In Mexico, Winter is the "dry season". The hot sun bakes the earth and cracks it, while nature waits for the Summer rains. The colors of clay become apparent to the eye, here the earth is yellow, there it is red. The colors of the earth can be brilliant in the mid-day sun.
Forest growth on these mountains is sparse, and the mountains are small and close together. The people build their houses out of the bricks they make from the earth, and burn the dry, dead branches of the trees to cook the corn and beans which they cultivate, as they have for milleniums.
Everywhere that people can live, in Mexico, there is a strain of corn adapted to that climate, altitude, length of season, or seasons. Corn comes in numerous colors, though the basic ones are: yellow, red, blue and white. There is sweet corn, eaten fresh, and grain corn, used to cook and serve in countless fashions, usually with beans, creating a perfect protein.
All strains of corn have been traced back ro an ancient grass-like grain called "Teocinte."
ARTIST'S COMMENTARY (continued)
"Southern Chiapas"
March 28, 1988
egg tempera on hand made paper
7 x 10 inches