Poem: "I've got my magic back" by Leticia Alaniz

I’ve got my magic back

Moon spells breathe out of my 

mouth and exhale Medusa chants. 

The black springs turn yellow, 

petal pink, and green. 

I left behind the rush and madness 

from the old. 

I’ve put on my high priestess robe. 

Pomegranate juices drip down

my lips.

They open the seeds of 

knowledge.

An altar of onions and fleur-de-lis

winds under my feet.

Lyrical songs sing 

turning leaves, shaking the

branches of my hips.

My body is hotly possessed in

the Minerva temple.

Vanilla orchids cluster their nest 

in my hair. 

Producing Spain of blood, wine, and fire.

Nymphs of the forest tell me

your reflection is resurrect.

My heart flutters.

The ebony raven circles her ritual dialect.

You know my language,

my Astros, my heavenly body,

curves and all.

The prelude of my breath

awakens the sacred.

The verse of my rhythm wind

calls for the love spell

of my magic that

is back again.

© 2023 Leticia Alaniz

Aarian Marrivada Alaniz - Return of the Maya

Aarian Marrivada Alaniz, "Return of the Maya" 2023
Analog Paper Collage on Arches Paper (11x14 inch)
Photo © Leticia Alaniz

Becoming an artist for Aarian Marrivada Alaniz came naturally, instinctively and with deep never-ending passion.  This is Aarian’s debut showcasing the art of his young imagination.  He has demonstrated a creative interest since he could hold a paint brush at the age of three.  Painting and drawing at floor level, he instinctively created art that evolved into forms that are influenced by personal motivation and his surroundings.  Between the age of six or seven, Aarian began to create art influenced by several schools of art that he most loved, including Modern and Abstraction, with a special interest in color and Wassily Kandinsky art.  He perceived everything in a much broader and deeper sense creating narratives from memory, music and his favorite literature.  

In this first professional exhibition, Aarian presents a piece titled, Return of the Maya.  It's an authentic analog collage that celebrates a life of mementos through his eyes.  Aarian has no limits on his decision of splashy color and bold choices of narrative.  There's a cherry-red car in the shape of an ultra-cool rocket that represents suave road trips from a bygone era.  A giant Mayan stone head with an ever looking eye in black and white sits on a colorful Mayan weave.  A monkey sits in the style of Auguste Rodin's bronze sculpture: The Thinker in a playful take in front of a computer with the word "Loading" over his head.   The piece is exhibited as part of a juried group exhibition: Memento: Art That Reminds Us, at 9th Street Studios in Wichita Falls, Texas under the direction of curator and artist, Amber Day Scott.  Another aspect of the exhibition is an audio recording and a personal essay that accompanies the piece.  The essay written by the artist describes his piece:  


My name is Aarian I am nine years old. This is my very first collage. The Mayans from Guatemala and Mexico are in my heritage because my mother is Mexican and my father is from India. The giant Mayan sculpture head is ancient beauty in stone carved hundreds of years before the conquistadors from Spain arrived. I have memories of road trips, sitting on sarapes and weavings at the beach and eating fresh fruit and ceviche. I have my favorite colcha that I call the "colores colcha," the sombrero represents my grandfather, the orchids the south of Mexico. The monkey represents me, learning technology.

Photo © Jess Clark 2023

Aarian perceives art as seriously as he plays music.  Along with creating visual art, Aarian is a musician and composes on the piano original works which he declares are a continuation from his canvases.  Impressionism is another school of art which he particularly enjoys and composes melody beyond standard lyricism.  One of his first compositions is a playful melody that he titled, The Detective.  His freeform melodies are enmeshed with his visual work and his inspirations are infinite.  

Aarian Is mentored by his mother who is also an artist.  He creates in acrylic, oils, oil pastels, and paper collage.  

Aarian Marrivada Alaniz
© Leticia Alaniz 2023

The blue boat - La barca azul

Mexico
Photograph © Brent Kollock

At dawn, the north wind blew the waves strongly, beating its foamy arms with fervor until a boat was wrecked on the beach. Its blue color had faded in parts where the sea had taken its due when navigating its waters. A sign on the side in scarlet letters read Palom r. The letter a had been erased and a grayish shadow remained in its place.

The sun's rays rushed down and the light peeked out between my toes. Because of my exhaustion, I couldn't lift my eyes any longer. So I slept a while. I was hungry and thirsty.  I had to get to town before the downpour fell.  

I tried to rush my sleep. My bare chest, dry with sand, reminded me of the luck of my escape from my husband's house. I ran out into the night when he tried to lock me in a room under a padlock. I managed to shake off his anger by throwing a wooden jewelry box at the window. The cracks in the glass were my door of freedom and I ran in the moonlight until I reached the beach.

I walked towards the blue boat. Its whale-like figure had an empty skeleton belly. I 
found a rope and a fishing net. I climbed in and hid. I tried to stop the wind with my fingers. The boat rocked and the waves spoke sweetly to her.  She moved until she was stuck in a rocky corner where white flowers grew. The flowers gave off a scent of honey-pollen and the bees buzzed quickly, intoxicated by their feeding. The coarse grain of the sand was like white sugar that melts with water. I imagined eating the sand with honey and thus I calmed the anguish of my hunger.

