Margarita Time: What is Cinco de Mayo?
This Friday, May 5, 2023, marks the 161st anniversary of Cinco de Mayo. Why do we celebrate with a Margarita or Corona or Modelo Negro? More than party time, Cinco de Mayo is an important event in U.S. history, and not so much for Mexico. Read on to find out more. First of all, it’s […]
Happy Holidays, Discounts and Taking a Break
Felices fiestas de la temporada: Hanukkah feliz, feliz Navidad y feliz Año Nuevo. Happy celebrations of the season! I am in Santa Cruz, California now and will have lunch today with Debbie Mayfield and Bella Jacque, two Day of the Dead Photography Expedition participants. Bella is coming back to Oaxaca in February with her sister to […]
Young Oaxaca Weavers Honored and Encouraged
Faye Sims, a textile friend from Salt Spring Island, Vancouver, BC shared a blog story today about the new exhibition at the Museo Textil de Oaxaca and I wanted to pass the gist of it on to you! The story refers to Eric Chavez Santiago, our close family friend and we are incredibly proud of […]
Day of the Dead Photo Out-Takes: Part 2 + Recipe Quest
Traveling with a group of people you don’t know ahead of time could be risky for those who are independent and like to go off on their own to discover the world. We found our companions who participated in the Day of the Dead Photography Expedition 2012 to be muy amable! We shared interests, took […]
Out-Takes Part I: Day of the Dead Photography Workshop
First the disclosure: Everyone whose likeness appears here has agreed to have these sometimes embarrassing, revealing and funny photos published on OCN. We think a good laugh at ourselves is healthy. These are personal photos we took of each other during the Day of the Dead Photography Expedition in October-November 2012 that didn’t make it […]
Celebrating Five Years of Blog Writing: Oaxaca Cultural Navigator
On November 28, 2007, I started a free WordPress.com blog and posted my first essay there about visiting, traveling and intending to live in Oaxaca, Mexico. Two years earlier, using iWeb on my Apple computer and the clunky URL web.mac.com/normahawthorne/iWeb/ [defunct, not searchable, remember those days], I started my original blog. However no one could […]
Best of Week Day of the Dead Photographs: Bella Jacque
Formerly a high-tech manager who is now an artist, Bella came from Silicon Valley, California to attend the Day of the Dead Photography Expedition learn more about her camera and improve her aesthetics. “The biggest lesson for me photographically was “less is more” – having a talented photographer/teacher focus my efforts on the few features needed […]
Tidbits: Calvin Trillin Loves Oaxaca, Too!
I think of Calvin Trillin as a contemporary Walt Whitman, humorous, politically savvy, and egalitarian. It just so happens that Trillin’s daughter Abigail moved to Oaxaca with her family. This became a perfect excuse for him to re-visit, eat grasshoppers, learn to cook with maguey worms and write about it. His take on Oaxaca food (and […]
Order Dolores Porras Video on New Website: Ceramics Education
Dolores Porras: Artista Artesana de Barro is a 31-minute documentary video made by Michael Peed, a university ceramics professor. This link takes you to a new website where you can buy the DVD. When the DVD was released in 2010, I reviewed it here on my blog because it offers an outstanding discussion of the […]
Recipe: Venison Meatballs and Deer Hunting
What does this have to do with Oaxaca? Read on. You’ll find out! Those of us who live at Blue Heron Farm in Pittsboro, NC, have been plagued by an overpopulation of deer. This fall, our community association invited our local Backyard Bow Pros to come in and thin the herd using the old-fashioned way of […]
Best of Week Day of the Dead Photographs: Kathy Heath AKA Louie
“This trip was the perfect way to re-invest in my interest in photography and explore a fascinating country and culture [of Oaxaca, Mexico] at the same time. I can’t imagine an instructor or guide who could have better managed the balance and flexibility to so successfully meet all the goals of the program,” says Kathy […]
Recipe: Happy Thanksgiving Norma’s Mexican Yellow Bean Soup
This week I went to my local Mexican market in Pittsboro, NC in search of dried yellow beans to create another batch of soup. They store them in a bin and sell them by the pound. I love their color and texture. (Beans were originally cultivated in both Mexico and the Andes.) Yellow beans are […]
Best of Week Day of the Dead Photographs: Doug Mayfield
Doug came along on our Day of the Dead Photography Expedition because his wife Debbie wanted to go to Oaxaca and learn how to use her new camera. Doug was reluctant but willing. His passion is underwater photography and the couple had recently returned from a South Pacific dive/photo trip where Doug shot some pretty […]
Best of Week Day of the Dead Photographs: Helene Haviland
Helene has wanted to visit Oaxaca and see Day of the Dead since 2004 when a photographer friend told her how she loved this beautiful city. Helene says, “In the interim, I have held a Day of the Dead party complete with elaborate altar since 2005. Now it was time to experience it in person. […]
Lila Downs Dazzles at Latin Grammy Awards
She is ours — Oaxaca’s goddess of song and lyrics. Lila Downs went on stage to perform at the 13th Latin Grammy Awards on November 15, again recognized for what she has contributed to the music world. The Examiner article says it all. Accolades, too, to Paul Cohen, Lila’s husband, producer and collaborator. Here are two photos I’ve […]
Oaxaca Recipe: Norma’s Black Bean Soup
