The Bixby Bridge in Big Sur (3)

Coastal fog can frustrate visitors to Big Sur, shrouding vistas in veils of white cotton scrim. The fog usually burns off in the afternoon, but it can play a game of cat-and-mouse moving in and out from the sea to the headlands and back out again. Bixby Bridge is the view sine qua non that every tourist must capture as proof of a visit to Big Sur.

The road pull-outs on either side of the north end of Bixby canyon are glutted with rental cars emptying out people clutching BIG SUR GUIDEBOOKS in French, German and Urdu.

The dedication ceremony to open Highway 1 through Big Sur was held on July 3, 1937 at the Bixby Creek Bridge.

Convict labor was used to finish the road and bridges when funds ran out to complete the coastal route through Big Sur.

Despite the graceful beauty of the Bixby Bridge, ugly road cuts in the surrounding mountain slope are plainly visible from vantage points just off the highway. If there is no such thing as a “free lunch” in creating a durable pathway through majestic mountains, breathtaking coastal beaches and views of the Pacific Ocean for miles to the horizon, this image may speak to it.

Big elbows of Rock rising everywhere, sea caves within them, seas plollocking all around inside them crashing out foams, the boom and pound on the sand, the sand dipping quick (no Malibu Beach here) —-Yet you turn and see the pleasant woods winding upcreek like a picture in Vermont——But you look up into the sky, bend way back, my God you’re standing directly under that aerial bridge with its thin white line running from rock to rock and witless cars racing across it like dreams! From rock to rock! All the way down the raging coast! So that when later I heard people say “Oh Big Sur must be beautiful!” I gulp to wonder why it has the reputation of being beautiful above and beyond its fearfulness, its Blakean groaning roughrock Creation throes, those vistas when you drive the coast highway on a sunny day opening up the eye for miles of horrible washing sawing.

Big Sur by Jack Kerouac

Rocky Creek Bridge (2)

Cattle pastures and ranches share the lands end of rocky cliffs. The Rocky Creek Bridge is the first of many aerial concrete gateways along the Big Sur coast from the north.

Less famous than the Bixby Bridge, the Rocky Creek Bridge spans the Las Piedras Canyon. Fog along the highway obstructs the view from cars of the canyon below.

CalTrans contracted with ACC West Coast for the repair of Rocky Creek Bridge

This iconic 500-foot structure crosses a highly sensitive beach and river area, which required all access and repair work to be performed only from the bridge deck itself. (image and text from the American Civil Constructors webpage).

Big Sur’s established infrastructure of roads and bridges are maintained in a very different manner than they were initially built. Tons of dynamite and steam-powered bulldozers cut through eons old coastal eco-systems and ancient redwood forests to make the windy 70 mile stretch of road.

http://www.accbuilt.com/projects/big-sur-bridges-rocky-creek-bridge/

On The Road in Big Sur (1 of a series)

Few coastal roads in California are as delicate as the stretch of Highway 1 from Carmel to San Simeon. Big Sur was impassable by car and unknown to tourism until it’s dedication ceremony in June of 1937. Road closures are frequent due to rock slides and road damage from storms.

The road is an engineering marvel built in the depths of the great depression. Its spectacular vista point pull-outs and graceful bridges spanning deep verdant canyons, it is the most neglected visual element of the staggering beauty of the Big Sur coastline.

Even before Highway 1 opened, people came here to seek solitude and grandeur. The earliest sightseeing visitors used routes developed by the pioneers, some of which followed old trading and travel routes used by Native Americans.*

Big Sur’s timeless landscape compelled California legislators to cater to the growing automobile-based tourism of the 1920s by penetrating the isolated Big Sur with the Carmel-San Simeon Highway, later known as Highway 1.**

*The Natural History of Big Sur by Paul Henson and Donald J. Usner, University of California Press

**Big Sur, The Making of a Prized California Landscape by Shelley Alden Brooks, University of California Press

Keeping Highway 1 open after winter storms

Big Sur Landslide on May 20, 2017

Landslides and bridge maintenance after winter storms threaten road closures every spring. A massive mudslide at Gorda closed Big Sur for 14 months, the longest in the history of the Big Sur coastline.

www.usgs.gov

The winter of 2017 was an exceptionally bad for the road through Big Sur

Source: Caltrans/mercurynews.com

The Road and the Road not Taken: Building a four-lane freeway through Big Sur

In 1956 President Eisenhower designed the Federal-Aid Highway Act to facilitate national transportation and provide for national defense.

