La Catrina Season

I had to take a break from the news. Oof…the world is in shambles. I have been trying to focus on the positives, like the fact that libraries exist or that people stop at traffic lights and sometimes even put the recycling in the right bins. (Though not sure about that last one).

It’s dark times, for sure. But my mental health beckons me to create things and Halloween/Dia De Los Muertos is upon us. So ’tis the season to draw Catrinas. Nothing expresses my negative inner thought pattern like an undead snob. The original La Catrina was drawn by Mexican illustrator Juan Guadalupe Posada to satirize the high society Mexicans who abandoned their culture for a European aesthetic.

She is also a legacy of Aztec underworld. Despite the racism and classism endemic to most of the world, Mexico as a country embraces the indigenous beliefs, artwork, culture and history like no other place I have visited. (Though there are many Latin American countries I have not visited). The marriage of European and Indigenous culture in Mexico is part of what makes Mexico so unique and, yes, magical.

I see La Catrina as kind of a ridiculous elite. She’s rude but also sassy and forever young (in her head). She overdresses with impunity and gets work done on her skeletal face as if she’ll be on the cover of Vogue. She’s Golden Girl who sounds like Wendy Malick and despite obsessing about her status and looks, does care about the world. She is the annoying relative who comes through when you’re in the hospital.

Anyway, I am still not getting Botox.