Families Belong Together: Elí’s 4th Elephant and Piggie Bday Celebration

Last weekend we celebrated my wonderful little man’s 4th Bday, Elephant and Piggie style! The birthday boy requested that we use his party to promote families belonging together. So we used Gerald, Piggie, Duckling, and Pigeon to tell the story of family togetherness. The beautiful photos were taken by Tequila Graphics.

Elephant and Piggie Cookies
The royal icing cookies always take the longest, so I made these 2 weeks in advance. This was my first time making the cookie cutters myself. I really like how they turned out. Will definitely continue to make my own cutters in the future.

Pigeon Cookies
I made these cookies the night before the party as a last-minute edition. They are chocolate-covered double stuffed Oreos. You can’t get nearly the same detail as you can with the royal icing with melted chocolate, but they are still super cute and literally take 10% of the time it takes to make the royal icing ones.

Elephant and Piggie, Families Belong Together Painting
This painting was inspired by The Thank You Book by Mo Willems. I painted this in the days leading up to the party as my gift to Elí. I also made a slightly modified version of this, with less prominence to “Elías’s bday” and added the big heading EVERYONE IS WELCOME HERE, which I turned into 11×17 printed posters for the kids to decorate at the party and hang up at their own homes.

The Gerald and Piggie Band
This painting featuring Elephant, Piggie, Duckling, and Pigeon, was Adán, my wonderfully creative 6 yr old son’s gift to his brother.

The Gerald and Piggie Band, Friends Belong Together Cake
At the request of Elías, I started by making his vanilla buttercream cake blue and then realized that it looked very similar to Adán’s painting. So I decided to add grass, and then made cut-outs of his characters from his painting on my diecutter, and added them as toppers to the cake. Adán was so proud :).

Duckling Cookies

We hung up my children’s posters from the last immigration marches by the art table where the kids made posters and puppets.

I made little Elephant, Pigge, and Pigeon cut-outs with little talk bubbles for the kids to color and turn into puppets. In some of them, the characters were happy and in some they were sad. Some of the talk bubbles were blank and some had pre-written statements matching the party’s theme like Families belong together!, EVERYONE is welcome here! End family separation, and Close the camps!

The bday boy with his Abuelito

Elephant and Piggie Cake
A few days before the party, our ped put my son on a lactose-free diet (due to tummy aches) which meant he couldn’t enjoy any of the royal icing sugar cookies, chocolate covered pretzels, chocolate covered Oreos, or the main cake, so I made him this extra special decadent lactose-free, gluten-free chocolate cake, with delicious vegan buttercream icing with Gerald and Piggie fondant cake toppers to match his painting. He LOVED it :).

ALL kids are welcome here!
I actually never finished this painting. I started it with the intention that it would be a photo backdrop for the kids. But I had open wall space and this fit perfect, so we went with it.

The party was a huge success! The birthday boy was delighted and many many critical conversations were had around our current immigration policies and ways that we as a community can and should be responding.

La voz de Frida

Anyone who knows me, knows that I’m obsessed with Frida Kahlo. But the last two months haven given me such unexpected Frida Kahlo magic… that I’m still in disbelief.

Last month I got to attend Frida Kahlo: Appearances Can Be Deceiving, the largest U.S. exhibition of Frida’s work in the last ten years.

And just yesterday… for the first time ever I got to hear Frida’s voice.

El Gobierno mexicano ha mostrado el hallazgo con cautela asegurando que los estudios apuntan a que se trata de la voz de Kahlo, pero reconociendo que no han logrado confirmarlo totalmente. “Es un hallazgo que tiene muchos elementos que pueden identificarse como la probable voz de Frida Kahlo, sin darlo como cierto al 100%”, ha explicado la secretaria de Cultura, Alejandra Frausto. – El País

Cray… wonder if it’s really her voice. But as always, I’m obsessed with the obsession.

Yo Soy Oro

Yo Soy Oro is a state of mind, a feeling and a destination. I Am Gold means as good as it gets, the best that money can buy, constantly increasing in value. El Centro de Oro is all that and more. Third generation family owned businesses thrive, while new investments bring change to the streets. Lovely long haired ladies in shiny gold outfits stride confidently down clean sidewalks where bright yellow big bellies on every corner keep trash where it belongs. Taste the rich flavors of tropical dishes and rock to the sounds of solid gold hits from the best of Latin music.

Nursing symphony: wanted breastfeeding mamas

Do you love nursing your baby? Does your little one “perform” every time he or she is at your breast? I am working on new breastfeeding series that will include the sounds of nursing babies. I am looking for moms to contribute audio recordings of babies feeding. If you are interested in having the sounds of your baby feeding included in the piece please let me know.

Escobar-Morales at the Bruno David Gallery

ESCOBAR-MORALES: Resurrection of Hun-Nal-Ye at the Bruno David Gallery in St. Louis, MO. Opening on Friday, February 1, 2013, from 5 to 9 pm.  Show runs until February 23rd, 2013.

In the New Media Room, the Bruno David Gallery presents a single-channel video work titled “Resurrection of Hun-Nal-Ye” by Escobar-Morales. The 21-minutes video originated from a performance at the closing for RICH-OO-UH’L, RICH-OO-UH’L at Jolie Laide Gallery in Philadelphia, with sound by Armando Morales.

In the Resurrection of Hun-Nal-Ye (2011), Escobar-Morales perform a funerary ritual, referencing the mythical Mayan tale of the Hero Twins reviving their dead father, the Maize God. In their contemporary interpretation of this ancient story, Escobar-Morales simultaneously represent the body and the soul; the God/ Goddess and twin offspring, in both physical and technological forms using live performance and web based video projection.