California state legislators responded to Eisenhower’s initiative with a highway plan that would link recreational areas throughout the state with new and expanded roads. In Sacramento, plans were under way to turn the highway through Big Sur into a four-lane freeway… The proposal also called for straightening the highway for travel at faster speeds, ignoring the lay of the land. (Big Sur, The Making of a Prized California Landscape by Shelley Alden Brooks)

Highway 1, looking south from Nacimiento-Fergusson Road

On the Road in Big Sur

A ribbon of road heading south in Big Sur with no visible traffic. Access to Big Sur is subject naturally occurring disasters like rockslides and damage from heavy storms.

Point Sur State Park

Point Sur is one of Big Sur’s most distinctive landmarks. It protrudes from the surrounding terraces and, at first glance, looks like a mysterious nearshore island, but is actually connected to the mainland by a low-lying plain covered with shifting sand dunes.

The vegetation on Point Sur is strongly affected by the northwesterly winds. Windy days are the rule at Point Sur, and almost all the plants exhibit low-growing forms. Poison oaks, beach sagewort, California sagebrush, bush lupine, and lizard tail grow in wind-pruned fashion up on the exposed parts of the rock.*

The Natural History of Big Sur by Paul Henson and Donald J. Usner

Hurricane Point

A Blog on break until August

Khmer-style dancers in Vietnam

Exhibit at the Sanchez Art Center in Pacifica (Week 5)

Nats have human characteristics, wants, and needs. They are flawed, having desires considered derogatory and immoral in mainstream Buddhism. During a nat pwè, which is a festival during which nats are propitiated, nat kadaws (နတ်ကတော် "lord-consort", i.e. "medium, shaman") dance and embody the nat's spirit in a trance. Historically, the nat kadaw profession was hereditary and passed from mother to daughter. Until the 1980s, few nat gadaws were male. Since the 1980s, persons identified by outsiders as trans women or gay male transvestites have increasingly performed these roles.

Music, often accompanied by a hsaing waing ("orchestra"), adds much to the mood of the nat pwè, and many are entranced. People come from far to take part in the festivities in various nat shrines called nat kun or nat naan, get drunk on palm wine and dance wildly in fits of ecstasy to the wild beat of the Hsaing waing music, possessed by the nats.*

This image is not part of the Fog Fest Invitational show at the Sanchez Art Center. It is included as a part of my Blog as a supplement on the subject of Nat beliefs in Myanmar.

*Wikipedia

A nat kadaw (spirit medium) at a nat pwè (spirit festival) at Mingun, Myanmar by Wagaung, published in Wikipedia Commons

The Nat shrine, located at the base of the summit of Mount Popa, contains statues of the 37 chief nats of Burma. Some are Hindu gods, while others derive from local Burmese legend. There are two Nat festivals each year, one in the summer and one in the winter, which feature various animist practices including trance mediumship (spirit possession). Photograph uploaded by Michael Gunther on Wikipedia Commons

Statues of Nats can be found in Thailand at monasteries founded by monks from Myanmar/Burma. They point with an upraised arm in the direction of the Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon.

Exhibit at the Sanchez Art Center in Pacifica (Week 4)

The home of Nat figures is a small building located in the Bagan Archeological Zone in Myanmar. This picture is not part of the Fog Fest Invitational.

In Myanmar, the central figure the historical Buddha is perceived and worshipped as a Nat (the cult of the 37 Lords).

