week twenty>> "fortune"

"fortune" click to view

Hello from Cartagena Colombia! I am here visiting my grandma Tata and celebrating her birthday of 99 years alive, and how grateful I am for how alive she is...! Her robust health has made it possible for us to enjoy more days of life together, during our precious visits to each other in my lifetime, as I was born and raised in California and she was born and lives in Cartagena. At 99 and counting she is in radiant health sustaining her sharp and sound mind. Her body had slowed some, but her vitality, reflexes, and strength endure. She was born in 1911 before automobiles, refrigeration, or even the phone. Now look at our world. Whoa. Tata's perseverance throughout this last crazy century is breathtaking.


Z page this week, "Fortune" is a showcase of portraits, females of different ages, each gleaming their particular flare. Jennifer mentioned that the one black and white portrait on the lower left reminds her of my grandma Tata, which is interesting as there is a black and white portrait of Tata in her youth here in her home that could very well be from the same era. ...I myself feel an affinity with this page... for ever since I drew the swirly figure on the right I have identified with it, first of all because of the swirls, as the spiral gesture has become a sort of signature for me, as an expression of my curls, my favorite number 6, and all the "C"s in my name... and then because the swirly one stands on this stage like platform, also in spiral form, and her wafts of expression could very well be song, just as I do sing and love the stage. The woman in black and white seems to be gazing up at swirly cec. It's true that I have had the great fortune to receive the avid support of my Tata in all my creative adventures, in the name of her wanting nothing less than my happiness... and I do not take this lightly since she was born in a world operating from a mindset of 2 centuries ago and she could have easily placed oppressive expectations on how I should live, the ones she grew up with and did even place on her own daughter, my mom. I am so grateful for her putting my happiness first in her heart and being a witness to my life experience.. and thus to what is possible for a woman to live.


∞ ceci
6