Getting ready for the jury process next month and working on an assemblage based on "Dias de los Muertos", Day of the Dead. On Nov. 1 and 2, families create "la ofrenda" (altar) to celebrate visitors from the other side. Altars include marigold flowers, fruit, mementos, and traditional foods for the dead to feast on. All just lovely, yes? Circle of life, death, and rebirth, a joyful celebration, an honoring of all life's rhythms. So I happen to stop in to the cemetery where my family members are interred in Portsmouth, Virginia, and I am struck dumb by the synthetic feel of this place and the enormous disparity in the traditions. Nearly every grave was decorated with gaudy plastic flowers. Certainly we are choosing these because they are "permanent", but that is not true at all. They are breaking down in the weather, blowing around the paths among the graves, carrying their toxic building blocks into the earth itself which contains echoes of bizarre burial practices...is this the ultimate walmartization of our culture, stripping all that is graceful from our heritage? But still, but still...the decaying fiberglass angels and ornaments hold me fascinated, as usual, spying on the intimate relationship we have with our dead. There are so many artistic and cultural connections in this that my head spins at the possibilities...check back for photos of my "la ofrenda" project as it develops.