Across the Great Divide…el Dia de los Muertos

 

 

It’s Halloween, and that is followed by All Saint’s Day or, el Dia de los Muertos.

On a beautiful Autumn Saturday Cheekwood hosted an extremely fun and colorful celebratory event. (I have mentioned Cheekwood before..)

https://rkpowers.wordpress.com/2010/11/10/chihuly-cheekwood/

 

 

 

I won’t give a full history…the research itself was fun and eye-opening…but, the idea that Death is something to laugh about and make fun of seems to be a concept that would be sensible to assimilate.  I mean, you can’t do anything about the inevitable, right?…why not eat, drink, sing, dance, wear make-up and costumes, present prayers and  offerings, and celebrate.

“Death, O Death, where is thy sting?”

 

The 1800’s artist Jose Guadalupe Posada is credited with picturing  skeletons…las calacas…in ordinary, everyday scenes, such as riding bicycles. This whimsical view of Death is widely displayed on el Dia de los Muertos.

 

 

Nashville artist/photographer/cinematographer Julia Gauthier-Burciaga has taken that theme and given it a Nashville touch.

 

 

…from calacas on the Opry stage to Printer’s Alley, downtown (including the everpresent bachelerette  parties), to the annual East Nashville Tomato Festival.

 

 

 

Another artist, Jaiya Rose Wendell, was not only providing face paint…

 

 

 

 

but showed a unique way to recycle Barbie dolls….

 

 

 

Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,
It seems to me most strange that men should fear;
Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come.  (Shakespeare)

Enough words…. Eat, Drink and be Merry, for Tomorrow….

Well….You know….!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

~ by rkpowers on October 31, 2016.