pause under glass vol. II

Motionless, boxed things, Museo Nacional de Antropologia (Mexico City)

pause under glass vol. I

Glassed-in alters and tombs in Tlalpan cemetery, Mexico City

Studies in Indirect Communication vol. V

Painting in a small convent in Mexico City, where the nuns had all made vows of silence. [There were also mummies in open caskets in the cellars. Didn't think I'd be disturbed by the sight - but really was.]

The Mexico Chapters: Noteworthy Banalities vol. II

'Where is the rest of it, the rest of our lives, the rest of what really happens? How can we give an account of what goes on every day and goes on going on from day to day - the banal, everyday, obvious, common, ordinary, infraordinary, habitual background noise of living? How do we approach it, how can we describe it?'

Georges Perec

The Mexico Chapters: Noteworthy Banalities vol. I

/ / / / / / / / / /

1. Position
2. Activity
3. Quotations 1
4. Quotations 2
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5. Number
6. Role
7. Third sector
8. Motive?
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9. Walls
10. Floors
11. Period
12. Place
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13. Style
14. Furniture
15. Length
16. Miscellaneous
__________________

17. Age/Sex
18. Animals
19. Clothes
20. Fabrics (nature)
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21. Fabrics (substance)
22. Colours
23. Accessories
24. Jewels
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25. Reading
26. Music
27. Pictures
28. Books
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29. Drink
30. Food
31. Small furniture
32. Toys
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33. Feelings
34. Paint
35. Surfaces
36. Volumes
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37. Flowers
38. Trinkets
39. Manque
40. Faux
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41. Couple 1
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42. Couple 2
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The 'List of Lists' from Life A User's Manual, Georges Perec.

The Mexico Chapters: Laundry list

Sulky clouds // Dehydrated oranges left hanging beyond the wall // Deluge // Car stalls on barely-lit cobbled streets // Contemplate one thousand plastic rams in a bag // A collection of non-buckets // Hot-chocolate with almonds, honey and cinnamon - the best hot chocolate I've ever had made for me.

'MC: This work has a very long title: "Flying Saucer: Rainbow/Two Cyclists/Dog/Gorilla and Bananas/Chaotic Situation/Couple/Tortoise/Gunman (Fallen)", 1992.

JB: I just wanted to get everything in there.

MC: Like a laundry list.

[…]

JB: I've explained them as being how we experience the world. If you walk into a room and you have a lot of trash in your hand you're going to see the trash can and probably not see very much else or if you do, you might see a colour some place or whatever and everything else might be avoided. The next day you might be hungry you might see the potatoes and everything that's not of interest will be avoided. So they're really lessons in seeing what's important. What things do we see first? Do we focus on what's of use or, for visual delight. What things are we not interested in?'

Randomly found the other day, in an old sketchbook from the RCA, in the days before I religiously referenced everything that I pilfered. Think this is John Baldessari talking about creating paintings from photographs.

Love lists.

The Mexico Chapters: Oranges or Unknown?

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The Mexico Chapters: Gaze-less

Gaze-less, Mexico, 2007

The Mexico Chapters: Warm Regards

Anne's Yellow Bird, Tlalpan, Mexico 2007

A rather wobbly harbinger for spring?

I hate caged birds. At worst seeing them makes me cry. Actual tears. At best I just feel monumentally depressed. But this little guy had a voice on him... a real belter. And from the moment I woke up to the moment I covered his cage with a cloth and then fell asleep myself, while he was present in our little clay house, he wouldn't let me forget him.

[Note to self: Buy a tabletop tripod before the next trip.]

The Mexico Chapters: They Chose Words…

Mexico 2007

But they couldn't entirely dispense with images…

The Mexico Chapters: Coif

Mexico sketchbook 2007 © Lizzie Ridout

Peluqueria © Lizzie Ridout

And snipping out hair-cuts too.