Photograph © Brent Kollock

Thick, heavy drops began to appear. I thought it would be a light drizzle, but then it gained strength and jets of water moved the boat from its place.  Bubbles and foam from the sea crashed in and turned my refuge into a heavy belly. I abandoned the boat.

I came upon a thatched shack at a fisherman's wharf. A toothless lady dressed in a stained apron bellowed at me, "Dirty!" When they smell a strange presence, the skinny, mangy dogs come out to bark, dripping saliva. The uproar summoned people to lean out the door to take a look.  Another lady with broad shoulders and a bent forehead offered me a scratchy cloth to cover my nakedness. Her hands with luminous scales that had stuck dry to her hands smelled of guts and fish. But I felt her motherhood in her eyes and she offered me lodging in her hut.

She comforted me, “Tomorrow will dawn a clear day pronounced by the mouth of God. Come on girl, sleep. The journey is long and we women are of dominion and power. "

Written by Leticia Alaniz

© 2021

Photograph © Brent Kollock

 

 

Amber Day Scott - An Ephemeral Eclipse

Amber Day Scott - Artist
© Leticia Alaniz

Every so often, you come across an artist that has a burning inner fire ravishingly creative, that gold embellishments adorn her artwork like streaks of pre-Earth supernovae and star collisions.  In essence, gold found on Earth came from the debris of dead stars.  Several thousand years later, flecks of pure sparkly gold made their way onto the art of Amber Day Scott.    

Attracted to the Modern Art Period and Art Deco, Day Scott journeyed into lifelong learning and expressiveness.  Natural wonders, Earth’s rotation, Solar and Lunar Eclipses, and the symbolism of cosmic events became the core inspiration for her work.

Amber Day Scott was born and raised in Wichita Falls, Texas where she earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Midwestern State University in 2001.  As a young dreamer and nature observer, in search of the wonders of celestial bodies, she embarked on a road trip in 2017 to witness eclipse totality which had a profound effect on her creative thought process.  Careful planning gave way to be at the right place, at the right time.  Witnessing the breathtaking sight was well worth every second.  She became a seeker of truth and decided that experience rather than explanation would be the focus of her art. 

Cosmic events, extreme weather, and animal behavior, especially when darkness falls during a total eclipse and the stars fill the sky, are a source of natural poetry and inspiration for one of Day Scott’s most current body of work.  In her words, “I’m inspired by both the toxicity of the human ego, and the idea that we are all just stardust.”

Ingrained in her memories is a life-changing tornado that fiercely tore through her beloved Wichita Falls in 1979.  Her displaced family among hundreds of others were moved to FEMA housing in a public park, which was also home to a large prairie dog colony.  She learned to commune in a society beaten by trauma and fear.  Among the chaos after the storm, under her feet were villages of resilient subterranean rodents who proved to be extremely charismatic and social.  When the horizon flushed with the colors of the sunset, it was prime observational time for Day Scott.  The experience was greatly moving.  Naturally, the peeking eyes of the prairie dogs were to become immortalized in her work. 

The displacement left an indelible mark on Day Scott, which she purposefully expresses in her art.  Rather than focusing on the trauma, an understanding of given circumstances enlightened her artistic purpose.  She chose to recognize the lyricism in the imagery of the prairie dogs’ survival and social behavior.

Inexhaustible Lamp (2020)
© Amber Day Scott

In the piece Inexhaustible Lamp (2020), Amber quotes scientist and poet Carl Sagan in a mixed media depiction that encompasses the cosmic sentiment tied to the artist’s work.  A prairie dog holds a golden moon while a fiery sunset sets the stage for the darkening sky of an eclipse, which on close observation seems eternally liquified on its silent gravitation. The moon partly covered, comes full circle with beaming light in golden tonalities reflected in the eyes of the onlooking prairie dog.  It serves as a reminder that we’re a granular element.  Our presence may even be ephemeral - a flash of luminescence in a great dark ocean.  The sun is an omnipresent force on the landscape, one that the prairie dogs cannot escape.    

Known and Unknown (2020)
© Amber Day Scott

We live in an extraordinary place in the universe where total solar eclipses are possible.  Day Scott applies her observations of this magical phenomenon in Known and Unknown (2020).  A total solar eclipse is mirrored underground of a hill.  A prairie dog rests on the hill, looking out observing his surroundings, almost in gravitational suspense of the eclipse.  Hues of soft and creamy pastels radiate glowing energy from the life-giving sun.  A golden aura majestically forms a shimmering ring of darkness, void of the fragility of light.  Its a perfect example of how the artist has applied flecks of gold from the collided stars in her artistic universe.

In an astonishing burst of energy, in the piece Denier (2020), a prairie dog has come out of its tunneling city perhaps communicating to its brethren the day’s activities.  Golden embroidery stitches mark a balanced sky as dawn approaches.  Wispy touches of light remaining from the night’s twilight fall on the land.  The prairie dog’s dark, quiet eyes become amused as he stares along the horizon marking the underground road of his home as he listens intently for the rhythms of his kin.

