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.
