The present polymer clay sculptures serve primarily to promote and celebrate Mesoamerican Indigenous peoples' values and cosmovisions, and especially the Costumbres, or "Old Ways," along with the ritual specialists who sustain them. Each sculpture reflects my understanding of said themes at the time of its creation. Though I grew up in a small town more aligned with Western culture than traditional ones, my semi-decontextualized sculptures are themselves more aligned with the latter through the iconography and meanings that compose them. These sculptures are composed of vibrant swirling color combinations and depict scenes that generally include humans and other-than-human beings performing actions concerning traditional Mesoamerican ritualism, especially in regards to themes of world renewal and participation in universal networks of relations, as expressed through Flower Worlds’ spirituality and related signification systems. For Indigenous peoples in Mesoamerica and Southwest USA, Flower Worlds, as denominated in ethnography and anthropology, are essentially ideal, yet experientially real, deified embodiments of the sacred living Earth as transcendent yet immanent prodigious cosmic expressions of abundance, positivity, healing, and renewal in the living environment. Furthermore, Flower Worlds can be conceptualized as extremely sacred locations, multifaceted agential dimensions of the living universe, and as highly cherished generative qualities of the cosmos. In Mesoamerica, and throughout the Indigenous Americas, the forces and processes that generated and maintain the cycle of life renewal in motion, have long been and still are elevated to divine status of the highest degrees.
The Old Ways have long been practiced and created throughout what is now called Mesoamerica, from times immemorial to the present. The highly significant concepts and noble values expressed through these ancestral practices and related creations are among my most important sources of inspiration, not only for creative endeavors but for many other aspects of life. From extreme antiquity, the diverse expressions of the prodigious Old Ways, such as Flower Worlds spirituality, reveal that Indigenous peoples across what is now called the Americas have honored the past and the ancestors, have respected the natural environments we are all ultimately part of, and have worked to exist in harmony with the natural processes and cycles of inhabited areas as much as possible. By integrating ritualism into these and other endeavors of life, the latter are elevated to spiritual work of divine degrees, with effects of cosmic magnitudes. Through these virtuous modalities of cognition and operation, the synchronization of inner and outer processes is catalyzed, resulting in the experiential unification of the person, the community, and the rest of the cosmos into a harmonious totality in constant renewal. These sophisticated ancestral Indigenous expressions and wisdom are more relevant now than ever. As the globally dominating capitalist powers continue to devastate the biosphere, it is precisely these exemplary traditional values and practices that provide, as they always have, viable alternatives to the shortsighted and destructive ways in which said powers engage with natural environments throughout Mother Earth.
ABOUT THE ARTIST:
My name is Narciso Meneses Elizalde. I am from Hidalgo, Mexico, originally Indigenous lands still inhabited by displaced Nahua, Hñähñu, and Ñuhu (or Yùhu) peoples. Like a large amount of the population in Mexico, I am from an area increasingly more aligned with western culture, but which was originally also composed of culturally disconnected or distanced Indigenous diaspora, although of unknown affiliation due to the destructive unfolding of colonization processes and its consequences (one of my grandparents was of more direct Indigenous descent, likely a descendant of Nahua or/and Ñuhu Indigenous groups). In addition, a couple of family members on my mom's side are traditionally trained healers, and their guidance, wisdom, divine gift of healing, and spiritual strength, have sustained the well-being of numerous people in their corresponding communities, including myself. For the past few years, I have lived and worked in and around what is now known as Cedar Rapids and Iowa City, in the originally Indigenous lands now known as the state of Iowa, USA. I earned my Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Iowa in 2013, and I have participated in several exhibitions in Eastern Iowa and beyond since then at Public Space One, Legion Arts, Dubuque Area Arts Collective, The Dubuque Museum of Art, Fine Arts Center at Colorado College, ADC Fine Art, DIY music and art shows, and others. Generally, I create polymer clay sculptures and non-fiction writing through which I promote and celebrate Meesoamerican peoples’ values and cosmovisions. During the past few months, the Big Field Fund (and Public Space One) financed and supported workgroup I am a part of, Revitalizadores del Papel, have been laboring together to revitalize the manufacture and ritual implementation of traditional amate paper in the Otomí-Tepehua Highlands Mexico through our collective project titled "La Fuerza del Papel Amate," to be shared with Iowa and the rest of the world latter this year.