by Irma Vega Bijou on January 25, 2012
This new year is off to a wonderful start! I was recently invited to participate in the Istanbul Concept Art Show 2012. This year’s theme is “The Taste of Love,” and the show will take place in Istanbul from mid-February. For this show I made a new ceramic piece, handmade, porcelain with silver leaf applied. This new piece was pit fired and measures 5.1 x 1.5 x 4 inches. It will be exhibited with this weathered seashell and silk scarf on which I wrote the following poem:
The taste of Love
Like shimmering moonlight
Trough a winter sky
An open hand
An honest smile
Flowing from the heart
Like petals
Of marigold and roses
Sweet and bitter
On the lips to taste
The sea
Like a heart in constant motion
And the taste of tears
Just here
Touching the earth
And slowly appearing
With remembrances
Of you and me
Irma Vega Bijou
Santa Barbara. CA.USA. January 2012
by Irma Vega Bijou on January 23, 2012
Every year I spend a good portion of September and pretty much all of the month of October building altars and preparing presentations for the Day of the Dead. This past October I made a presentation about the Day of the Dead celebrations for the students in the Fine Arts Department at Westmont College. Although I spoke generally about the various rituals and traditions that honor ancestors in Latin America and other cultures, I focused more on how the Day of the Dead is celebrated in my native Mexico. Following my presentation, I invited the students to create their own altars as part of their classroom activities.
I made a similar presentation to elementary students at the Notre Dame School in Santa Barbara where I set up an exhibit of a small altar and also read books with Day of the Dead themes to the children.
Finally, at the beginning of November, the Santa Barbara Adelante School invited me to set up an altar at the historic Casa de la Guerra Museum. This event was part of a larger community effort to celebrate the occasion and also to raise awareness of this beautiful ritual. I think this community effort was fabulous! The arts and crafts made for this Mexican ritual were outstanding as was the food, and the dance and musical groups that performed at this event.
Below are just a few photos from my presentations.
by Irma Vega Bijou on January 19, 2012
Last September I went to Turkey to share and teach firing ceramics in an alternative or “pit firing’ way, with sawdust and organic materials. My journey began in Bursa, where I worked with my friends at the Pandora Ceramic Studio, then in Istanbul, with a group of women, all members of the Sakariyakoy Artists Group. It was very interesting to find that this natural and ancient way of firing ceramics is something that is present in most ancient civilizations, including the ones present in those areas. So we felt like we were reliving the memory of those ways of firing ceramics.
by Irma Vega Bijou on January 18, 2012
This year so far has been a busy and very fulfilling one. Among the various projects I’ve recently completed are a pair of tile mounds in my garden. The two mounds, “Contemplation” and “Stargazer” are covered with my own hand-painted tiles as well as found materials such as mirror pieces and glass pebbles. These garden sculptures are a nice place to sit and meditate or to simply relax and enjoy the garden, and they also represent my ongoing commitment to repurposing found materials into art. They will soon be featured in a short video about my garden sculptures that will be produced by the same team that filmed my “Day of the Dead” video (see the November 2010 entry below).
Left: Contemplation and Stargazer in my garden. Center: Contemplation, 5x6x7.1 ft. Right: Stargazer, 5x5x2 ft.
by Irma Vega Bijou on January 18, 2012
From May through June of 2011 I participated in a very interesting and unusual invitational group show, “Art of the Cage Doll.” The show was held at the Indigo Gallery in Santa Barbara. I made these two dolls from mixed media including clay, paper, wood, metal and paints. They each measure approximately 21 x 8 inches.
