappy on the site. If you see any you'd like to have (for your desktop, etc, mom and dad) let me know which one and I'll email it to you full form.
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Puchica
The rain is like clockwork. Starts between 4-5, ends at 8. Every night. The hardest downpour is always around 7.
On Saturday we did something. I can't remember. One part involved going with Ben and crew to the travel agent to pin down the cost for a trip to Tikal. Hugh and I really wanted to go, but couldn't decide till we knew how much. We were kind of expecting $100 american. It turned out to be $300, so we had to back out. $300 is more than a month of living here, and it came down to the realization that if we went to Tikal, we'd be coming home a month earlier that we were hoping. So that went down the drain.
Sunday they wanted to get some video footage of this coffee cooperative in Rethaleleu (I cannot pronounce that) for part of, or a different, I'm not sure, documentary. Ben and Marvin up front, Summer (the biologist from the science museum) and Tony (the filmer) and his equipment in the second row, Hugh and I in the bed of the truck. It was a gorgeous day with blue skies and a warm wind, so we were more than happy to absorb some vitamin D in the back, even if it did mean grinding some of the bones off our butts on the bed-liner. We got to witness up close the change in the foliage from Highland shrubbery and pine trees to lowland tropics. On the way down the mountains, we passed within close view of a really grand and pointy inactive volcano, with a smaller attachment below it, which seemed to be smoking. I kept thinking to myself "what farmer would be burning off farmland in the rainy season? and what farmer would plant anything on the tip of a small mountain? Oddballs." An hour and a lot of miles later, we end up on a thin road in the middle of sugar fields, staring straight at these two mountains. We're facing backwards in the the back, so we don't why but the truck stops, Tony gets out with his camera, and Summer yells back to us "There's a volcano erupting!" and we look up over the cab, and sure enough, the little smoking mound has a plume of thick gray smoke rising out of it. It was just a "burp" as Hugh called it, nothing like orange lava or ruined country side, but pretty wild none the less. So after we packed it up and got back in and headed out once again, we made it through this odd landscape of cobblestone roads and wild impatient flowers to the top of a large hill where the co-op is located. Yes, mom, impatients actually grow somewhere in the wild, not just flower beds! And they were all over the place, little squarish bright pink blossoms all over the ditches beside the road. Adorable. When we got there, there was some commotion over the video camera.. apparently they didn't have any warning for filming (Claudia's job) and they wouldn't allow it on the spot. So. No coffee plantation for us. We observed some stuff around the place, they process pure water and nuts as well as coffee, and have a little hotel up there for eco-tourists. Mostly students from the spanish schools in Xela. We managed to get some interviews with the staff, and heard the story of the co-op.. It used to be owned by a Patrone who basically owned all the people on his land as well as the plants. All their rent and food were taken out of their pay, and he could easily kick a person out of their job, house, life very easily if he wanted to, and apparently made a habit of it. After the coffee industry hit bottom years ago, he couldn't afford to pay his workers for over a year, yet continued to work them. Something happened where he tried to sell the land and skip out but the community took him to court for their owed wages, at which point he filed bankruptcy. So the land got funneled down to the government, which also couldn't or wouldn't pay them, and finally after years, the people were able to win the land they worked as a settlement for the wages they were owed. So this is where it came from. That system, by the way, is how the great majority of coffee plantations (and many other crops) are run. Jairo was telling Hugh that he was once touring a finca where the manager was giving a tour of a certain room, and the woman who worked there came in. The manager introduced her to the group "this is susie, she shell the beans!" and they walked out, and the man locked the door closed behind him. One of the members of the group asked why he locked her inside, and apparently his reply "her son is sick. We don't want her leaving work to go check on him." so there's that.
After we ate lunch there at the hotel we got back in the truck and Ben asked if we'd like to see the ocean, since it was pretty close. Yes was the answer, so 45 minutes later we're standing on a beach with very black sand and very many Guatemalans in speedos. This wasn't a tourist beach, it was definitely a Guatemalteco beach. We got a lot of leers. If it wasn't for being a young woman, it was for being white. I didn't like it there too much. At one point along the road, riding in the back with Hugh and Summer, who is prone to violent carsickness and joined us for a while, a man at a bus stop said in unnatural english "yuuu white bitches." That was about all I wanted of that place.
