Week # 1 Tierra y Corazon

Post Week # 1: Tierra y Corazon
Ch. 1 Octavio Paz Discussion 

(Post your first project TIERRA y CORAZON (photo & writing)
Post thoughts, observations on Octavio Paz.)

       For our first project we were given two words Tierra y Corazon, meaning Soil & Heart, and were asked to think of a place, Mexico and connect those words and this place to create an image of what we felt these words meant or brought to mind. When reading Octavio Paz I envisioned the place and time he lived in. What was around, what people thought, what people were doing, listening to and viewing on television & film. From my research Octavio Paz first had "The Labyrinth of Solitude" published in 1950 at that time Mexico and the world were in a very distinct place in time and history. Paz's book is basically a "discourse on Mexico's quest for identity." I think at that time a place in history their were many groups of people, particularly those of mexican decent now living outside of their tierra that were searching for their place to belong and to feel connected with. They left their home tierra and now had to dig new roots in a foreign soil where they really were not accepted and grow to overcome adversity and build a new place to call home, a new tierra a place where their corazon would thrive and grow, a place to belong to and call home once again. 
     The words Tierra y Corazon made me crate a piece which I entitled, "The Blue Maria Felix." I was influenced by her early life story and a classic vintage photograph by the great Manuel Alvarez Bravo where her image is partially hidden by the shadows. Maria Felix was a great actress from the cine classico time of the 40's & 50's. When she first started acting she was offered a contract by an American studio where they would develop her as a great American actress, meaning they would most likely hide her true identity and her origins so she could be easily marketed and easily accepted by the American public. She would lose her identity and would have to leave her tierra Mexico and leave her corazon to follow her dreams. She wanted nothing to do with this and declined harshly as she wanted nothing to do with the America, its ideas nor its tierra. Her corazon, her life and soul belonged in Mexico and thats where she would stay and make her dreams come true. Like the pachuco in the reading Maria Felix did not want to "lose her language, religion, customs and beliefs." Maria Felix had the "stubborn desire to be different," as Paz writes, but she wanted to be different in her tierra where her corazon was. When I read her story and viewed the photograph I felt Manuel Alvarez Bravo really captured more than just her image he captured her soul and it spoke to me of all the hardships she had gone through to be at that place at that moment. I painted the image as it was in the full glamour of the late 1940's. It was painted on bristol board and used Ink and water colors. I used black and white coloring but added a blue colored shaw over her head to remind the viewer of her cold past, her hardships, hard decisions and a different type of greatness she gave up in America to stay in the place she loved, where her Tierra and corazon were connected.
     The piece was very well received by my classmates and I received great feedback. It was great hear all the different views and opinions of what the piece made different viewers think and feel about tierra y corazon while viewing the piece.