Posted 8 years ago
katherines…
(247 items)
So this is a new addition to my collection of this sort of art. Acrylic with applied glitter on canvas, unsigned, 13" x 24".
I grew up in what people in Mexico call "El Norte," the Southwest border region, SoCal to Texas, to be specific San Anton in the summers, San Diego the rest of the year; we also visited and stayed with close friends in "El Sur," Tijuana and Mexicali in Baja, and we traveled frequently to Los Angeles and other places in California, mainly small towns, where we had close friends and family: that was our circuit up until my late teens. It was a sort of small town rural life, even in the cities, the people I knew grew crops and fruit trees in their yards, raised chickens, ducks, rabbits, even pigs and other small stock in sheds and pens. The borders were fairly open then, everyone crossed routinely to work, shop, visit, vacation with friends, attend festivities and sporting events like dog racing and horse racing and bullfights. In our circle of family and friends it was not uncommon to visit and be visited by peeps involved in the bullfighting biz one way or another; I even had a landlord who was a bullfighter in his youth. Bullfighting, cockfighting, horse racing, those were all a part of life inside the culture of the South and Southwest. For us there was nothing abnormal about the bloody spectacular, whether it was crime scenes in lurid rags like Alarma!, or cockfight wood carvings, or bullfight paintings on velvet, or calendars depicting Aztec sacrificial ceremonies, or epic horror comic books like "Hermelinda Linda" where chopping body parts went gleefully flying everywhere, something akin to the American "Tales from the Crypt" series, only more gruesome and funnier. I was a grown woman before I ever questioned and rejected the brutality of bullfights, cockfights, dogfights, and later horse racing. But there is drama, metaphor, tragic beauty, in the brilliant plumage and dynamic movement of the cockfights, the dramatic poses and costumes, names and legends, of the Aztec warriors and princesses, the stylized postures and elaborate outfits of the matadors as they challenged the bulls at arms' length; many great writers and artists have depicted bullfights. Intellectually I object to all of these practices and fully support their being abolished and outlawed. As a collector, I would love to own more of these pieces.
What a fascinating life you must have had growing up! Thank you for sharing your well-written story and family history. Enjoyed it very much! [;>)
Thanks for the love, brunswick, NevadaBlades, and nutsabotas6. :)
Thanks, Thomas, glad you found my thread informative. :)
NB, thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed the story, I actually was inspired by your stories to share this part of mine. A friend on FB who knows a little about my life calls my childhood "hardscrabble," which is a polite way of putting it, lol. But yes, I thought people might like to hear about this more colorful aspect. :)
If you have any more stories like this one, please share! [;>)
We must be on each other's wavelengths, NB, I was thinking I wish you would share more of your stories. You have a talent for writing that's very interesting. :)
Fascinating Katherine and I want more!
It's all very different to life in Australia which was relatively homogeneous back then - there is now a distinct city/country divide I think, and thankfully the Great Australian Bogan is being diluted by people from other cultures.
What is a Bogan you say? Read on:
https://thingsboganslike.com/about/
Thanks for the love, Efesgirl, mikelv85, vetraio50, SEAN68, racer4four, and kyratango. :)
Karen, Bogan seems to be sort of like our HoneyBooBoo type. In America, "the melting pot" is a hot button issue, "integration," "gentrification," "segregation" and the rest all are tied up in historical oppression and racism. In the UK it seems to be more about classism and origins. Some overlap between the two systems. All fascinating to observe. Especially in the USA where working class mixed race people like Tiger Woods and Barack Obama are highly compromised superstars. And where Latinos have begun and will continue to rise in numbers and predictably, to dominate the cultural and political scene. Traditional groups are beginning to fracture along with everything else. We are on the verge of a new paradigm driven by technology, we just don't know what it will look like yet.
I had to look up Honey BooBoo.....yep there is some Bogan in that family.
Bogans are not always poor and uneducated, but are always bigoted, want Australia to stay "white" (selectively ignoring the First Australians), and don't like anything that changes their lives.
I think Australia follows more of the British model of society but we have definite racism here.
Love your response - so well worded.
Do you write for a living?
The first forum I was ever on was populated by UK members so I picked up a little bit about your societies, of course every country in the UK is different, look at Canada which is a blend of British and American, or so I think anyway. :)
No, no writing for a living, but I hang around with writers, lol, does that count? :) I love reading, though, wish I had more time for it!
Oh I forgot about my blog, maybe you mean my style of writing, yes I actually did write a blog on a popular SoCal site for a long while, there was a little community of bloggers there that were really good writers, and then me with my half-literate slop, LOL! But we did enjoy reading each other's work, and that's what formed the basis of the writing group I started on FB. :)