On the way back, it was gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous cloudy cooling off oh shit. Rolling, violent looking black clouds surrounded over our heads, and out on the flat distance of the sugar fields we could see bolts of lightning and rain miles out in the distance. It spat some angry drops at us, but we somehow, through luck and Marvin's driving abilities (yes, I believe that Marvin is such a good driver, he can avoid thunderstorms on a completely straight road) missed the thunderstorms and came out on the other side of the cloud, all of the noise and light staying towards the west. Unfortunately, and to our great and tragic sadness, we came directly out of the afternoon thunderstorm and instantly into the evening clockwork rainy-season-you-knew-this-was-coming steady downpour. We hit that right as we hit traffic. So Summer and Hugh and I camped out under some ponchos for a good hour as the asses behind us continued to honk, though it was clear, as in all cases, honking was not going help the situation whatsoever. We weren't, at least, the only poor idiots huddling in the back of a truck. We were in Guatemala after all. Eventually Summer deserted us for her warm and still empty seat inside, and Hugh and I huddled in our wetness alone. It would have been a little easier if we hadn't soaked the lower parts of our pants already in the Pacific Ocean. There was hardly a reason to even try to stay dry. Not like some little ponchos in the swimming pool of a truck bed are really going to do much anyway. Finally, and with many hours behind us for one mile, we sped out of that hellhole and back up the mountain, where we traded the evil of rain for the evil of car exhaust. One truck after another after another after a bus was passed, each one killing more and more of my precious remaining brain cells. And then it was dark. And cold. And wet. And windy. Sorry, I tried not to complain much during the ride ("Hey! Wow! Isn't the scenery beautiful at dusk!?") but now I'm thinking back on it and BOY DID THAT SUCK. I will say that was a defining experience in my trip though. There's nothing like being able to see the landscape without glass between you and it, and going through it after the sun went down really was spectacular. The ghosts in Guatemala, when they're not wandering around after an earthquake, stay in the cloud-stuck mountains outside Almolonga. That's a fact. There's no other explanation for those puffed white clouds, just sitting in the air right outside the tips of the trees. No billowing or shrinking or even any of that licking that fog is wont to do. Just suspended as if on wires. Plus it had that reflected glow of gleaming whiteness that was missing in the thick dense farm and forest. The houses didn't even possess the life that the clouds did.
When we got back, damp and shivering, I took what felt like the hottest shower of my life and got in bed. Since then I've had some nasty allergy problems. I know all the exhaust stripped out the back of my throat, and I guess it's either the rain or new sensitivity that's got me now. bah! I'm sitting here with a tissue shoved in my left nostril right now! Anything to prove a point.
Enough for now. Later I will do some more art ranting.
On Saturday we did something. I can't remember. One part involved going with Ben and crew to the travel agent to pin down the cost for a trip to Tikal. Hugh and I really wanted to go, but couldn't decide till we knew how much. We were kind of expecting $100 american. It turned out to be $300, so we had to back out. $300 is more than a month of living here, and it came down to the realization that if we went to Tikal, we'd be coming home a month earlier that we were hoping. So that went down the drain.
