Back

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

Cecilie Conrad·Oct 24, 2023· 3 minutes

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-Underskrift-300x133

Cecilie Conrad

Thank you for reading
I would love to hear from you. Listen to your thoughts and reflections - or praise :) It is often emotional to share our lives like this, and we get very happy when we get your feedback. So feel free to share a comment below 😋 

See more images on Facebook!

It is very hard to take good pictures of dolphins, especially if you are at the same time trying just to enjoy the moment and save some hours in the …Read more
The Julømpiade is on! For those who do not speak Danish, this word is a mix of Christmas and The Olympics. A tradition we started last year to do som…Read more
Isla Magdalena was our Christmas walk. We like to go for a walk at a beautiful place on the 24th of December. We walked over the dunes to the pacific…Read more
I have been asked if I am looking forward to completing my 365 challenge so I am off the hook of writing a story every day. It is a good question, an…Read more
“Where the Crawdads Sing” is a great novel; I greatly enjoyed it. Here, in Puerto Aldolfo Lopez Mateo, the landscape takes me right there, to the mar…Read more
A long, dusty road. We literally saw a Roadrunner. Like in the cartoons! It must be one of the highlights of the day. Such a great comment on the des…Read more
Just get out there. On the water. In the water. That is the recommendation from everyone we met living on boats for everyone else. And it is very tru…Read more
Sometimes, these peaceful days, even with all the adventure, are hard to describe. It all seems a bit banal when jotting it down in my journal. But r…Read more
In La Ventana, it made a lot of sense to get up at five in the morning to enjoy the sunrise from pitch dark over extreme beauty to bright daylight. E…Read more