The Enchanted Tiki Room

It's very possible that I've gone too far this time, but bear with me here...

We took a little jaunt to LA this past week to see some friends and family, and while there, the bf and I went to a place called Olvera Street, where you can find an array of Mexican crafts, mostly of not super-great quality; I still had a fantastic time there (and came away with two pairs of awesome leather shoes!), and one of the sudden visions I had involved getting this ceramic toucan you can hang from your ceiling, imagining it in our bedroom...






















Maybe I spent too much time in the Tiki Room at Disneyland as a kid, but this little guy seemed like such a fun thing to have in a bedroom! Now that he's home though, I am realizing that one side of my room, above our bed, is decorated like this mostly, fairly subdued and going for a lodge-y feel. Fitting the toucan in is a bit head scratching.

















The other side of the bedroom wall, the one we face from the bed and clearly where the toucan would end up, has a super brightly colored Otomi embroidery (kind of like the one above, only much better), several witchy Huichol yarn pieces and other assorted ephemera. So you see, the two halves of the room don't exactly, er...go together, though both make me extremely happy (luckily, the bf goes along with it!). I've been trying to bridge the gap, not make it greater...Would the vibrant and sorta silly Mr. Toucan just take it too far over the top? I'm mulling it over.


















After all, if we don't use the poor guy in our room, I'm sure he'll have a happy home in my stepson's bedroom!

Cactus Tree

I'm drawn to things that have handmade qualities, pattern, texture and bright colors, and a sense of mythology too, so it makes sense that I've become interested in Huichol indian crafts. Huichol people live in North Western Mexico, far up in the mountains.































They make impossibly beautiful beaded designs, pressing the beads into beeswax and using patterned symbols to speak of their religion which has three main components: deer, corn and peyote. You can see the deer embedded in the jaguar's cheek and the prayer bowl has deer surrounding a flower center that represents peyote.






































They also make yarn drawings, which tell stories about their system of myths, usually having to do with tribal shamans communicating with animals or aspects of nature, or the gods of the sun, moon and fire.

It's fascinating stuff. The pieces I have were found at Scarlet Sage Herb Co. on Valencia and Mixcoatl Arts and Crafts on 24th, both among my favorite stores in the city.