 

Denier (2020)
© Amber Day Scott      

The artist must believe that what he is doing is the most important thing in the world.  Adhering to this belief, Day Scott focused on the present and let go of fears and worries.  Gratefulness and the ability to change and grow opened the door for new experiences.  In the piece titled It’s in order for a Reason (2020), Day Scott found appreciation in the landscape of the prairie that had been decimated by a tornado.  She assumed a stream of consciousness in a dreamlike quality.  An upright prairie dog stands still in a ring that defines the origin of the word: Cosmos.  Quoting Carl Sagan it reads, “Cosmos is a Greek word for the order of the universe.  It is in a way, the opposite of Chaos.  It implies the deep interconnectedness of all things.”  Day Scott invites the viewer to look into the ring, to read the quote, and to think.  It makes the viewer feel as if we are part of the story and the stillness creates a sense that we are witnessing a kind of heightened reality.  The landscape painted in hues of blues and dotted with soft, fluffy clouds of white reminds the inhabitants that our landscape is green, lush, and full of life.

It's in order for a Reason (2020)
© Amber Day Scott

          

Experiencing difficulties in life in her formative years' involved engagement in reading voraciously.  It was the one thing that a person can do to create a very personal world.  Day Scott loved the magical power of books and their escape from reality.  

“I realize in retrospect that I was quite disappointed in my reality, and preferred to escape into a dream world of someone else’s story.   I have evolved over the years and no longer crave escape.  I savor each precious moment and not race ahead to the next adventure.  I now read to grow, rather than read to avoid.” - Day Scott

Day Scott is currently working on two bodies of work that encompasses an exploration of spiritual identity and interconnectivity.  A personal disconnect from her birth religion led to a journey towards something new and indefinable.  In the first collection, in utter concentration and true to her own beliefs, Day Scott interprets her personal experiences in a series that continues to grow and evolve.  

The second body of work is a collaboration with artist partner Simon Welch.  It is an effort that has taken over two years in a process that gathers force in a variety of topics such as the current political climate, general Whiteness: White culture, White privilege, White saviors according to western beliefs, and cultural appropriation.  It is an honest examination that attempts to go deep into personal culture and history.  The collection is scheduled to debut for public viewing in the summer of 2021.  

Day Scott’s diligent perseverance and attention to detail sum up the majority of her creative process.  Pre-work and research are extensive.  Working in a series of five to ten pieces at a time paired with meticulous planning of the creative outcome is essential before commencing any work with materials.  Day Scott enjoys working on her art in the evenings.  Sometimes on weekends, she works ten to twelve continuous hours.  Coffee, nuts, and cheese are favorite snacks to keep the energy going.  Benjamin Biolay or Nouvelle Vague are favorite musical artists she likes to stream to set the tone while working.  Day Scott commits to total concentration in a near-spiritual experience elevating her art to a meditative state.  Time-lapse videos are another enraptured layer that records her work in progress which illustrates the artistic visual storytelling of her pieces.           

With strong formative influences including those from a string of survival jobs, Day Scott achieved her artistic endeavors little by little before becoming a full-time artist.  Important mentors had a grateful and meaningful impact on her work.  Mark McDowell, a professional artist in Scottsdale, Arizona gave her guidance and perspective in professional opportunities.  Margie Johnson Reese (Wichita Falls Alliance for Arts and Culture) taught her how to foster public interest in the arts in ways that increase opportunities for all, rather than being motivated by individual pursuits.  Becky Rake and Linda Deason, gallerists and owners of 9th Street Studios, have mentored with tender care through the value of community.  Their agenda is to welcome many artists by “leaving the door open” and by helping people feel connected to artistic pursuits.  

In addition to Day Scott’s creative work and exhibitions, she is director and curator of the 9th Street Studio Gallery and is an administrative assistant for the Wichita Falls Alliance for Arts and Culture.  Her work has been featured in the Juanita Harvey Gallery at MSU, the Kemp Center for the Arts, the Tulsa Nude Art Show, and the Homage juried exhibition in Rosendale, New York.  Solo exhibitions include the Pedroche Gallery in Dallas and the Cattle Track Art Gallery in Scottsdale, Arizona.  The most current body of work titled: Something Bigger had an impressive and profound presence at the Whiteside Museum of Natural History in Seymour, Texas.  The exhibition opened in mid-November 2020.  Due to the positive audience response, the exhibition was extended through the end of January 2021.                                                                                                                                                                                                             

Seeking knowledge of the universe Amber Day Scott adheres to the following personal philosophy, “We keep what we have by giving it away.”  