Sunday they wanted to get some video footage of this coffee cooperative in Rethaleleu (I cannot pronounce that) for part of, or a different, I'm not sure, documentary. Ben and Marvin up front, Summer (the biologist from the science museum) and Tony (the filmer) and his equipment in the second row, Hugh and I in the bed of the truck. It was a gorgeous day with blue skies and a warm wind, so we were more than happy to absorb some vitamin D in the back, even if it did mean grinding some of the bones off our butts on the bed-liner. We got to witness up close the change in the foliage from Highland shrubbery and pine trees to lowland tropics. On the way down the mountains, we passed within close view of a really grand and pointy inactive volcano, with a smaller attachment below it, which seemed to be smoking. I kept thinking to myself "what farmer would be burning off farmland in the rainy season? and what farmer would plant anything on the tip of a small mountain? Oddballs." An hour and a lot of miles later, we end up on a thin road in the middle of sugar fields, staring straight at these two mountains. We're facing backwards in the the back, so we don't why but the truck stops, Tony gets out with his camera, and Summer yells back to us "There's a volcano erupting!" and we look up over the cab, and sure enough, the little smoking mound has a plume of thick gray smoke rising out of it. It was just a "burp" as Hugh called it, nothing like orange lava or ruined country side, but pretty wild none the less. So after we packed it up and got back in and headed out once again, we made it through this odd landscape of cobblestone roads and wild impatient flowers to the top of a large hill where the co-op is located. Yes, mom, impatients actually grow somewhere in the wild, not just flower beds! And they were all over the place, little squarish bright pink blossoms all over the ditches beside the road. Adorable. When we got there, there was some commotion over the video camera.. apparently they didn't have any warning for filming (Claudia's job) and they wouldn't allow it on the spot. So. No coffee plantation for us. We observed some stuff around the place, they process pure water and nuts as well as coffee, and have a little hotel up there for eco-tourists. Mostly students from the spanish schools in Xela. We managed to get some interviews with the staff, and heard the story of the co-op.. It used to be owned by a Patrone who basically owned all the people on his land as well as the plants. All their rent and food were taken out of their pay, and he could easily kick a person out of their job, house, life very easily if he wanted to, and apparently made a habit of it. After the coffee industry hit bottom years ago, he couldn't afford to pay his workers for over a year, yet continued to work them. Something happened where he tried to sell the land and skip out but the community took him to court for their owed wages, at which point he filed bankruptcy. So the land got funneled down to the government, which also couldn't or wouldn't pay them, and finally after years, the people were able to win the land they worked as a settlement for the wages they were owed. So this is where it came from. That system, by the way, is how the great majority of coffee plantations (and many other crops) are run. Jairo was telling Hugh that he was once touring a finca where the manager was giving a tour of a certain room, and the woman who worked there came in. The manager introduced her to the group "this is susie, she shell the beans!" and they walked out, and the man locked the door closed behind him. One of the members of the group asked why he locked her inside, and apparently his reply "her son is sick. We don't want her leaving work to go check on him." so there's that.
After we ate lunch there at the hotel we got back in the truck and Ben asked if we'd like to see the ocean, since it was pretty close. Yes was the answer, so 45 minutes later we're standing on a beach with very black sand and very many Guatemalans in speedos. This wasn't a tourist beach, it was definitely a Guatemalteco beach. We got a lot of leers. If it wasn't for being a young woman, it was for being white. I didn't like it there too much. At one point along the road, riding in the back with Hugh and Summer, who is prone to violent carsickness and joined us for a while, a man at a bus stop said in unnatural english "yuuu white bitches." That was about all I wanted of that place.
On the way back, it was gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous cloudy cooling off oh shit. Rolling, violent looking black clouds surrounded over our heads, and out on the flat distance of the sugar fields we could see bolts of lightning and rain miles out in the distance. It spat some angry drops at us, but we somehow, through luck and Marvin's driving abilities (yes, I believe that Marvin is such a good driver, he can avoid thunderstorms on a completely straight road) missed the thunderstorms and came out on the other side of the cloud, all of the noise and light staying towards the west. Unfortunately, and to our great and tragic sadness, we came directly out of the afternoon thunderstorm and instantly into the evening clockwork rainy-season-you-knew-this-was-coming steady downpour. We hit that right as we hit traffic. So Summer and Hugh and I camped out under some ponchos for a good hour as the asses behind us continued to honk, though it was clear, as in all cases, honking was not going help the situation whatsoever. We weren't, at least, the only poor idiots huddling in the back of a truck. We were in Guatemala after all. Eventually Summer deserted us for her warm and still empty seat inside, and Hugh and I huddled in our wetness alone. It would have been a little easier if we hadn't soaked the lower parts of our pants already in the Pacific Ocean. There was hardly a reason to even try to stay dry. Not like some little ponchos in the swimming pool of a truck bed are really going to do much anyway. Finally, and with many hours behind us for one mile, we sped out of that hellhole and back up the mountain, where we traded the evil of rain for the evil of car exhaust. One truck after another after another after a bus was passed, each one killing more and more of my precious remaining brain cells. And then it was dark. And cold. And wet. And windy. Sorry, I tried not to complain much during the ride ("Hey! Wow! Isn't the scenery beautiful at dusk!?") but now I'm thinking back on it and BOY DID THAT SUCK. I will say that was a defining experience in my trip though. There's nothing like being able to see the landscape without glass between you and it, and going through it after the sun went down really was spectacular. The ghosts in Guatemala, when they're not wandering around after an earthquake, stay in the cloud-stuck mountains outside Almolonga. That's a fact. There's no other explanation for those puffed white clouds, just sitting in the air right outside the tips of the trees. No billowing or shrinking or even any of that licking that fog is wont to do. Just suspended as if on wires. Plus it had that reflected glow of gleaming whiteness that was missing in the thick dense farm and forest. The houses didn't even possess the life that the clouds did.
