Frida Kahlo

Chavela Vargas Wore a Poncho

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Chavela Vargas

If you’re going to suffer, sing about it. This is what Mexican rancheras have taught me.  And no one respected this philosophy more than Chavela Vargas.
Ranchera songs are populated by the broken hearted who go to cantinas to drink away their sorrows. This music was traditionally dominated by men until Chavela elbowed her way in to make space for las borracheras, women who could drown in alcohol as easily as men could.  And before criticizing these tequila drinking mujeres, it should be noted that Chavela & Co came from pre-feminists times. This Cantina Solution was a reply to conformity and fake respectability. Drinking like men suggested a form of emancipation.

He Went To The Cantina And Thought About Her

Chavela Vargas was born in Costa Rica but moved to Mexico at the age of 14 where she sang in the streets until she got gigs in cantinas. Here she made no secret of her sexuality and was known as a cigar smoking, heavy drinking womanizer. Chavela sang in cantinas for years until she was discovered by singer and songwriter extraordinaire José Alfredo Jiménez.
Jiménez did not play a musical instrument and knew little about musical technicalities but he wrote over 1,000 songs many of which are still well-know today. Together, Jiménez and Chavela turned pathos into poetry.
Chavela felt at home with Jiménez’ songs. Take, for example, En El Último Tragowhere the singer asks an ex-lover to drink together until oblivion. Because:

The time hasn’t taught me anything,
I always make the same mistakes,
I drink again and again with strangers
and mourn because of the same sorrows.

Once her career took off, Chavela came in contact with a new milieu. She became friends with Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo and was often their house guest. It’s also rumored that Chavela and Frida had an affair together. Besides, Frida liked to wear huipiles, Chavela ponchos. If you saw the movie Frida, you can’t help but remember Chavela singing La Llorona.

Frida Kahlo y Chavela Vargas

But the Cantina Solution caught up with Chavela. She became a major alcoholic and, during the 1970s, gave up singing. But almost 20 years later, at the age of 81, Chavela returned to the stage. She debuted at a sold-out Carnegie Hall at the age of 83. After each song, she was rewarded with a standing ovation. The audience could not have enough of her. In the words of Pedro Almodóvar, Chavela made of abandonment and desolation a cathedral in which we all found a place.
The Spanish poet, Federico García Lorca, was one of Chavela’s passions. Unfortunately, García Lorca’s life was brief. In 1936, he died at the age of 38, assassinated during the Spanish Civil War.
In 1993, Chavela went to Spain and stayed in a room that once had belonged to García Lorca. Every day, she said, a yellow bird would come peck on the room’s window and she was sure the bird was the spirit of Lorca himself.

There Was A Bird at Her Window

 

Mal Oo

Copyright © 2015 Cynthia Korzekwa. All Rights Reserved

 

 

Tejuana matrifocal society

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Ixcatlan Huipil

Frida Kahlo, who knew well the mechanisms of Clothing & Identity, frequently wore the dress typical of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. Because women of the area were extremely beautiful, sensual and gutsy.

In 1922, José Vasconcelos became minister of public education.  He firmly believed that, instead of looking towards Europe, Mexican artists should look towards Tehuantepec and Juchitàn for inspiration. With Vasconcelos encouragement, Diego Rivera visited the area. The artist was overwhelmed by the beauty of the landscape.  And of the women.

Tejuana matrifocal society

Because the women of Tehuantepec tranquilly bathed naked in the river, foreigners who came to visit mistakenly interpreted this to mean that the women were sexual libertines thus attracting more foreigners to the area.

With its Zapotec origins, the Isthmus of Tehuantepec is considered a matrifocal society mainly because it is the women who are in charge of the commercial activity. Men work in the fields whereas women sell in the market place.

 

Daily, women of the area wear full-length skirts called enaguas along with their huipiles known as huipiles de cadenilla.  In Spanish, cadenilla means “chain” as the machine embroidered gold threads in geometric shapes hope to create the illusion of the gold chains the women like to wear. For special occasions, huipiles de fiesta are worn.  They generally are embellished with hand embroidered flowers.

The special huipiles are worn to velas, highly animated fiestas which begin as candlelight vigils honoring one of the area’s various patron saints and end as night-long parties.

Tejuana matrifocal society

 

At velas, men drink beer while women dance together especially to “La Zandunga”, a Mexican waltz reflecting a mixture of musical origins (it could be a Zapotec interpretation of an Andalusian song). The song is about a Zapotec woman who cries after her mother’s death.

At velas women wear their huipiles with pride.  And only women wearing huipiles and enaguas dance.

Tejuana Matrifocal Society

More than matrifocal,  the Tehuantepec society is a maternal society. And for this reason, women are a dominating force. Because it’s the woman, and not the man, who psychologically focuses on the well being of the child.  For men, working in the fields is a way of avoiding domestic problems.