On earth, the Mahagiri Nat and his sister (in the ideal royal marriage pattern) were the effective overlords of the pantheon of the thirty-seven, acting as spiritual counterparts of the human royal couple. They watch over the spiritual plane, including that of every household. They also protected the supernatural territory surrounding the capital city...

Michael Aung-Thwin/Earth, Heaven, and the Supernatural World/The City as a Sacred Center: Essays on Six Asian Contexts

Lustral water is poured on the gilded figure of a nat that is associated with the Buddha image. Each figure is worshipped in turn by pouring water that has been sanctified by spells and powerful plants like camphor and sompuay. Lustral water has the power to exorcise evil influences. As a sensual devotional act it also strengthens the sacred power of religious representations of the Buddha and animist spirits.

Exhibit at the Sanchez Art Center in Pacifica (Week 3)

Fog Fest Invitational, May 31 – June 30, 2019

A king fearful of her brother’s supernatural powers married Sister Golden Face in order to lure her brother to the palace. When her brother arrived, he was tied to a tree and burnt to death along with his sister. The siblings turned into malevolent spirits haunting the tree where they died. The king ordered the tree to be cut down and flung into the Irawaddy river. The tree floated down the river until it reached Bagan. The spirits appeared in dream to the King of Bagan asking him for a shrine in return for their protection and guardianship of the city.*

Red and white cloth in a home or tied to an automobile rear-view mirror or hood ornament are traditional nat colors of protection.

*Folk Elements in Burmese Buddhism by Maung Htin Aung

For more pictures and text about the Nats see my gallery at http://www.davidclayphotography.com/#/nats/

Exhibit at the Sanchez Art Center in Pacifica (Week 2)

Fog Fest Invitational, May 31 – June 30, 2019

The mother of The Little Lady. The Lady Three Times Beautiful was a village maiden whose beauty surpassed man's imagination. She was beautiful 'in the morning, at midday, and at night', and her fame reached the ears of the king. The king sent a nobleman to fetch her, but the nobleman fell in love with her and lied to the king saying "her face is beautiful, but her body is so monstrously fat that she cannot enter the gates of the city”.

A hut was built for her outside the city gates and she dwelt there, forgotten by the king and forsaken by her lover. She earned her living as a weaver. In course of time she gave birth to a little girl and then died of grief and became a nat.*

*Folk Elements in Burmese Buddhism by Maung Htin Aung

For more pictures and text about the Nats see my gallery at http://www.davidclayphotography.com/#/nats/

Exhibit at the Sanchez Art Center in Pacifica

Fog Fest Invitational, May 31 – June 30, 2019

I have 3 prints showing throughout June at the Sanchez Art Center, 1220-B Linda Mar Blvd., Pacifica, CA 94044. Many excellent local photographers live on the rugged Pacific Coast south of San Francisco. Winners of the Fog Fest Photography Contest, held in August, are invited to show their work in the spring of the next year.

Who are the Nats?

A key layer of Burmese religious life is the role of indigenous ‘spirits’, or nats, whose worship occurs at virtually all of the major Buddhist shrines and within homes. Many nats, both male and female met violent ends or have tragic stories attached to them; the various kinds of ginned-up torments of folkloric schadenfreude. Tragedy in death bestows them with supernatural powers. Help from the nats is sought for the day-to-day problems that are outside the teachings of the Buddha.

The smiling nat with a drooping eye lash is The Little Lady, the daughter of Lady Three Times Beautiful. She is usually portrayed as a chubby little girl with an attitude of joy, She is the guardian goddess of little children and schoolboys and girls. When a Burmese child smiles in his sleep it is believed that the Little Lady is playing with him. Boys and girls on the eve of their annual school examinations make offerings of toys, tiny jackets and skirts to the little goddess.

For more pictures and text about the Nats see my gallery at http://www.davidclayphotography.com/#/nats/

A Blog on break

Cambodia 2012

Memorial to the deceased in the earthquakes of September 2017 (45)

Central Mexico is a seismically active region. Mexico had three earthquakes greater than 6.0 magnitude in September 2017. At least 225 people died after a magnitude-7.1 earthquake struck central Mexico Tuesday, Sept. 19. Despite being one of the poorest states in Mexico, the government and people of Oaxaca cleared out the collapsed buildings and restored the infrastructure (city streets and electrical services) in time for Dia de Muertos a month later.