I’ve been trying to replicate this traditional black bean soup since I returned to North Carolina from Oaxaca last week. I’ve made three batches and eaten them all. Perfect for vegetarians. If you are not a vegetarian, you can enrich the soup with leftover chicken or pork, sliced or cubed. Some people say Oaxaca’s best […]
Best of Week Day of the Dead Photographs: Connie Jo
At her core Connie is an archeologist though these days she is an assistant dean at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Her passion is Mexican archeological sites. She participated in digs in Cholula, just a few miles outside the city of Puebla and has visited Mexico’s major archeological sites. Did I say Connie loves Mexico? We […]
Best of Week Day of the Dead Photographs: Deby Thompson
“I signed up for the adventure and to learn, says Deby Thompson, “and I got both.” Deby is a legal videographer from the historic restored mill town of Glencoe, NC. Her clients are attorneys who engage her to interview children whose health has been severely comprised by accidents or other mishaps. In this respect, Deby […]
Best of Week Day of the Dead Photographs: Erin Loughran
Coming from Brooklyn, NY, this was Erin’s first visit to Mexico! She studied film photography in college and used a SLR for years. Of late, Erin said she got lazy using a point and shoot camera or keeping the SLR on automatic. Her goal in attending the Day of the Dead Photography Expedition was to […]
Best of Week Day of the Dead Photographs: Sara E. Thomas
Sara, who goes by Liz, is an inveterate traveler, accomplished intermediate-level photographer and fluent Spanish speaker. While this was her first visit to Oaxaca, Liz, who holds the B.A. in Spanish from the University of Oklahoma, participated in student exchange programs and extensive independent travel in Spain, other parts of Mexico, Central and South America. […]
Best of Week Day of the Dead Photographs: Mark Pollard
Professional photographer Mark Pollard from Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area has taken photos around the world but had never been to Oaxaca, Mexico before. Mark joined us for the 2012 Day of the Dead Photography Expedition because he wanted to work alongside and get portfolio feedback from our workshop leader Bill Bamberger. Mark […]
Photography in Oaxaca: Reality or Romantic Vision
What does a photographer whose subjects were native Americans have to do with Oaxaca? Read on. 1900’s photographer Edward S. Curtis sought to capture the vanishing American Indian. The just published Curtis biography, Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher by Timothy Egan, documents Curtis’ quest over the next thirty years traveling throughout the American west. The […]
Best of Week Day of the Dead Photographs: Debbie Mayfield
Debbie Mayfield is from Santa Cruz, California, and this was her first visit to Oaxaca, Mexico. She had just gotten a new camera and wanted instruction plus a great travel adventure for Day of the Dead. Usually Debbie and her husband Doug travel independently and this was also their first experience being part of a travel […]
Best of Week Day of the Dead Photography: Norma Hawthorne
Here is a selection of my personal best photographs taken during our Day of the Dead Photography Expedition in Oaxaca, Mexico, from October 28 through November 4, 2012. Over the next weeks, I will share the photos of all our workshop participants. The range of our work with differing points of view provide an in-depth […]
Day of the Dead Night in Teotitlan del Valle, Oaxaca–2012
November 2 is All Souls’ Day and the night of remembering departed family members at the Teotitlan del Valle, Oaxaca, Day of the Dead ritual. Our photography workshop participants were there to share in the experience. On November 1, at 3 p.m., the bells begin to ring signaling the arrival of the dead. The continue […]
Day of the Dead Night in Xoxocotlan Cemetery, Oaxaca
On October 31, we arrive in Santa Cruz Xoxocotlan, the district located about fifteen minutes just outside the city of Oaxaca, in late afternoon well before dark each year that we organize the Day of the Dead Photography Expedition. This is intentional, to experience the cleaning of the grave sites, and the arrangement of candles and […]
El Sueño de Elpis: Oaxaca Art Interprets Hope
While Elpis was locked inside Pandora´s box, a miracle furrowed through her dreams: the possibility of a 360-degree turn for humanity, a change that would make the world a better place. She dreamed of the virtues that abounded back in the days when the world honored the sacred feminine ways: actual times in which life […]
Vendors of Oaxaca: On the Streets, in the Markets
Whether it’s the selling of food at a street corner, hand woven palm hats from a seat at the edge of a high concrete planter box, or from behind a market stall, commerce is alive and well in Oaxaca. At night, returning from a delicious dinner of coconut shrimp at Los Danzantes restaurant, we turned […]
Calavera La Catrina: Day of the Dead Grande Dame
Animated images of skulls associated with Day of the Dead were intended as social satire — a good laugh on politicians and the climbing bourgeoisie in political 19th and 20th century Mexico. Today, the image of skeletal bones dressed in fancy attire that dance through the night are part of the Oaxaca art scene. It […]
Day of the Dead Flowers: Cempazuchitl and El Sueño de Elpis
On Thursday, November 1, artist Mauricio Cervantes and friends at El Sueño de Elpis are hosting a multimedia exhibition in Oaxaca. It will be at Murguia #103 in an old abandoned historic casa. The event begins at 7 p.m. and it should be a fantastic, knowing Mauricio’s talent for producing something aesthetically exquisite. Since our […]