When we got back, damp and shivering, I took what felt like the hottest shower of my life and got in bed. Since then I've had some nasty allergy problems. I know all the exhaust stripped out the back of my throat, and I guess it's either the rain or new sensitivity that's got me now. bah! I'm sitting here with a tissue shoved in my left nostril right now! Anything to prove a point.
Enough for now. Later I will do some more art ranting.
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Diferencias de creatividad
This afternoon, joy of joys, Ben came into town, with a videographer and scientist in tow, no less. Ben, if I haven’t explained, is Lupe’s husband, and the other half of the head of this organization. The first, and I mean very first, thing he did, was not even to introduce me to the people he brought with him, no, it was to ask where my new designs were. I went into my room to get them (my room! My space! Private! For me!) where he followed me, and I sarcastically said (more than once) “thank you! This is MY room!” as in “hey! My space! Wait outside!” and I’m fairly sure he got it, but he’s not the type of person to let something like my boundaries bother him. I made him follow me back outside, and showed them to him, which he critiqued negatively in front of everyone. Within the first 5 minutes of arriving. I haven’t had time to prepare my defenses! Not fair!
HIS CRITIQUE… was that the material looked cheap and hippie-ish. Now… here is my conundrum. His wife picked out the fabric. I also happen to like it, and Claudia has given me her praise many times for the design, as well as I have been wearing them around town to see what people say (and also because I like them) and I have received a lot of good attention for them. What they are, and what I made them to be, is something rather cheap that we can make a lot of quickly and sell quickly. They utilize the typical fabrics of the area, making them super appealing to tourists as well as anyone in the states who is part of that new trend of tribal themed accessories, which according to my sister is very popular. The weavings here are so incredibly full that anything that’s done with them has to be done with a really minimalist hand or else they end up looking like a preschooler’s coloring book. Here I am dealing with the same exact thing all over again as when Lupe came. He’s got this idea in his head, he knows is so easy to do, but the idea is vague and lacking the technical details to bring it into physical reality (which is what I am here for) and so he has no idea what it takes to do it. He just wants me to do it. Sure sure, fine fine, but how do I tell someone with no experience with the nature of making textiles and with the nature of making jewelry, that it is physically impossible? I think it would have to come down to what happened with Lupe. Here you go, all your materials.. Pick up those scissors and show me exactly what you want me to do with them.. and then he sees that when he cuts this one little thread, the whole thing disintegrates, and when he adds one more color of embroidery, it looks like throw up, and square is always “square.” There is nothing weavings lend themselves to better than quadrilaterals, and there is nothing less flattering on the human body than one. This is also what I’m here for. What do you want? I can do that. What do you want? Not going to work. Let me show you another way. So this is where we are now.