Memorials acknowledging the victims, and the bravery of the rescue workers like this one could be found all over the City of Oaxaca.

Tapete de Arena (sand painting) in tribute to the rescue workers of the earthquakes in the Oaxaca region 2017.

Posada's La Calavera Catrina as a proper Chinas Oaxaqueña (44)

The opening post in this series on Oaxaca and Día de Muertos began with Jose Guadalupe Posada’s depiction of La Calavera Catrina, a smiling skull in a European hat casually dangling her arm over the side of a building. The ending blog post of the series revisits her transformed bearing the basket of flowers balanced on her head with an upraised arm, her hair braided with ribbon, a magenta rebozo drapped over her shoulders and a vivid ultramarine blue hoop skirt for the joyous spinning and pirouetting of the Guelaguetza.

The Art and Craft of Día de Muertos

The calavera is the laughing figure of the Day of the Dead who turns the world upside down and, for many, at least for a moment, rights it.*

*Days of Death, Days of Life by Kristin Norget

Figures in papier-mâché, carved wood, ceramic and metal. Presented in order of size from small to life-size and very large.

Square pendant 6.35 cm.

Calaveras baking Pan de Muertos, miniature inside a walnut, 6.9 cm on width.

Miniature altar 7cm in height. Image left with closed doors

Ceramic skull candle holder, 14 cm height with candle

These little figures are made to decorate altars and as toys for children. A Day of the Dead figure in a boat filled with corn, pan de muertos and a turkey.

Ceramic and wire

Ceramic and wire turkey with skull head. 13.97 cm square.

Papier-mâché

Oaxaca is the state that produces the finest tinwork in Mexico. Tin’s shiny surface has an appearance similar to silver which to a great extent must have accounted for its appeal. As these and other decorative objects were intended to be given a significant place in homes or churches, it seems likely that tinplate was regarded as a poor man’s silver.*

*The Crafts of Mexico, edited by Margarita de Orellana and Alberto Ruy-Sanchez

Tinplate with paint, 25cm.

Tin used as ex-voto

Paintings of miracles: These very special documents are generally painted on ten-cent metal, usually tin.

So, in Mexico nowadays the word miracle means the happening, and also the small painting which records it, in the shrine of the Christ, a saint, or madonna with whom the event is associated. You may say, “I saw a little miracle”, and mean that you saw an automobile miss a child which it was destined to kill, or that you were very ill with tuberculosis or a boil, and were cured; or that in the church in which you prayed, of the long horizontal and vertical rows of paintings describing such boons, one struck your fancy. “Saw” means that you passed through the moment. You lived whichever miracle you are recalling.*

*Idols Behind Altars by Anita Brenner, 1929

A Man Revived After Being Struck By Lightning, 1882 from the book Mexico, Splendors of Thirty Centuries, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Oil on metal 18X13 cm.

Palm leaf ornaments representing the sun and stars to honor the saints and returning souls.

papel picado- large

papel picado - small

Ceramic Catrina figure 36.83 cm in height.

Ballerina, painted plaster with wire armature.. Approx. 122 cm in height.

Wedding party with life-size figures.

Female figure in painted sheet metal, life-size.

Large scale La Calavera Catrina in museum courtyard.

Posing for pictures with a mummer dressed as death (43)

A crowd gathers around a dimly seen figure on the pedestrian street that passes the great stone courtyard of the Church of Santo Domingo. Moving through the crowd we see him. He is a striking sight. His face is obscured with a plastic skull mask and a wig of long synthetic gray hair and enormous wings with dried corn husk feathers. He holds a comical staff with a clown-like skull wearing a Traje de Tehuana. Here is an opportunity to take a picture with death.

This may be the perfect image to end this series on Día de Muertos. This image shows the ambiguities at play in a festival that in a few days spans the emotional spectrum from deep grief, facing up to fears of mortality and at last to joy and laughter while taking a souvenir picture with la muerte.