It is also matrifocal in that girls are taught to be economically independent. In part because mothers know sons are more prone towards crime and drugs than are their daughters so they will be able to depend more on daughters than on sons. Well, save for gay sons who are considered a gift.  Because a Tehuantepec woman know she can always count on a gay son to be there in need.

Because they have an important role in society, the Tehuantepec women have a strong sense of self-assurance.

Mal Oo

Copyright © 2016 Cynthia Korzekwa. All Rights Reserved

 

Bibliography:

Covarrubias, Miguel. Mexico South, the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. New York. Knopf. 1946.
DeMott, Tom . Into the Hearts of the Amazons: In Search of a Modern Matriarchy. University of Wisconsin Press. Madison, WI. 2006.
Iturbide, Graciela. Juchitan de las mujeres. Edicioes Toledo. Oaxaca. 1989.
Poniatowska, Elena. Here’s to You, Jesusa! Penguin Books (reprint). London.  2002

 

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Huipiles and Me

| Art for Housewives

At The Alamo Wearing My Huipil

My mom moved to San Antonio, Texas as a young woman and instantly fell in love with the city’s bi-cultural flavor. In fact, my mom wanted to be Mexican. She loved Mexican music, colors, jewelry, food and attitude. That’s why she went to Mexico as often as possible. And, like a loving mom, she would always bring back presents for me – papier-mâché dolls, hand puppets, earrings (I had pierced ears!) and Mexican blouses. That’s how I started wearing huipiles.

Juana y Pedro

But later, like most adolescents, I wanted to conform to fashion trends – bell bottoms, mini-skirts, t-shirts and jeans, etc. My tastes in clothing continued to change and huipiles were not a priority. Then I moved to Italy and, after a while, I began to feel nostalgia for my Mexican imprinting. So, luckily, my mom sent me huipiles. Now, I can’t imagine a wardrobe without them.

her huipil made her the center of the universe

The huipil, of Mayan origin, was not considered just a garment but also a representation of personal ideology. The Mayans believed that clothing could transform a person just as a person could transform clothing, the two existing in symbiosis.

Mayans gave their huipiles a cosmic significance. Having the head placed in the very centre of the fabric has specific implications. When a woman places a huipil over her head, she enters a symbolic universe. As she sticks her head through the hole, she emerges into the external world and her body becomes the axis of the universe. She is the centre of the world connecting the earth and the sky.

Drinking Tequila with Frida

Thanks to Frida Kahlo’s popularity, huipiles have acquired interest among contemporary fashion followers. But, although she wore them in grand style, it was not Frida who invented the huipil.

Lady Xoc

Huipiles were worn by the indigenous Indians of Mexico as documented by Mayan lintel carvings showing a bloodletting Lady Xoc wearing a huipil (c. AD 709). And the Spanish conquistador, Hernán Cortés, used a native woman, La Malinche, as translator who, as seen by codices documenting events of the time, show her wearing huipiles – 500 years before Frida!

                                  La Malinche

Traditional huipiles are beautiful. So if you are lucky enough to be in Mexico or Guatemala, be sure to shop for at least one huipil. The simplicity of their design makes them adaptable for any body type.

Why Not Wear A Huipil?

Appropriation vs. Inspiration.

Please note than even though I often refer to my blouses as “huipiles”, in no way do I claim them to be authentic huipiles. A true huipil is made by the indigenous women of Mesoamerica and represent centuries of tradition—motifs and techniques past down from one generation to another. The style of an authentic huipil represents the ethnicity and community of the women who make and wear them. Thus a huipil is an extension of a woman’s sense of identity and of belonging.

My “huipiles” are thus named because they, too, are simple geometric shapes and handmade. And, because clothing is a form of identity, my huipiles also encourage women to be the axis of their universe.

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Marina Making Ripples

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One Drop Makes Many Ripples

Marina van Koesveld is a magical thinker. With her thoughts she’s able to create new realities.  When Marina was younger, she’d dress as Frida (long before the craze) maybe because the two had much in common. Both  are painters.  And both are sensual with long dark hair and eyes that can perforate you like laser beams.

Here she is wearing the huipil dress One Drop Makes Many Ripples.  The dress is made from a second hand cloth that, maybe, was used as a towel.

“Flowing” in and out of the dress is a strand of pieced cloth. The fabric design reminded me of drops of water so I embroidered the phrase One Drop Makes Many Ripples around the collar.

one-drop9-b

The motion of everyday life creates ripples—one action produces other actions. Thus ripples connect us one to the other.  That’s why it’s important to be aware that our actions—be they physical or psychological—affect the lives of those around us.

Ripples are everywhere.

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