Specifically, what Ben wants is “sophisticated, complicated, expensive.” The idea stems directly from an isreali designer that they carry at the store who makes extremely large, complicated, and admittedly gorgeous jewelry out of all ribbons. It’s breathtaking, and absolutely impossible. Ben is thinking something like this, in the price range upwards of $300. Here’s my take on that: You want a pair of earrings made out of fabric worth 300? I can do that for you. You want me to design that, then teach how to make it, and expect my students who are all rural housewives working out of their home to sustain the level of quality necessary, even after I leave the country.. and you want me to do it before I go home in something like 2 months. Absolutamente, positivamente, sin dudo, no es posible. Here’s my next problem with the idea.. Gas is something like $4 a gallon and food is getting more expensive and gold and silver are incredibly high, and you think people are going to keep spending 300 bucks on earrings? Made out of fabric?? One of the very BEST things about using fabric for jewelry is that it is incredibly cheap. When the economy tanks, middle class people (your market) don’t buy jewelry. They save their money, or use it on gas and food. If they encounter a pair of $10 earrings, they’ll splurge for that.. You’re an economist, you should be able to predict that. That’s how I am! I made these earrings to be cheap, and I told him that, and then I told him briefly about the market I was after, and he shook my hand. That may or may not mean that he gets me. It was too brief an encounter to get the full side of any of it. I was also a little too miffed by him constantly coming in and out of my room. I’m an adult, please treat my personal space with respect. I keep Vladimir out, Luie and Claudia are kind enough to leave me be, please learn from them. It wouldn’t have been so bad if I’d cleaned in the last 3 weeks. But of course I had half the house’s tea cups on my dresser. Augh!
Then after that he went through Sylvia’s workshop, where he at the same time expressed his dislike for the indigenous fabrics and praised many of the items made out of them. What Ben has is ideas. He has an idea that the indigenous weavings don’t sell (they haven’t in a long time, I don’t blame him) so he philosophically wants to discourage from using them. I think, as a novice designer, that what you want to do is work with the strengths.. I mean come on! Duh! These women’s craft, culture, lives are weaving. These patterns, these colors, they may not be what’s been there since the beginning of the Mayan calendar, but it’s what they do now! So.. instead of trying to take them out of what they know and into something that they don’t fit into, take what they have and elaborate on it. Something that has a ton of color and pattern gets a very simple form and vice versa. All that art foundations crap. As I told my dad in my last email, you just can’t take a volkswagon bug and try to make it look like a Porsche. The best thing you can do is accept it’s goofiness. Giving it a sleek paint job and a bunch of chrome is only going to make it look uncomfortable. What’s also incredibly working in our favor is that fashion is turning around and bringing hippie style into popularity. Bright colors, bold patterns, contrasting everything. The opposite of the last ten years of monochromatic style. GO WITH IT.
Anyway, though, as I had started to say. He disliked the idea but liked the end product, which goes to show that good design is good design no matter what, and if I can make things that sell, he’s going to like it out of principle if not out of philosophy. The good thing is that I knew this from the beginning. The bad thing is that I knew this from the beginning. My first idea when they asked me to do this was to use fabric. I’m not kidding. They asked me to design jewelry, I knew cost would be a factor, and I suggested fabric. Ben Blevins told me that he didn’t like the idea. Now with the metals market they come to me like it’s something brand new. I don’t know. I expect it’s just how the world works. I can’t imagine all my bosses to have the design logic of my art professors. I’m doing what I gotta do. And I’m getting some damn good experience while. So I’m going with it. Hopefully in the next few days I can write more posts about how I misunderstood some things and that I’m not on an island with Sylvia against the tide of Blevinses. Let’s see how it goes.
HIS CRITIQUE… was that the material looked cheap and hippie-ish. Now… here is my conundrum. His wife picked out the fabric. I also happen to like it, and Claudia has given me her praise many times for the design, as well as I have been wearing them around town to see what people say (and also because I like them) and I have received a lot of good attention for them. What they are, and what I made them to be, is something rather cheap that we can make a lot of quickly and sell quickly. They utilize the typical fabrics of the area, making them super appealing to tourists as well as anyone in the states who is part of that new trend of tribal themed accessories, which according to my sister is very popular. The weavings here are so incredibly full that anything that’s done with them has to be done with a really minimalist hand or else they end up looking like a preschooler’s coloring book. Here I am dealing with the same exact thing all over again as when Lupe came. He’s got this idea in his head, he knows is so easy to do, but the idea is vague and lacking the technical details to bring it into physical reality (which is what I am here for) and so he has no idea what it takes to do it. He just wants me to do it. Sure sure, fine fine, but how do I tell someone with no experience with the nature of making textiles and with the nature of making jewelry, that it is physically impossible? I think it would have to come down to what happened with Lupe. Here you go, all your materials.. Pick up those scissors and show me exactly what you want me to do with them.. and then he sees that when he cuts this one little thread, the whole thing disintegrates, and when he adds one more color of embroidery, it looks like throw up, and square is always “square.” There is nothing weavings lend themselves to better than quadrilaterals, and there is nothing less flattering on the human body than one. This is also what I’m here for. What do you want? I can do that. What do you want? Not going to work. Let me show you another way. So this is where we are now.