For more on Amber Day Scott please visit: 

Wichita Fallas Alliance for the Arts & Culture: https://wichitafallsarts.org/about/staff/amber-day-scott/ 

9th Street Studios: http://www.9thstreetstudios.com

Whiteside Museum of Natural History: https://www.wmnh.org/something-bigger-exhibit 

Amber Day Scott at LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amberdayscott

Armando Sebastian: Vestiges of a Mystical Paradise

Boys in the Garden
Oil on Canvas
Armando Sebastian

Armando Sebastian is an artist, a poet with a brush who is devoted to creating ideals of harmony through art that moves our emotions.  It is a perfect escape of everyday reality and an expression of creative imagination.  Distinctively dazzling, Sebastian’s art establishes a presence that is palpably alive.  Full of imagery and ritual, it is art that has the power to represent and create spectacular, timeless, flourishing.  His poetic body of work embodies vestiges of a mystical paradise.    

Sebastian was born in Monterrey, Nuevo León, Mexico where he pursued a career at the Autonomous University of Nuevo León.  Art was ingrained in his heart from an early age, therefore, becoming a relentless renaissance man: Sebastian designed, cut fabrics, made costumes, created jewelry, continuously painted, ornamented every space in his room as a youth, and for hours dreamt endlessly about scenes that would later become his emblematic paintings that are now highly sought after.

Armando Sebastian is a self-taught artist and most of his learning came from pouring over hundreds of volumes of art books.  Being drawn to the Surrealist art movement, medieval art, 18th Century art, religious imagery, and Ex Votos, a type of Mexican artistic religious iconography, Sebastian implements symbolic meaning and dimension in his work.  

In his early years, Sebastian grew up watching Japanese anime cartoons that included fantastic beasts, powerful beings that resided over dark, evil deeds, and good characters that possessed human qualities that redeem the world.

Mexico City-based Spanish painter Remedios Varo became a strong, early influence.  Sebastian, in his enigmatic paintings, makes use of androgynous beings engaged in emotional expressions such as letter writing, poetry recitations,  proclamations of love, and even sadness with transparent, diamond-like tears over the face of his subjects.  Some depictions engage in magical arts and even the occult and shamanism or curanderismo.  

Another major influence in Sebastian’s work is French post-impressionist painter Henri Rousseau.  In Sebastian’s series: The Garden of Good and Evil, a few elements of Rousseau’s paintings can be seen as an influence.  The piece titled: Boys in the Garden depicts a paradise garden oasis full of fragrant flowers, a cult to the god of beauty and ecstasy, colorful, curious, and perhaps even picaresque with youthful prowess, one boy’s eyes can see, while the other boy is blindfolded.  In the resplendent and sumptuous blues and greens, birds of paradise, a heavenly waterfall, several wild birds, and even a poisonous snake about to devour a rabbit serve as a reminder that even in paradise there will be room for evil.  

Indra & Eloise / The Thieves of Hearts
Oil on Canvas 36x48 in
Armando Sebastian

Sebastian has stated that his inspiration comes mainly from life experiences, childhood dreams, and magical childhood stories.  His sense of embellishment and decorative exquisiteness can be fully appreciated in the painting: Indra & Eloise / The Thieves of Hearts.  The depiction is of two personages endowed with lavish, expressive eyes flying on a vivid and mysterious magic carpet.  The dramatic gowns are richly ornamented with gold threads, soft, thick velvet, and jewels from far away lands.  Black dots applied on the subjects are a resemblance of the eternal black hole of our universe or perhaps a kohl marking to ward off evil spirits.  The black dot is all-powerful and is the spiritual sight that can see things that the physical eyes cannot see.  There is no need to interpret the inherent genders, the narrative is gloriously imperial and their journey is seemingly frozen in venerable tranquil beauty lit by beaming moonlight.   

Sebastian studied the art of Frida Kahlo and Leonora Carrington.  Both women artists left an impressive formality of style that Sebastian ceremoniously renders admiration by enveloping elements into his artwork.  In Lagrimas de Cristal / Diamonds of Sorrow, a boy is consumed by sadness and aching for love.  A clear homage to Kahlo’s sorrow and personal pain can be admired in the wet, droopy eyes of the boy who lets out his cry with crystal-diamond beads and an emotional, unrequited love letter written on the blue wall.  You can’t ignore the counted tears on the table without also admiring his ruby-red lips that spark a sense of forgiveness for the misdeed. 

Lagrimas de Cristal / Diamonds of Sorrow
Oil on Canvas 30x40 in
Armando Sebastian

In Parallel Universe / Ciervos en Primavera, Sebastian applies his deep understanding and connection to the art of Leonora Carrington.  In this scene, a powerful act of his imagination depicts a divine world with a sense of time-related to the here and now, but also eternity.  His space and dimension for creation are open and boundless.  It brims over and you’re pulled in.  It's a different world with an alchemy of symbols. It's a scene that invites the viewer to step back and let you observe details and small moments.  Glorified in the power of color to awake love and passion, there is a boy hidden behind an evergreen garden of perfumed blossoms begging for pollination.  Drawn by his sense of smell, his masked, peeking eyes are oblivious of a hungry, black, serpent eating a fawn and his defeated mother.  In his harmonious garden, he stands tall like the obelisk at the distant hills and he is master of his paradise.  The scene is framed by a theatrical red curtain, perhaps a symbol of palpitating blood, he’s in another mysterious dimension, unbeknownst to him that the viewer is observing his world.  

