Mexico: Parte 2

Little by lovely little

FAST FORWARD:

First a lil’ bit of news about something Mexico-and-Amazing that started in 2021. The very first time I went to Oaxaca was for a residency at Pocoapoco. Four weeks of respite–so far beyond what I could ever have dreamed–set the stage for this very precious thing…. I am delighted to announce:

This year I joined the Board of Pocoapoco. The love I have for this group of people, this place, and the sheer joy I have both from memories and for the things to come, is heart-bursting.

This is me in the morning being blessed by the sun, in the atrium/heart of the house, in front of my residency room— bathing in sunlight. And a captured moment of that morning light in my wee kitchen….just magic. But I digress.

REWIND to THE STORY:

Have you ever been told there was a subtle path to grace? Did you feel your way towards it in the dark of your inmost thoughts? Did it come to you in a dream? How about in process, an inch by inch approach to the measure of your days that might lead– like a dotted line–to the ultimate treasure?

Yes, I do think you know what I mean.

Grace was very much located in this treasure of a place.

Little by little, which in Español, is a phrase I learned to both investigate and to love in October of 2021. I opened a big wooden door in a blue wall to a world quite new to me, my first artist residency and plumb in the incredible capital city of Oaxaca, Mexico, in El Centro, heart of the city itself.

The time was nigh for nurturing my connection with grace, an ember, a fleck of light, kept deep within. I needed to shift some of the immense weight of my work life; the year and a half hence was spent blowing wind in the sales of the business and holding it together for my team. Also this was time to reflect, to recollect, to ponder. Take for example my wedding, Oct 2019. A once in a lifetime festivity that went from the flurry of planning to a ceremony in 6 months. The week prior to that I was fete-ing the 10 year anniversary of ASJ (the brand), the week prior moving out of our NYC apartment (end of an 18 year era). Then to LA to Taos to NYC to LA in lockdown. Suffice to say, this was an exhale for the ages.

The residency proved to be a time and place to tease out bite by bitty bite, all that needed to be annexed (or exhumed, evaluated, edited, evoked) to make space for allllllllll that was to come forth after. It was the time and place where everything shifted for me: POCO A POCO.

In the balmy, liltingly quiet days I started to unfold, and re-find parts within me with maps lost to time. In the first days I read (ie devoured) Circe by Madeline Miller. Reveling, cherishing, swimming in the amber of her prosaic telling of Greek mythology’s famous yellow-eyed witch. I read through all of the witching hours. And by day, I wandered the markets, smelling chiles brining vibrant things back to my quarters to experiment with in my cocinita. And every day in every way, I marveled at the colors, bright, faded, layered in plaster, falling in blooms, embroidered in cotton and striking out from store windows and market stalls. I was in a small slice of heaven.

Oh poco a poco! The tenderly apt moniker of a tiny place with an outsize role (Poco meaning Small but the sum of the parts being quite Grand) fostering conversation, deep connection, reinvention…a creative cloister that gifted me a new, expanding, multidisciplinary family. I truly mean it. Pococapoco is the people and place that broke open a well of unimaginable creativity in me that had been stored up for decades. This shift came easily in the calm light of the courtyard and around the communal table, shared with my cohort—which quickly and earnestly became a sisterhood.

I had intended to read, research ceremonial objects and peel back the layers of how my name went from being a me to a jewelry brand. I was ripe for reinvention! And I landed like clay in the hands of that moment. So it only makes sense that this was a time that I really gave myself over to the clay. It had been many many years. And, as it goes, I also spoke to the fire(ing), setting the works into stone(ware). And through this investigation, I learned from a cherished and generous mix of makers in and around Oaxaca City.

Below: a glimpse of the first barro I touched that trip, which became the first heart (never fired, merely a ceremonial/performance piece). Also pictured working in the central courtyard at Poco, finding and firing clay in sacred ceremony with the generous and amazing Oaxacan artist Alicia. And my sisters. Love you forever… Jocelyn, Jocelyn, Ope, Leticia, Berenice and Justine. Mujeres de barro amado.

There is so much more to tell. And a turning of the page requires both looking back and forth.

The why/wherefor I wanted to share this now. I am so pleased to be in service of the Poco Familia. And I am grateful just beyond beyond, for what came to be, as this was the seed that turned pages for the new chapter---enter THE OBJECTS!

It’s a working title ;) But you will be hearing more about The Objects soon.