Specifically, what Ben wants is “sophisticated, complicated, expensive.” The idea stems directly from an isreali designer that they carry at the store who makes extremely large, complicated, and admittedly gorgeous jewelry out of all ribbons. It’s breathtaking, and absolutely impossible. Ben is thinking something like this, in the price range upwards of $300. Here’s my take on that: You want a pair of earrings made out of fabric worth 300? I can do that for you. You want me to design that, then teach how to make it, and expect my students who are all rural housewives working out of their home to sustain the level of quality necessary, even after I leave the country.. and you want me to do it before I go home in something like 2 months. Absolutamente, positivamente, sin dudo, no es posible. Here’s my next problem with the idea.. Gas is something like $4 a gallon and food is getting more expensive and gold and silver are incredibly high, and you think people are going to keep spending 300 bucks on earrings? Made out of fabric?? One of the very BEST things about using fabric for jewelry is that it is incredibly cheap. When the economy tanks, middle class people (your market) don’t buy jewelry. They save their money, or use it on gas and food. If they encounter a pair of $10 earrings, they’ll splurge for that.. You’re an economist, you should be able to predict that. That’s how I am! I made these earrings to be cheap, and I told him that, and then I told him briefly about the market I was after, and he shook my hand. That may or may not mean that he gets me. It was too brief an encounter to get the full side of any of it. I was also a little too miffed by him constantly coming in and out of my room. I’m an adult, please treat my personal space with respect. I keep Vladimir out, Luie and Claudia are kind enough to leave me be, please learn from them. It wouldn’t have been so bad if I’d cleaned in the last 3 weeks. But of course I had half the house’s tea cups on my dresser. Augh!
Then after that he went through Sylvia’s workshop, where he at the same time expressed his dislike for the indigenous fabrics and praised many of the items made out of them. What Ben has is ideas. He has an idea that the indigenous weavings don’t sell (they haven’t in a long time, I don’t blame him) so he philosophically wants to discourage from using them. I think, as a novice designer, that what you want to do is work with the strengths.. I mean come on! Duh! These women’s craft, culture, lives are weaving. These patterns, these colors, they may not be what’s been there since the beginning of the Mayan calendar, but it’s what they do now! So.. instead of trying to take them out of what they know and into something that they don’t fit into, take what they have and elaborate on it. Something that has a ton of color and pattern gets a very simple form and vice versa. All that art foundations crap. As I told my dad in my last email, you just can’t take a volkswagon bug and try to make it look like a Porsche. The best thing you can do is accept it’s goofiness. Giving it a sleek paint job and a bunch of chrome is only going to make it look uncomfortable. What’s also incredibly working in our favor is that fashion is turning around and bringing hippie style into popularity. Bright colors, bold patterns, contrasting everything. The opposite of the last ten years of monochromatic style. GO WITH IT.
Anyway, though, as I had started to say. He disliked the idea but liked the end product, which goes to show that good design is good design no matter what, and if I can make things that sell, he’s going to like it out of principle if not out of philosophy. The good thing is that I knew this from the beginning. The bad thing is that I knew this from the beginning. My first idea when they asked me to do this was to use fabric. I’m not kidding. They asked me to design jewelry, I knew cost would be a factor, and I suggested fabric. Ben Blevins told me that he didn’t like the idea. Now with the metals market they come to me like it’s something brand new. I don’t know. I expect it’s just how the world works. I can’t imagine all my bosses to have the design logic of my art professors. I’m doing what I gotta do. And I’m getting some damn good experience while. So I’m going with it. Hopefully in the next few days I can write more posts about how I misunderstood some things and that I’m not on an island with Sylvia against the tide of Blevinses. Let’s see how it goes.
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