The air has shifted overnight.
It’s nominally sunny, yes, and the temperature remains warmer than normal for this time of year, but the clouds are amassing to the west, and the wind has an edge to it that has not been there for several days now.
The forecast predicts another major storm to come, which the radar map confirms, although in recent weeks, such systems have largely gone around us rather than visit us too directly. Still, in this place, it’s foolhardy to take recent patterns for granted. By day’s end, it will be time to tarp equipment and surfaces, effectively bundling our small world here in a blanket to ward off the chill of the winter storm.
Blankets here, as in many of our traditional cultures, serve another purpose, as well: Wearing them is a show of honor, of respect. They hark back to an older time, wrapping oneself in one for a formal or ceremonial occasion is a way of showing respect for the ancestors and ancestral tradition, and for those with whom one interacts by showing up dressed in a manner that invokes that history. For some peoples, it serves as a kind of cultural shorthand: an immediate way for others —and for the spirits — to recognize that one comes with a good heart and a spirit that honors the old way (and old way that is also the contemporary way; some things have no need of change).
And so, for certain occasions, men will wrap themselves in blankets, women in shawls — winter or summer, cold or hot, rain or shine.
It’s also one reason why the human form in indigenous art so often includes the blanket. It’s not a play to stereotype, but a deeply rooted cultural norm. You’ll see it frequently in carved figurative works, whether tiny fetishes or industrial-sized sculptural installations. You also see it, occasionally, in clay art, whether in the form of storytellers or other figurative pieces, or pottery that incorporates such figures. Juanita Suazo DuBray has created beautiful examples of the former; Jessie Marcus specializes in the latter.
And it is Jessie’s works that we are highlighting in this series this month: small spirit bowls or cups, traditional works in the form of micaceous clay mugs, that incorporate her signature style of human or other figures arising organically from the rim. Today’s featured work is one such, a small hand-held mug with a village scene molded and etched in relief on its front, with a traditional man emerging from the far side of the cup’s mouth. From its description in the Other Artists: Pottery gallery here on the site:
An elder, wrapped in a traditional blanket, gazes watchfully over the wall of an old village home. He arises out of the bowl of an old-style mug made of hand-coiled micaceous clay, his blanket flowing downward to form its sides. The hallmarks of his home, an ancient Pueblo house, are molded in relief on the mug’s body, the details incised by hand on the front. Stands 3.75″ high on the figurative side (dimensions approximate).
Micaceous clay
$125 + shipping, handling, and insurance
For now, we will wrap ourselves in blankets to ward off winter’s chill, but that is a phrase, and an act, mean as much metaphorically as literally. Because even as it keeps our fragile human bodies warm, the blankets warm our spirits, too — the warmth the comes with honor, respect, and ancestral memory.
~ Aji
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