One of the things I have always been interested in is how people form their own belief systems. There is this idea, perpetuated by those in control, defined how ever you like, that there are a set number and type of belief systems. With most religions there is a religious personage who stands up once a week, or day, or hour to spread the orthodoxy. People listen to this spiritual;l leaders words, see truth in them, and identify as that particular religion.

But religion is so much more personal than that, even if most people would chose to deny that. Each of us is influenced by the world around us in separate ways and that influence causes us to believe what we do.

I was talking to a hard core Atheist the other day and he was adamant that he didn't believe in anything. "Anything?" I asked, puzzled. I asked him, did he ever touch wood for luck, or wish on a shooting star, or take joy in finding a four leaf clover. Did he have no superstitions of black cats, or ladders, or lucky underwear? What are these things but a belief in something other than ourselves that exerts some control over our lives.

Marx said that Religion is the opiate of the masses, and I suppose that with any good drug, for it to work you must believe in your high. It is scary to think that that man over there who said he took the same hit as you might be having an entirely different trip. Or is it that we as humans always strive to find the commonality with those we like and to create differences between us and those we don't. Why can't we admit that we all believe different things.

I was in Mexico, golly, two days ago, up in the mountains of rural Chiapas, one of the poorer and more indigenous states in Mexico (Which by the way is officially the United States of Mexico. Why doesn't our country have a real name. United States? There are tons of these. America? That includes 23 different countries. United states of America? As a definition that includes Mexico, plus a ton others. I think I will simply refer to us as Home).

Back to Mexico. I was up in the highlands in this small town of San Juan Chamula. The community there indigenous, speaks Tsotsil, and is closed. Like the Amish. You have to agree support the towns choice of political party (PRI) and to be a member of the church or you are ousted. That's right, banished from the community. Forced to live somewhere else and eek out a living as best you can. The church, which in order to go into you must get permission from the town hall (What a great money maker. Very Clever), is ostensibly Catholic. Or, at least it was built by the Catholic friars, probably Jesuits, a hundred and fifty years ago. It is no longer Catholic as the Vatican preaches it. Instead it is, what, animist? Polytheist? Walking in one sees a church devoid of pews, chairs even an altar. Instead banners drape from the ceiling framing the hall, drawing the eye in. Where pews would be the floor is strewn with wall to wall pine needles, the long kind that stay green forever. Places have been cleared in the needles and the faithful light candles and stick them directly to the tile floor. But not just one candle or two. No, each supplicant plants tens, hundreds of candles in plots rows deep, creating patches of light that fill the air with the slight tinge of smoke designed to catch the trickling sunlight. People sit by their candles, some facing forward to where an altar undoubtedly once stood, others orient their banks of candles to towards the walls where Catholic saints, imbued with local authorities stand in their glass boxes waiting to hear the pleas of the distressed.

Like any good religion, the people of San Juan Chamula ply their gods with offerings in an effort to grease their spiritual palms. These gods want five things; eggs as the universal symbol of rebirth; home brewed cane alcohol, of the type that peels paint off the side of houses, offered in an old soda bottle; Candles because all gods like fire (even those water gods like a few candles now and then); Coca-cola(trademark), which is the sign of the new world order, a luxury that is affordable to many; and the requisite live chicken. I learned something new. Chickens are remarkably docile creatures. I have cared for, kept, and even killed chickens in my time, but I have never felt the easy familiarity with handling chickens that the people of San Juan Chamula do. Did you know that you can stuff a fully grown chicken into a shopping bag and it will just sit there, quiet, waiting to have its neck rung. Holding it upside down by the feet also seems to have a calming effect, as does clamping the chicken tightly under one arm. To clarify, there were NO chickens wandering about. All of the chickens were either well dominated, or dead.

I realize that I am going off onto a tangent, or at least going off into story teller mode which is something that I love. I have this book that one of these days I will finish writing, but that is neither here nor there. This all goes back to people and their beliefs. I suppose the people of San Juan Chamula were once dominated by the Spanish friars and like the crypo-jews of inquisitorial Spain they took their religion under ground. Over time the religion changed and adapted as everyday rites were imbued with a subversive local meaning and other, harder to practice parts of their native religion were forgotten through disuse. As a group the people created a new religion that suited their needs and their circumstance. And now it has become codified and nonbelievers are expelled from the community.

I know that for myself I have spent a great quantity of my life traveling. I figure that all in all I have spent almost four outside of the US, which is more than a 1/10 of my life. My first language was Spanish and though I am not a Christian, the aesthetics and a rituals of the medieval Spanish church feel like home to me. (random side note - I have probably been to over 60 masses in my life, not a one in English). Like wise, the use of space and of form used by the Aztec and the Mayan inform my own sense of line. And they influence my own belief system as well.

I have been having problems making art about religion. I am not being hired to make art for a church or other religious building, so the religion I depict is my own. But I have been given pure grief over what I depict because it is not standard. And even worse, GASP!, it is not western, white, Judeo Christian as I so obviously am. Ok, I get it, I can't make Inupiak art because I am not Inupiak, and I can't make Bambara art because I am not from Western Equatorial Africa. But what if I was raised there. Or visited there at a formative age. What if my own belief system was tainted by these foreign influences and like all people everywhere I created my own belief system. But what if my created belief system is not easily pigeon holed. Do I not get to make altars to Montezuma and Tlaloc (the Hurrian god of thunder), and Squat (the god of parking). If my belief system is not mainstream do I have to keep it under wraps. Do my gods get to be laughed at because there is no church of Tlaloc? Do I just have to make white girl art because that is what I look like what I should make.

Ok, enough of the ranting. Can you tell I got my undergraduate degree in religious studies and took only one art class.

No, more ranting. Sort of on another topic. Ok, not ranting. I want to have a perfect world in which I could survive by making ridiculously labor intensive traditional crafts. Like the mola of the Cuna Indians in the San Blas islands off the coast of Panama, or the huipil of the Mayan woman of Chichicastenango. I like the aesthetic and I like the tedious busy work, and I like the attention to detail that is possible through the repetition of small tasks. If I weave a knotted Turkish carpet I take genuine pleasure in making this row of 238 knots just a little better than the last one.

I like the aesthetic of Islamic art. No space unoccupied, no surface unadorned. I think most traditional crafts are like that. It simplicity a modern invention? I just read an article written by Mondrian which I thought was really interesting talking about boiling down art into the simple juxtaposition of line and color. When all else is taken away. What is weird is I like Mondrian, but I also like the totality of coverage of these other art forms. Think a Romanesque cathedral. It is the totality of coverage that creates simplicity. ?Unlike 17th and 18th century dutch naval scenes of still lifes with dead game, both styles of which I abhor. Totally gives me the willies. It is just so phenomenally boring. Besides, what could you possibly read into it? Dutch. Naval. Warfare. There you go. That pretty much sums it up.

I think I am addicted to ice cream. But lets just keep that between ourselves, shall we.

There is this color, after the sun has set, but before the sky is completely dark, when the the stars are out and just the littlest bit of yellow is still tainting the blue of the sky. It is the best color in the world and I am always amazed when I happen to be outside and look up at just that moment. I once bought a piece of hand blown stained glass that due to the variable thickness of the glass was just that color.

When blowing glass there is also this moment of color transition that is stunning. It happened when b;owing cobalt blue glass and as it cools the glass transitions from a orange to a deep pink to a glorious blue. In reality I don't understand why we don't spend all of our time trying to achieve that same color transition. It is so perfect.

Trying to touch type here, should have learned a long time ago but didn't.