Saturday, August 30, 2008

I got Tekpatl for my Birthday!



Tekpatl eliza
9x11 3/4" Acrylic on Hardboard

I celebrated another year of life this summer by spending the day with a great mentor, respected elder, and friend, Nora Chapa Mendoza. Her work, known for it's power in exploring hidden images, the spiritual and sacred, and strong women, has always attracted me. We spent the day in her studio, and she shared a signature technique with me. I started this piece that day, and brought it to this point during our next session. I am especially happy with it because tekpatl appeared, a nahuatl symbol that has a great significance to me, as it's the symbol assigned to the day I was born, and I love the meaning. As she explained, tekpatl, or flint knife, is the sharp object that deftly cuts through the layers to reveal the essence or core. I like to associate it with a certain type of vision, so my hawk-eye stare peering out made perfect sense. This painting makes me feel good, such a perfect present!

4 comments:

  1. Love that texture. How was it done?

    P.S. Did you actually work the previous self-portrait into it somehow, or did you just paint it similarly?

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  2. Hey Bret, thanks! I'm surprised you could even see the texture, it's more evident IRL. It's just built up with medium...

    And that's a repainting of the other self-portrait. Actually what happened is, after the first session, I had already pulled the tekpatl, or knife shape out. Nora suggested I add myself inside it. I liked the idea, and wanted to paint a certain stare of mine, so in between sessions, I played with the idea and wound up doing the elizaBLUE painting in the post before this. I brought the elizaBLUE painting with me to the second session, and sort of repainted it into this piece. Kinda cool how it worked out, re-painting it was very simple, and I got two paintings out of it!

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  3. Happy birthday to you,and your work is nice as compare to other people art work.

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