The Mexico Chapters: Limbs Vol. I

Mexico Sketchbook 2007 © Lizzie Ridout

Spent many a late night in my bed in Mexico cutting a selection of limbs out of local papers. I'm not sure why. I'm going to stop asking myself what will happen to them, I'm just going to keep snipping and see where it ends up.

The Mexico Chapters: Ribbons

Ribbons, Lizzie Ridout, 2007

This is a good one. So in Mexico, you pick your saint depending on your crime or your desire, or the trend. If a particular saint seems to be working overtime to make good things happen, then everyone will of course leave offerings at their altar. That's logical enough. But also different offerings please in different ways. I only saw this one altar dressed like this, although apparently it's in vogue across the country. You write your dreams on long lengths of ribbon and drape them over the alter. Sometimes you padlock them too. To make sure no one can remove them? To lock the wish in? I'm not sure. Of course, there's also the express version: you can get pre-printed ribbons in the shops near the churches. Supply and demand… But either way, amazingly beautiful, and thought provoking. That's what a whole load of desire, or hope, looks like; its physical manifestation.

The Mexico Chapters: Crimes, Hopes, Bodies & Souls

Photos © Lizzie Ridout, 2007

Mexicans know how to do guilt and supplication in style, and with fervour. I sort of admire it. I'm half envious that I don't have a similar outlet. If with every woe in my life I could go and buy a small metal cast in the shape of a heart, an arm, a leg, a stomach, a child, a pair of hands, an eye, whatever almost, for just a few a pence, and place it - and all the accordant crimes or hopes - on the alter of my chosen saint, I think I could cast off quite a few pangs of conscience, quite a few frets.

However, I'm not entirely satisfied with the commercial limbs available for sale in the churches in Mexico. I bought a whole load, but they're a little cheap, a little glossy for my liking. The ones above were photographed in a church right in the heart of Mexico City But I was trying to dodge the eyes of frowning believers, and as a non-believer with an exaggerated sense of guilt when it comes to causing offense, the whole photography thing didn't sit too easily with me. Hence the extremely bad quality of the last few. The glass didn't help either. But these at least have a sense of patina. Unlike my own, which still glimmer unashamedly from their plastic bag 10 months on.

Personally, for me this is all about labour. Get rid of guilt through effort and time, repetitive tasks, making, thinking, more making, words, marks, drawings, lists. Just make more. And keep adding more graphite layers. So metal trinkets don't quite go the full mile. And each fear, each wish is so personal it's not enough to apply them to something mass-produced. It's about carving each sodding groove yourself and suffering with it… Otherwise what's the point? That's the penance, or the love.

I could begin making my own compunction-carvings for all things major and minor. But out of paper. Can manipulate it better. But the list is endless…

Today alone:

Feel bad that this morning I didn't take the time to pick up a worm on the pavement and flick it onto the grass. Usually I do, but this time I was running late and had to kick off a day of assessments.

Should have pulled over when I saw a guy laid up by the side of the road this evening, on my way to see big waves and high winds in Porthleven. But the other man who seemed to be helping shook his head and mouthed 'I've sorted it' when I gesticulated through the window with my mobile phone. So I drove on. But I should have made absolutely certain there was nothing I could do.

Should use handkerchiefs. Always.

The Mexico Chapters: Museo Nacional de Antropología

Whereas the paper flags seen in Mexico are now made from tissue paper, and more frequently plastic, the art of papel picado is pre-Hispanic in origin and can be traced right back to the Aztecs. Mulberry bark was used to make a form of rough textured paper called amatl. Amatl was transformed into codices, offerings and ritual paper clothing. Similarly to modern-day Mexican practices, flags and banners were also made to decorate streets, temples, homes and fields for religious ceremonies.

These paper-cuts photographed at the Museo Nacional de Antropología are representations of gods and natural spirits created by 'healers' praying for rain or to cure diseases. In the photograph above, the focus of the paper display is a napkin or bed (a square patterned piece) around which all the other figures are placed. A lovely concept.

Photos © Lizzie Ridout