Parallel Universe / Ciervos en Primavera
Oil on Canvas 48x60 in
Armando Sebastian

Armando Sebastian is deeply connected to his Mexican roots.  Culture plays a major role in his work.  He carries with him a sketchbook so that wherever he may be, he can doodle ideas that come to mind.  His love of music such as boleros, ballads, and electronic music, poetry, coffee, and chamomile tea nourish his senses while he works.  His process for each piece usually starts with the burning of incense, a shrine of objects, and a collage or inspirational board that fills his studio with artistic energy.  He’s mostly inspired to work in the early dawn hours, but he also works at night.  His studio is his sanctuary.  

Sebastian’s hope for his extensive body of work is to transcend time, language, and cultural boundaries.  He hopes to reflect on human experiences and to record the expressive mind that will live on.

For more on Armando Sebastian and his work visit:    

https://www.armandosebastian.com

Armando Sebastian Artist
Photo © Leticia Alaniz

Written by

© Leticia Alaniz

All Rights Reserved 

2020   

Brent Kollock: Stories from the streets of Mexico

Woman offering prayers
Photograph © Brent Kollock

Deep in the hills and valleys of Mexico lie spellbinding tales of the people that have inherited the secrets of living in ancestral tradition and newly adopted modern ways.  Quietly capturing these stories is the everlasting curiosity and talent of life and street photographer Brent Kollock.  

His travels have led him to the everyday lives of market vendors, street circuses, performers, carnivals, children, street food, religious ceremonies, Prehispanic rituals, and even burials.  Different regions have provided a background of photographs in their purest form, setting the stories in their most natural, vulnerable, and unobtrusive capture of a reality that can be seen today.  It’s a stark, black and white vérité style with subjects stopped in an eternal moment in the Mexican states of Jalisco, Nayarit, Colima, Guanajuato, and Puebla. 

Tuba Player
Photograph © Brent Kollock

Photographing everyday life confronts Kollock to see and live like a local.  To acquire a delicate sensibility to his surroundings and understand the customs of the natives and the realm of their triumphs and hardships of survival and celebration of life.  People commune with animals, with the past and the present, with the underworld, the dead and the living.  Their food becomes ritual and ceremony becomes blurred with dreams.

Armed with such sensibility, Kollock’s craft and skillful command of the camera, have led him to closeness with his subject to chronicle moments as they happen.  In many of the photographs, his subjects’ eyes seem to hypnotize and speak to the viewer which can be interpreted as an invitation to look in.

Children performing Pastorela
© Brent Kollock

Brent Kollock is an artist of life, a poet, an artist documenting on 35mm film and digital capture.  They’re scenes of relevance and passing time.  
There’s an almost spiritual quality to his photographs.  His images are filled with the beauty and absurdity that never fail to evoke a strange yet intimate sense of humanity.  

Kollock’s perseverance to capture humanity has led to an exploration of the significance of the stories he has brought from far away lands.  At the heart of his stories, lies the human spirit and the quest of seeking peace and harmony.  A quest to establish meaningful connections to people and animals and a clear representation of who we are.

Market Musicians (Abuelos)
© Brent Kollock

Kollock’s body of work is of light and darkness and assumes the perspective of his subjects.  There is a fundamental narrative of struggle, survival, joy, and even oppression and freedom.  His subjects emerge from the shadows and they belong to their societies, they may be solitary or in groups of families, but all have intricate and fascinating stories to tell.  They’re a reminder that all of humanity has a fundamental need for expression. And the photographs serve as a lasting monument to his talent.

Artist, Photographer, Writer Brent Kollock

Brent Kollock presents A World Away Just Next Door: Street Photography in Mexico in a solo exhibition at the Latino Cultural Center, Dallas.  Fine art black and white prints are selected and curated by legendary artist and activist Viola Delgado.

The exhibit is free and open to the public on November 22 through January 4th, 2019.

2600 Live Oak Street - Dallas, Texas 75204

For more on Brent Kollock or to purchase his art photography books visit:

https://www.brentkollock.com

Written by Leticia Alaniz

© 2019

     

    

Margarita al Pastor - It's a Tacos al Pastor Devilish Cocktail

Margarita al Pastor
Photograph © Leticia Alaniz 2018
All Rights Reserved

Want to know about a tongue tickling summer beverage that has tacos al pastor written all over it?  It’s the Margarita al Pastor.  Literally, if you love tacos you don't neeed a translation for tacos al pastor.  If you like the namesake tacos, you’ll love the take on this smooth Margarita that’s an explosion of flavors reminiscent of the famed Mexican street tacos.  It’s a diablura (devilish) of a cocktail that will make you hungry and by the third sip, you’ll be hooked.     

It starts by combining spices, herbs, pineapple juice, lime juice … and all that goes into a traditional Margarita (except triple sec, it's sweet and sour enough without it).  Creative mixologist Gabriel Orta shares his recipe for a spicy cordial that can be pre-made for the Margarita al Pastor.  But my take on the Margarita also includes muddled cilantro and basil as the base for the preparation.  It’s kind of like the fresh cilantro you add to your tacos before enjoying.  

