Happy Day of the Dead 2023!

The Day of the Dead often gets overlooked in the US since it lives in the shadow of Halloween here. The fact that it’s such a beautiful holiday, with a different kind of chill factor, makes me feel that it’s an important yin to Halloween’s yang. Even though I don’t believe in an afterlife, I still enjoy celebrating those (people and animals) who are no longer with us.

I don’t have to go into the history of DOTD since you can look it up yourself on Wikipedia. Instead, I’d like to tell you why I think it’s okay for all of us to celebrate it. We’re increasingly reminded that other cultures feel protective of their traditions. In many cases, that comes across as a warning because these traditions are often co-opted and misrepresented.

I feel that we all grow through the sharing of traditions. I mean, how far along would Halloween be if only people who are descendants of Celts were allowed to celebrate it? I think we can learn a lot about other people and their cultures by embracing their traditions, as long as we do so with respect.

So, I encourage you to create your own ofrenda to deceased loved ones and remember them with the joyous remembrance that’s unique to this celebration.

Happy Day of the Dead!

image copyright Thomas Raven

I just wanted to wish everyone a very happy Dia De Los Muertos today! Day (or days) of the Dead is an important cultural touchstone in Mexico, and one that’s slowly getting overrun by Halloween. I just read a report that showed that Halloween had finally overtaken DOTD in Mexico. That makes me sad because there’s an exquisite beauty to the DOTD celebrations that hearkens back to Mayan and Aztec rituals.

I’ve been happy to see DOTD decorations at Target over the last few Halloween seasons. Perhaps if we Americans can better embrace the holiday, we can stave off it’s demise.

---

About that picture: In the early 2000s, when I was between jobs, I made Day of the Dead figures and sold them on Ebay. The one pictured above was a trick or treater, but most of them were famous people. I made a lot of musicians, but they had to be dead. At one point, a Ramones fan had collected all of the dead Ramones I had made and requested the full band, but I refused to make a figure of anyone who wasn’t dead yet.

It quickly became a grind. Making one of each figure is fun. Making them in an assembly line process was a lot of work. My partner at the time helped and made her own figures, but even with both of us working at it (she’d lost her job in the very same week I’d lost mine!), it was difficult.

We expanded to making clocks and celebrity grave rubbings, but the income wasn’t quite equal to the effort. Don’t get me wrong - it certainly helped us through a rough patch - but it also made it clear to me that working at a day job wasn’t so bad after all.

Dia de Muertos or Dia de los Muertos?

Day of the Dead Jimi Hendrix sculpture © Thomas Raven

While perusing the internet tubes today, I stumbled across a reference to the Day of the Dead holiday. It referred to it as, Dia de Muertos. Having only ever heard it called Dia de los Muertos in Spanish, I typed my way to the answer and thought it worth sharing here for the edification of other gringos like me.

Turns out, both are correct and both are used by native Spanish speakers both north and south of the border. There is some speculation that the truncated version was a response to the globalization of the holiday after the Pixar film Coco was such a big hit, but I can neither confirm nor deny that. What does seem to be true is that more insiders are using the truncated version these days. Lots of names are getting shorter, from KFC and Dunkin’ to Dia de Muertos. Pretty soon everything will just be known by single syllable names or emojis. Until then, you’re safe using either version.

Talavera Jack-O-Lanterns

photo © Thomas Raven

I had never even heard of talavera pottery until I saw a Reddit post where someone was showing off one of these jack-o-lanterns. After a little searching, I found that these colorful handmade jacks are becoming more common here in the US.

The talavera pottery tradition in Mexico traces its history back to Spain. It’s said to be a very time-consuming process fraught with the potential for failure at every step. After seeing these, I knew I had to have one.

The beauty in the photo above was made by artist Juana Ponce in Guanajuato, Mexico. An old friend in LA is from that town, so it seemed like it was meant to be. Now that I have it in hand, I can see why these are becoming more popular. They merge the day of the dead aesthetic with Halloween for something entirely new.

If you’re interested, you can find these for sale in lots of online shops, but I’d recommend buying directly from an artist through Novica. Novica.com is a sort of Etsy for artisans in Mexico, Central America, The Andes, West Africa, Thailand, India, Brazil, and Bali. The goal is to allow these talented artists to profit from their own work without middlemen stepping in to hog the proceeds.

Each work is one-of-a-kind, but there may be similar items offered over time. It’s a bit late in the season to get one of these in time for Halloween, but there’s always next year. To see Juana Ponce’s other works, click here.

Day of the Dead Ramones

photo © Thomas Raven

During the housing crisis in 2007, I lost my day job on the Disney lot and needed to find a way to fill in my income. One of the ways I did this was by making Day of the Dead figures of deceased horror actors and musicians. I sold them on Ebay under the fictional name, Birdhouse Jones.

I created Mr. Jones with some friends in Memphis in the late 90s. We made some crazy bird houses and sold them through local boutiques. I even had a picture of him, using a friend’s elderly neighbor as a stand-in. I’ve always loved Howard Finster and wanted to emulate his folk art stylings. To do so, we basically created our own Howard Finster in the process.

When I decided to make DOTD figures, it made sense to resurrect Birdhouse Jones. An out of work guy in a Sherman Oaks neighborhood has a lot less cachet than a reclusive folk art pioneer in the deep south. I posed as Mr. Jones’ gallery rep or agent and we were off to the races.

Each base was signed, “Work # xxxxxxxxx on this Earth.” The 9-digit serial number originated from something specific but I can’t really remember it now. What I can remember is selling a lot of these little guys.

Each figure had a wooden base and an armature made of twisted wire. The clay was white Sculpy that I baked in the oven. My girlfriend, who had also lost her job the same week that I’d lost mine, joined in and pretty soon we had a full blown production line. We were selling every figure we listed, many well above our starting bid of $9.99. I believe the highest price paid for a single figure was nearly $70.

My favorite figure was Jimi Hendrix burning his Strat, but the best story belongs to the Ramones figs. I made a Joey and later I added a Dee Dee. Johnny had died in 2004, but I hadn’t made his figure yet when a young woman emailed Birdhouse Jones through Ebay. She’d bought both the Joey and the Dee Dee and she was wondering if Mr. Jones might make a Johnny and a Tommy. I explained to her that Birdhouse only made figures of deceased musicians, so Tommy was off the table at the time, but I’d ask about a Johnny. When I listed the Johnny figure, she immediately bought it. As a thank you, I made a DOTD Ramones backdrop for her set of figures and included it free of charge. The pic above is one of the pics that she sent me after she had them all together on the shelf.

I’ve often thought that I should make a Tommy for her since he died in 2014. Sadly, I no longer have any way to contact her.

Of my folk art factory job, I can only say this - Every hobby is fun until it becomes your day job. The grind of cranking out figures became a bit much to face each day. I’ve never been good at repetitive tasks. My mind wanders too much. Mental meandering is good for a writer but terrible for a factory worker. And what we’d created was a mini factory, with a supply side, a production line, and a marketing arm. It was the production line that began to wear away at me.

When I eventually found a real job again, Birdhouse Jones went back into hiding, disappearing as quickly as he’d appeared. He’s still around, waiting to create again, but only as long as it’s fun.