MUSIC

Music of the people

Tucson International Mariachi Conference Poster
Contest Entry 2010

Sirena Me
Sirena Me 2008

Sirena Me 

Just an early image of myself - I called it Sirena Me  (note long gray hair). I fashioned it after the famous image card of La Sirena in Mexico's national game, ¡Lotería!.  The turtle represents my mother (who loved turtles) and I am wearing morning glories, her favorite flower.

When I was young I played guitar and sang, but this has not been the life for it.  It has remained pretty much shelved except to accompany Carrillo School's children for their annual Las Posadas tradition-- from 2002 until 2014 when I lost part of a finger.  

I had fun making a few experimental recordings in Garange Band on my Mac years ago... if you're brave you can go to:

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*  La Corúa  was a large water serpent that lived in springs of water and protected them. They say it had a cross on its forehead and cleaned the veins of water with its long fangs or tusks. It was a shy creature but could sometimes be caught sunning on the rocks of the spring.  According to Sonoran folk beliefs, if one killed the Corúa, the spring would dry up.  Vanishing water sources and  economic pressures have pushed the folklore of La Corúa  to the dustbin of history on both sides of the border, but La Corúa remains in the minds and memories of elders in the Pimería Alta.

Serpents have been sacred for millennia to indigenous peoples throughout the Americas and are respected as guardians of water sources and bringers of rain.

* Beliefs and Holy Places - A Spiritual Geography of the Pimeria Alta  -  James S. Griffith, University of Arizona Press, 1992

Background painting:  Baboquivari Peak - the monolith landmark defining the Baboquivari mountains southwest of Tucson. The center of Tohono O'odham cosmology, it is sacred and is the home of I'itoi, their Creator and Elder Brother. The peak is visible from Casa Grande in the northwest, south into Mexico.  (I'itoi is also the figure in the O'odham 'Man in the Maze' basket design.)
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