Have a Margarita al Pastor and enjoy the recipe below.  Let me know in the comments what your friends or family say about it when you surprise them with this amazing taco-in-a-glass cocktail that pairs the flavors of Mexico, elixirs, and the famed blue agave mezcal of the regions.  One last thing, I recommend you use good quality spirits. 

First Step: Chorizo Spice Syrup

Ingredients:

2 qt of water

1/4 C cumin seeds

1/4 C smoked paprika

1/4 C black peppercorns

3  dried chiles, halved and deseeded  (Ancho, Morita, or Chipotle)

1 C sugar

1/2 C mezcal joven

In a large pot, bring water to a boil.  Add the cumin seeds, smoked paprika, peppercorns, and dried chiles.  Stir and boil, uncovered, for 10 minutes.  Add sugar and stir to dissolve.  Once the sugar is dissolved, reduce heat, simmer for another 5-10 minutes.  Turn off the heat.  Strain liquid into a container.  When liquid has cooled, pour half (4 cups) into a container and add 1/2 a cup of mezcal joven.  The rest of the spice syrup can be reserved for up to a month in a sealed container, refrigerated for another batch.  Just make sure to add the 1/2 cup mezcal before making more cocktails.      

Margarita Al Pastor

Ingredients

• Ice cubes
• 1 oz fresh lime juice
• 1 oz pineapple juice
• 1 oz Chorizo spice syrup
• 1 1/2 oz 100% blue agave mezcal 
• Fresh cilantro, fresh basil leaves

Spicy Rimming Sugar

• 1 Tbsp smoked paprika
• 1 Tbsp freshly ground black pepper
• 1 Tbsp kosher salt
• 1 Tbsp sugar
• Sliced pineapple for garnish

• Directions
• 
  
• Roll a cocktail or traditional Margarita glass around with a cut lime or a piece of pineapple, then press into the spicy rimming sugar on a plate.  Set glass aside.  In a cocktail shaker muddle a few leaves of cilantro and one basil leaf.  Next, fill a cocktail shaker with ice. Add lime juice, pineapple juice, Chorizo Spice Syrup, and mezcal. Cover and shake until mixed and chilled, about 30 seconds. (In general, the drink is ready by the time the shaker mists up.)  There should be a froth on top from the vigorous shaking.  Fill glass with ice cubes,  Strain margarita into the glass.  Finish with a little dusting of the spicy rimming sugar and garnish with a pineapple slice.  Serve.  
• 
  
• © Leticia Alaniz 2018  All Rights Reserved   

Leah Chase - One Bowl of Gumbo at a Time

Chef Leah Chase in her kitchen at Dooky Chase Restaurant, New Orleans, LA
Photo by Cheryl Gerber NOLA 

One of the most iconic dishes from New Orleans, Louisiana representing Creole cuisine is seafood gumbo.  With the mighty Mississippi river going through the heart of New Orleans pushing water straight into the Gulf of Mexico, it creates an array of treasures from the sea which define much of New Orleans Creole and Cajun cuisine.  

Just as iconic is a woman who doesn’t need much of an introduction.  She’s the undisputed Queen of Creole that might as well have the title of Queen of Hearts.  Born in Madisonville, Louisiana, she possesses magical culinary skills and a big heart with which for over seven decades, has been cooking for many of the Civil Rights leaders, the rich and famous, musicians, poets, novelists, visitors, American presidents, world diplomats, blacks and whites, and anyone with an appetite for good, home-cooked, creole food in her legendary restaurant Dooky Chase.   

Mrs. Leah Chase came into the business when she married jazz musician Edgar “Dooky” Chase II.  His parents owned a corner stand that sold lottery tickets and homemade po’boy sandwiches.  Mrs. Chase worked in the kitchen during the 1950’s, and over time, Leah and Dooky took over the stand and converted it into a restaurant establishment.  Leah presided over the kitchen and was the visionary of home-cooked creole food.  She was not formally trained yet her hospitality only matched the service. She quietly served at a time when tensions in the south were brutal and the Jim Crow laws became the canon for segregation, discrimination, and cruelty.  

At Dooky Chase’s, one bowl of gumbo at a time, Mrs. Chase fed the hungry for equality, the hungry for the right to vote, the hungry for a right to live and raise families in a society of equal justice for all.  She fed the Civil Rights leaders in the 1960’s that would front the fight to end racial injustices and violence.  Her restaurant became the meeting place where strategies would be planned by Martin Luther King Jr., the Freedom Riders, and student activists.  Dooky Chase was the only place where the black communities in New Orleans could meet despite the “secret meetings” being illegal.  Quietly, congregated to take a stand against the oppressors, gumbo and fried chicken became the nourishment that would become the Civil Rights Movement.  

Much of the celebrating in New Orleans revolves around food.  Therefore, New Orleans was the destination for my birthday in November.  I had the honor of celebrating with Mrs. Leah Chase and my loved ones.  The gumbo she made that day was extra special with a  generous serving of blue crabs and gulf shrimp.  The heartiness of the stew is the story of the triumph to make the world a better place.  Her voice and loving heart touch you in a way that will forever prompt you to aspire to become a better person.

