Friday, October 9, 2009

Paula Kehoe and the Huichols

In the course of my greater adventures last week I ran into this artist.
Oh.  My.  God.


Have you ever seen anything like this ever??????????  I think they are stunning.


And Paula Kehoe looks like just a normal all-American blonde girl. Check out her website:

http://beadedmasks.com/Home.html

Paula's pieces were being sold at the gift shop of the Museum of Craft and Folk Art in San Francisco

www.mocfa.org

I know that these are not to everyone's taste but I think they do something on such a completely different level.  The artist says that she is influenced by indigenous Indian/Mexican art of the Huichol tribes.  The Huichol integrate their art (as have many cultures, early and late in human history) into their religious, shamanistic rituals - which often involve a drug (peyote) induced experience of the cosmos.  Here are examples of  masks done by Huichol artists.  I found them on:

http://www.tribesgallery.com/huichol/masks/tb_mask1.html

Huichol MaskHuichol MaskHuichol MaskHuichol Mask


OK and then I found these on the following site











These last three use more universally commonplace folk color combinations.  The middle pieces and Paula's use colors that are more sophisticated and which add another dimension entirely.  I am definitely experiencing the cosmos through this artwork.  Without the drugs!  I have ALOT more to learn about the Southwest.  This is going to be a wonderful departure point.   Any further words would be redundant.  These pieces say so much about the people who make them and the internal/external spaces they tap into.  I would only add that they remind me also of the art of the indigenous Australians.  I bow.



4 comments:

  1. Wonderful!! I love the masks! I'm just reading (and re-reading) Joanne Harris' The Girl with No Shadow, and this post reminds me a lot of that. Yes, I'm embracing the colors this fall! We had a particularly colorful fall in denver this year, and it seems appropriate. When I started the blog last winter I was on and all-white theme, but I am definitely feeling colorful this year!

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  3. Unique Huichol handmade bracelets enjoy great diversity of colors, patterns a

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