Sunday, January 6, 2013

Pounding Maize

Girl pounding corn meal with 
pestle and mortar
24" x 12", oil on luan, 2013
The song Canto para Pilar Maiz was recorded by Francisco Carreño and Miguel Cardona on El Margarita Island in Venezuela in 1949. It was part of the collection of Venezuelan folk and aboriginal music edited by Juan Liscano that appeared a few years later as volume 9 of The Columbia World Library of Folk and Primitive Music under the auspices of Alan Lomax. It's a beautiful series of records with great music, lots of texts, and beautiful photographs. The photographs in this particular album are not credited. Typically they were made by the same person who did the recording or else by another member of the expedition. I really should give credit to the photographer providing the source material for this painting. Not often am I as enchanted with a photo I use as a source, as I am with this one (typically I opt for the most casual, least professional photo available for a certain musician.) The photo illustrating the corn grinding song is really a great image, great composition, I could not go wrong. I substituted the large cross in the background in the photograph for a setting in my back yard.

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