Of course, we talked about food and how it shapes us today.  Food creates memories and eventually becomes the tool of communication between cultures and races.  Best of all food becomes a tool for peace.  Because you can’t sit down for peace talks without good food.  Mrs. Chase is a defender of women’s rights.  We talked about what it means to be a woman and a part of the system today where women have come a long way in human rights.  And speaking of culture, she mentioned the Oaxacan mole negro, and how much she loves the Mexican indigenous foods and the deep south tamales of Veracruz.  She loved meeting Vijay and told him to bring her a plate of traditional Andhra Indian food on our next visit.  So I made a promise to return for another bowl of her creole seafood gumbo.   

Chef Leah Chase & Leticia Alaniz
Photo by Vijay Marrivada

- “You think creole gumbo is special?  Food is precious and we must treat it like that.  And I love a person that loves food and comes from so far away to visit me to try my food.  I know you and I have a connection thru food so that makes you special."   

Leah Chase tells it like it is.  I will forever treasure her words which did make me feel very special in her kitchen in New Orleans. 

Mrs. Leah Chase has been honored with numerous awards and accolades:

James Beard Lifetime Achievement Award (2016)

NOLA Award Best Fried Chicken (2014)

James Beard Foundation Who's Who of Food & Beverage (2010)

Southern Foodways Alliance Lifetime Achievement Award (2000)

Honorary Degree Tulane University

Honorary Degree Loyola University New Orleans

Honorary Degree Johnson & Wales University

Times-Picayune Loving Cup Award (1997)

Honorary Degree Our Lady of Holy Cross College

Honorary Degree Madonna College  

Among her other projects are a televised cooking show devoted to Creole cooking, and is the author of several cookbooks:

• The Dooky Chase Cookbook (1990) 
• And I Still Cook (2003)
• Down Home Healthy : Family Recipes of Black American Chefs (1994)

Written by Leticia Alaniz

© 2018

A Tree Within / Árbol Adentro - A Byzantine Mosaic In Honor of Octavio Paz

A Tree Within / Árbol Adentro
Byzantine Glass Mosaic by Leticia Alaniz © 2018

A pattern of design made from thousands of tiny brilliant cut glass, stone, shells, gold, or ceramic pieces has been the subject of awe and admiration in many cultures.  The physical presence of a mosaic mural has been since time immemorial a system of pictures to tell stories and convey histories.  It has been the art of eternity which explores vibrant, colorful and energetic pasts.  

Among the many design elements is the tree of life.  It’s a concept that symbolizes the beginning of life and the origin of everything.  For thousands of years in almost all cultures, religions, mythologies, and philosophies, the tree has been an icon and a theme that we encounter in daily life.  As a sacred symbol, it has mystified and has been the subject of celebration of deities and is a direct link to the divine and the mythical cosmologies.  

The tree has roots that reach deeply into the depths which take nourishment from Mother Earth and thru its upward reaching branches it absorbs light from the sun.  A tree symbolizes generations of families that grow and create new fruit to begin a new generation.  Trees have a cycle of life that regenerate with the seasons making it a symbol of immortality, rebirth and the duality of life and death.  The grandness of a tree connects all forms of creation, heaven, the underworld, and knowledge that resides in our past, present, and future.

In his poem Árbol Adentro / A Tree Within, Mexican Nobel Laureate Octavio Paz created a metaphysical metaphor of an inverted tree which grows within his body. With its canopy and leaves up in his head, the words depict an illustration of desire inspired by the beauty and presence of a woman.  The poem establishes that “Its roots are veins…”  The branches stretch out into the inner depths of his nerves and the body’s extremities, “Thoughts are its tangled foliage…”  The poet describes an escalating passion that ends with a metaphorical touch “Whose glance sets it on fire…” provoking the love and the other person’s presence to be inflamed with desire.  The themes of the tree suggest a sexual encounter with the pomegranate seeds in reference to a man’s seed, “Day Breaks / In the body’s night…”  Its an acknowledgment of his need for the love of the woman.  In the final lines, the poem entices the other to come closer and, “Hear the tree speak.”

Mexican Poet Octavio Paz

There is no doubt that Octavio Paz left his mark on the world of poetry and is a force to be reckoned with.  Just the same, his poetry has greatly influenced me in the creation of my own art, photography, and writings.  As an homage to his poem Árbol Adentro / A Tree Within, I created this mosaic tree in Mexican and Venetian smalti tesserae glass in the tradition of the ancient Byzantine art.  With branches of pure gold smalti tesserae and cobalt blue representing a life cycle.  Red as a symbol of blood and earth reaching up to the trunk and the branches feeding life to the tree giving it a sense of timelessness and eternal life.  

Filmmaker & Artist Leticia Alaniz
© 2018
Mexican Huipil Crafted & Designed by Poet Natalia Toledo

A Tree Within

A tree grew inside my head.
A tree grew in.
Its roots are veins,
its branches nerves,
thoughts its tangled foliage
Your glance sets it on fire,
and its fruits of shade
are blood oranges
and pomegranates of flame.

