Exploring Street Art and Cultural Symbols in a Subtropical Setting | Day 296 of my 2023 Journal

Subtropical rain and street art!

I love street art. I would almost say more than all other art forms, but that would not be true. All art forms and display forms have their advantages.

Street art has the element of vulnerability to time, to change, to violence, to coincidence, to decay.

The base fact, street art is out there, exposed, gives it an element of reality, I enjoy in combination with the artwork itself. I find, experiencing art in the streets a slow and real way of taking in the effect, so hard to describe, art has on me.

Walking to the local market and back, we a chose new route and got to see new walls. Most of my pictures from the day are of that. Though, you might enjoy the one of the big iguana we found at the tennis court (of all places) and the rainbow that followed us all the way out and back.

I can also share, that I still enjoy cilantro combined with lime and chili so much so, that I left the safety of the apartment in the middle of a heavy rainfall to walk the 350 meters to the supermarket as I refused to eat my lunch without cilantro. I was dripping walking through the shop to get my one item. And cold.

The rain was warm, but the aircon was not, allowing for a great relief when I got back out into the lukewarm downpour heading home.

I spent some time researching the story of Catrina, as I had now read the “Todas somos Catrinas”, and as far as I got, I find the symbol beautiful. I don’t want to learn more, I chose to hold on to the version I constructed after a bit of Wikipedia and some YouTube videos in Mexican Spanish.

It goes like this: The skeleton woman with the big hat and beautiful dress is the persona from a critique of the Mexican middle class adopting the European lifestyle. The skeleton person represents the fact, that we will all die and in the end, it is important to live a life true to who we are, not pretending to be something we are not.

Is the Catrina a Mexican version of Gloria Gaynor’s “I am what I am?”

This is the version I like, anyway, and I will go with it, allowing for every single representation of Catrina to remind me of this important focus.

Stay true.

With love

Cecilie Conrad

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