Thursday, July 27, 2006

"spanish colonial" religious statues


These are 2 examples of "spanish colonial" style sculpture. The skeleton archer "DEATH" is in a museum in Santa Fe, the Jesus statue is in the cathedral in Santa Fe.The picture doesn't give as good of an idea of the impact of it in person, but picture taking was limited. The Jesus is very near the "La Conquistadora" Mary statue shown yesterday.
I think these are pretty unsettling, and I think a lot of people would agree. They are pretty crude, with the elongated features
Pretty creepy. I think this shows that the religious life of the early settlers in New Mexico in the 1700's was not based on peace and love and forgiveness. This is an interesting view into another time and place, and the artwork that is still around to document it.

Monday, July 24, 2006

LA CONQUISTADORA

This statue in the cathedral in Santa Fe New Mexico called La Conquistadora. I think it is kind of scary looking and there there

is another one of Jesus in there that is even creepier looking. The style is called Spanish Colonial. It seems to represent the culture of religious fear that controlled the society as far as I could tell. This statue was carried from Mexico city to the pioneers in New Mexico 3 or 4 centuries ago. Although they didn't come out and say it I got the impression from some of the people that they had strong feelings toward this statue. Perhaps to the point of it having magic powers. Very alien to my beliefs and sensibilities, and somewhat frightening, but interesting to look at as an outside observer.

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Columbus Crew go Bigtime!

Yes! that is a giant soccer ball crashing into a building on North High St. in Columbus Ohio!
This is a very cool advertising stunt put on by the Columbus Crew soccer team. It also has cracks in the building where the ball is hitting if you look closely. This is a new trend in downtown large scale advertising which has included having a full size mini cooper car in a slingshot mounted on the side of a building. Much more interesting than the same old boring shit if you have to be bombarded with advertising which isn't going away. I actually love this soccer ball!