the beginning

The butterfly was supposed to represent what Mexico is to me. I, who was born in San Diego, with Japanese culture as my other half, had very little idea of what Mexico was. The connection that I had with it, was that my mother, her brother, and sister were all born in DF Mexico. My mother shared little stories of her time there. She said it was a hard time, especially moving so much.

However, from my imagination, and the extravagant parties that my aunt would throw for each of my siblings and my birthdays, I had an inkling of the fun lively culture, celebratory for whatever possible, but also a strong sense of familia. In my mind, it was bright and colorful amid the hazy background for where the rest of the world lay. It was a butterfly, also adorned with flowers to enhance its beauty. 

On a more interpretive note, I made the butterfly all out of parts of birds that I cut out of my 2012 birds calendar that was lying unused. This symbolized the predator and prey mindset that dominates many countries around the world, but that I thought was especially apparent in Mexico. The one who dominates and the one who gets eaten by the dominator; there is the one who rules the land in his riches and the poorer one who works hard, and tries not to meddle in activities to become a target to the one who dominates. This is all based on not factual information, but rather a feeling that I got, listening to snippets of stories from my mom and aunt and grandma about Mexico. 

(oops I guess i already posted about this first one ^)

Anhelo: 

This was from week 2 of our assignments that I never got around to posting.
the word was Anhelo.
For some reason I kept thinking about butterflies. I intended to keep a butterfly trend to the rest of my projects, but eventually decided not to. Let me tell you a story about this butterfly.

After 1-2 long weeks of staying in its cocoon, this butterfly finally slipped out and broke free of its cocoon. It was a cocoon that protected but also trapped the butterfly. However, it needed to be patient to make sure it could develop enough so that it could have a successful flight. The moment when the butterfly's crumpled wet wings emerged, it looked at the free-flying butterflies. It saw the potential it had, the fear that perhaps it won't make it, but also the deliberate strokes to clean its wet wings. This moment made me think of Anhelo. It was the moment when you saw where you were, and you saw where you could be and the hope that you could get there.
This moment was beautiful :)
I also related the butterfly to my last project because I wanted to compare this scene to my relation of the butterfly to Mexico. Again, this was my initial impressions of Mexico that I did not fully understand. Mexico is about to rise its wings and fly!