Day breaks

in the body's night.
There, within, inside my head,
the tree speaks.

Come closer - can you hear it?

–Octavio Paz
1914-1998

© Leticia Alaniz 2018

All Rights Reserved

Black Margarita - Margarita Negra

Black Margarita - Margarita Negra
Photo Leticia Alaniz © 2017

Margaritas are quite famous, but have you tasted a black margarita?  A black margarita is like a piece of the night in which the moon, the stars, and dreams culminate in a mysterious, dark and elegant cocktail.  It’s a romantic and gothic elixir that will wake your most poetic nocturnal inspirations.

It pairs well with a black tie tuxedo and a little black dress.  I’m nocturnal by nature and I love entertaining at night with delicious food by the moonlight.  So I served black margaritas at my most recent Noche dinner.  Noche is my secret dinner club in which friends gather for a feast, amazing cocktails and wine.  

Black margaritas are simple.  Its foundation is still tequila, sour mix, and fruit liqueurs.  But for this margarita I took a chance on an obscure or lesser known tequila from Los Valles, Jalisco called El Padrino de Mi Tierra. (El Padrino - The Godfather).  

Only 100% blue agave is used in this Reposado Tequila. Brick ovens roast the agave for 36-54 hours, allowing the tequila to retain the sweet natural mellow flavor. Slow-fermented 48-60 hours and then distilled in copper pot stills for a rich taste with notes of caramel and oak.  It’s excellent for high-end tequila cocktails.

El Padrino Reposado tequila is “rested”, which means it will have aged in oak between two and eleven months prior to bottling.  This gives the tequila a light color and depth of flavor. 

The black margarita gets it’s dark, striking black color from the Blue Curaçao and raspberry liquors.  Serve very chilled and enjoy the midnight stars! 

INGREDIENTS

• 2 ounces El Padrino Reposado tequila
• 1 ounce Blue Curaçao
• 1 ounce raspberry liquor such as Chambord 
• 1 splash of lime juice
• fill with sour mix and cranberry or pomegranate juice

Mixing instructions: Combine ingredients in a shaker with ice. Shake well and pour into a salt or sugar- rimmed glass. Garnish with lime.

Written by Leticia Alaniz

©2017

Andhra Prawn Pickle or Royyala Pachadi

Andhra Prawn Pickle/ Royalla Pachadi
Photo by Leticia Alaniz © 2017

Spices and seafood are magic in southern India.  When spices are used to preserve fruits, vegetables, meats, and seafood in combination with dried chiles, you’re tapping into the vast culinary treasures that India has to offer with a wealth of thousands of years of pickling.  Each region has their family recipes that are generational and the ancient practice of preservation by curing with salt, vinegar and sugar were a way to keep perishables for longer periods of time.  Especially long after harvest seasons or when droughts or other natural disasters might have caused food scarcity or ruined crops.  The richness of pickling has evolved over centuries and it’s not easy to pinpoint exact recipes or methods of preservation.  

The tradition of pickling can be traced back since time immemorial and perhaps that’s why almost every culture in the world discovered their own methods to preserve their food.  But in India, drying and pickling is a long standing tradition that seems untouched by time.  Particularly so in the southern states of the subcontinent.

My first taste of prawn pickle was in Andhra where I was given a very proper Indian welcome with the most aromatic, unforgettable introduction to the wonderful taste of the preserved coastal prawns.  It was culinary love!  Lyrical descriptive words don’t do it justice.  But I will say that prawn pickle can be described as smoky, sour, tangy, hot, spicy, gingery and savory.  It’s one of the first things I wrote about in my journal.  Those are amazing gastronomical experiences that I’ll never forget.  

After being on the hunt for a really good prawn pickle as I remember in Andhra, I simply could not find one commercially prepared back in the US that had the same amazing flavor.  I longed for the prawn pickle that gave any Indian meal an instant burst of tantalizing flavor.  I romanticized the aroma from my memories and it became an obsession to find it.  I didn’t have such luck.  

I felt the hunger of exoticism and ancient gastronomy, of tea and cardamom, of ginger and golden turmeric, hunger for the sensuality that wakes the senses with the aroma of the wet earth during the monsoons and the sweet and sour of Andhra pickles.  Therefore, in my search I studied many commercial pickles and their flavors, some were described to me orally but not in precise measurements, others I found in books, but not quite the same, until I developed my own recipe for the prawn pickle I had been looking for for so long.  It’s the flavor that took me back to the India I remember, to the people and to the food that harbors so much history and the perpetual fruits of it's land.  

For this particular Andhra prawn pickle or royyala pachadi as it's called in telugu, I think I’ll start my own tradition of pickling recipes and keep this recipe in the family.  But I do hope that all that come to visit me may enjoy what makes this recipe so special, and may we raise our glasses to Indian culinary traditions and to many shared plates.

Photo Leticia Alaniz

Written by Leticia Alaniz © 2017