ESCOBAR-MORALES is a team comprised of Maya Escobar and Andria Morales. The two artists, based in Chicago and New York respectively, have been working together over the Internet since 2010. They produce digital media and performance art that explores the role of self-representation in visual culture and its ability to deconstruct ingrained ideological conventions. By locating their performances online where they are free from restrictions of time and place, Escobar-Morales is able to concurrently enact multiple personas while simultaneously creating a unified hybrid self.

Maya Escobar was born in Chicago, IL in 1984. Andria Morales was born in 1982 in New York, NY. Escobar received a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2007) and an MFA from Washington University in St. Louis (2009); Morales received a BA from the University of Pennsylvania (2004) and an MFA from Tyler School of Art, Temple University (2008).

Photo by Armando Morales

Escobar-Morales: Excerpts from the Ressurection of Hun-Nal-Ye

Performance artists Escobar-Morales perform a funerary ritual, referencing the mythical Mayan tale of the Hero Twins reviving their dead father, the Maize God. In their contemporary interpretation of this ancient story, Escobar-Morales simultaneously represent the body and the soul; the God/ Goddess and twin offspring, in both physical and technological forms using live performance and web based video projection. Performed at Jolie-Laide gallery in Philadelphia.

AMerican MEdia Output in Philly

Are you Target Audience? Find out in Philly. Stay tuned for details on the next official AMerican MEdia Output appearance.

photo by Abel Arciniega

Excerpts from my thesis: My Shtreimel

My Shtreimel is a video blog that features my fiancée Loren, who is a reoccurring character in my work. Sitting in a dimly lit room, Loren shares a personal Sabbath ritual. Behind him is the large painting of the Rebbe that appears in  Obsessed with Frida Kahlo video. Although Loren is alone, he addresses the camera as if he were speaking directly with his eventual audience.

My Shtreimel, YouTube Video, 2006.

“I think it is very important for each of us to have an enjoyable Shabbos experience. And to be able to in some ways personally define what that Shabbos experience entails. There’s a lot of different minhags that I think a lot different people have that not every one has. And there are certain things that we develop not necessarily because they are passed down from our father, or our mother, or your mother’s father, just because it is something that makes your Shabbos experience a little bit more enjoyable a lot these personal minhags that we all have…”

Casually citing the Chofetz Hayim and the Talmud Yerushalmi, he acknowledges both his relationship to, and awareness of traditional Jewish texts; thereby, indirectly aligning himself with a more observant Jewish community. Using humor, he offsets the implied exclusivity of those ties, by adding that he is actually wearing a woman’s hat that was purchased at a thrift store.

eruv stl is “posted as a response” to My Shtreimel. eruv stl is intended to link Berlin’s Eruv to St. Louis. In this low quality thus “authentic video blog” Loren and I drive around the Washington University in St. Louis area, with a map in hand, trying to locate St. Louis’s eruv. In the background you can hear Guns and Roses famous song Welcome to the Jungle. Loren assumes a role similar to the one of Matisyahu, a halakically informed Jew, who does not the traditional model for the other and is thereby able to communicate with the secular world.

eruv stl, YouTube Video, 2009.

I ask Loren why he thinks the eruv extends as far as it does and if he thinks that there area lot of Orthodox Jewish families living in the area. Loren tell me that the eruv has extended this far because of the Hillel on campus, and that while there are not many Orthodox families living on the streets that we are driving, that the presence of the Hillel on campus is enough to create an eruv-worthy Jewish community.

Not only does it become clear that Loren familiar with Orthodox Jewish practices and the neighboring streets, but also he is still not sure exactly where the eruv is located. Meaning that even though the eruv is present, Loren is either a) so religious that he doesn’t abide by it, OR b) he doesn’t lead a Jewish life that would involve abiding by an eruv. As the conversation continues Loren continues to distance himself from vocabulary that you would expect to come from a more observant Jew, as he casually engages in humorous banter with me surrounding the eruv.

I ask him how it felt to finally “find” the eruv, he responds that he “feels pretty good” but he didn’t feel like “it was an actual wall” – which it isn’t, so this statement is made in jest. He continues, “its like finding Waldo, Waldo had curly hair and glasses, he might have been a frum Jew […] maybe it is a statement about jews begin such a small percentage of the population…

The Rebbe, Acrylic on Canvas, 2004.

more thesis excerpts coming soon…

Schachter’s Pocket Tzedek

ATTN: transient digital native Jews, the ever so talented Ben Schachter has come up with another brilliant Jewish pop culture piece, Pocket Tzedek. 

Ben Schachter has entered a competition that asks, “Where do you give?”  Sponsored by the American Jewish World Service whose mission is “to realize human rights and end poverty in the developing world.”  Support his design by voting for him here:  www.wheredoyougive.org

Charity and Philanthopy are major parts of many religions.  Judaism gives it a unique character.  As the contest describes, “The word tzedakah (Hebrew: צדקה) comes from the Hebrew word tzedek, meaning righteousness or justice. It refers to the Jewish practice of giving money in order to help those less fortunate—using our financial resources to create a more just and righteous world.”

Schachter’s design, “Pocket Tzedek,” combines wireless technology – a debit card reader – and a traditional “pushke,” or piggy bank. Instead of dropping in coins, the donor dips his card.

Find Schachter’s design under the web interactive category on the third page at www.wheredoyougive.org/voting and vote for him every day until April 1.