Tehuana Huipil Grande

Catrina wearing a traditional Tehuana Huipil Grande. Frida Kahlo self portrait on right.

The Huipil Grande is headdress made from a combination of pleated and starched white lace, commercial lace and satin ribbon. Essentially it is one accessory worn two ways, the Huipil Grande Toca and the Huipil Grande Traje de Gala. The Huipil Grande Toca is the style that hugs the face line, this style is used during traditional Tehuana religious events when the wearer must enter a church. The Huipil Grande Traje de Gala is the style that fans out over the top of the head and behind the back creating a sunray effect, this style is used for civil festivals and civil wedding ceremonies. The huipil grande is also known as “Resplandor” meaning “Radiate” in Spanish.*

*https://hauteculturefashion.com/huipil-grande-tehuantepec/

Maguey: The Tree of Wonders

The Maguey is also known as the century plant. Its prickly fronds provided residents of highland Mexico with building material, clothing and rope and spirits.

The maguey dramatically blooms only once – at the end of its lifespan of up to 35 years. Its trunk-like stalk (quiote) rapidly grows up to one foot a day, soaring up to 40 feet high before its large yellow flowers bloom, and then the plant dies. If the flower stem is cut before it blooms, a sweet liquid (agua miel) accumulates at the center of the plant. Over 2000 years ago this liquid was fermented into an alcoholic beverage named “pulque” by the Aztec warriors and kings who swore by its healthful and aphrodisiac properties. Today this drink is known as maguey mezcal, known for its smoky flavor.*

Image attribution: The University of Texas Arlington

In the tequila-producing regions of Mexico, agaves are called mezcales. The high-alcohol product of fermented agave distillation is called mezcal; A. americana is one of several agaves used for distillation. A mezcal called tequila is produced from Agave tequilana, commonly called "blue agave". The many different types of mezcal include some which may be flavored with the very pungent mezcal worm. Mezcal and tequila, although also produced from agave plants, are different from pulque in their technique for extracting the sugars from the heart of the plant, and in that they are distilled spirits. In mezcal and tequila production, the sugars are extracted from the piñas (or hearts) by heating them in ovens.**

*http://www.aquiestexcoco.com/the-amazing-maguey-plant/

**Wikipedia

Grinding cooked maguey hearts.

Wikipedia Commons: InformationCategory:Mezcal |Description=Molino de maguey-roast agave grinding mill.

In counterpoint to the better known Marian apparition legend of our Lady of Guadalupe, this is the tale of the Virgin Mary supporting the Spanish colonialists:

*The image was brought from Spain by one of the soldiers of Cortez. During the famous retreat of the Noche Triste, this man carried with him as far as Totopec, where the shrine now stands; there, being too weary to carry it farther, he hid the figure under a maguey. Many years after, an Indian Christian chief, Don Juan de Aguila Tobar, while shooting birds on the hillside, saw a vision of the Virgin, who directed him to look for her image under a maguey. Upon finding it, he took it to his home, but it returned by itself to the hill.

Our Lady of Remedies was the special patroness of the City of Mexico, and was invoked in time of drought and other calamities. La Virgen de los Remedios was especially the patroness of the Spanish forces, as our Lady of Guadalupe was of the insurgents*

*Overland Monthly and Out West Magazine, Some Quaint Old Mexican Churches by L. Mercerin Terry

The apparition of the image of the Virgin de los Remedios to Don Juan Tovar by Miguel Cabrera

The entrance to a cemetery offers trampolines and game prizes for local children (42)

Carnival games and play areas line the exterior walls to a community cemetery at San Antonino Castillo Velasco, Oaxaca, Mexico.

Carnitas and coke left for a visiting ancestor on Día de Muertos is fair game for a hungry dog (41)

Catrinas in Kimonos (40)

The celebration of Día de Muertos draws visitors from all over the world. These ladies were thrilled to visit with a professor they knew from Japan.