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Painted Portrait

I have missed Facebook and doing my blog this last couple of months. I have been on sabbatical to finish my book, Max Bird of Aztec Studios.

I will be back to my usual schedule this winter and look forward to giving you more helpful information and advice on developing your art skills. In the meantime, although I have been writing, I have done a portrait titled, "Mary Clare in Blue" that I unveiled at the Unitarian Fellowship last weekend and have added two new pets to my collection, Preciosa and Pedro. I am also sending you the latest portrait of Max Bird. Until then, take care and have a wonderful holiday season.

MAX BIRD - AMAZON PARROT

I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. It is from an article in El Ojo del Lago in Ajijic, MX. I am now working on a book about Max, for inquiries or to be put on my mailing list, please contact me at janicekimballmx@gmail.com. Peace and feathers, Janice

MY STORY

By MAX BIRD

Translated by Janice Kimball

My siblings and I were kept comfortable and well fed in the dark chicken coop awaiting our fate. In there with us were a Toucan, a group of twittering Canaries, some haughty hook bills splashed with brilliant markings, and oddly enough, an Iguana. Occasionally the door would crack open startling us as the darkness flooded with light. Then a strange one-eared man was ushered in. He circled each of our cages, eyes beading in assessment, hands folded behind his back, grunting.

Sticking up his nose he paused at our cage. My heart beat wildly with fear. I remember how I strained to hear as our keeper and the wholesaler talked about us outside the door. The effort was futile as I could not hear, but knew the outcome would not be a good.

A van pulled up to the door of our chicken coop. It was like a rich man’s van, the color of pewter, and smelled of newness, or was it bleach? A strange man with an aura of detachment came in to the coop. You could almost hear our silence as his footsteps deftly padded across the soft dirt floor. He rearranged us as we fluttered wildly in a last ditch effort to escape, transferring us into slick aluminum cages equipped with automatic feeders.

We sped along part of the day and through the night in physical comfort and resigned acceptance of our fate. It was only when he stopped to pay a toll, that I screamed, “Help, please help!” In a valiant attempt to get us all out of there, visioning being cooked and eaten at the end of our ride. I put everything into those screams, but nobody heard. Looking back, we never were eaten, so maybe I over reacted.

Guadalajara was asleep when we arrived, all but the bustling around the old San Juan Market. Caught in a huge traffic jam, in an almost impossible entanglement we wiggled on through. Our driver announced he had a perishable load, referring to us kept creatures that chirped as others moved their vehicles aside. I overheard we were to be taken to a process station filled with other contraband birds snatched from the wild. The luckiest of us would be put into an airplane and flown to the United States, sold to grace a rich home.

The others would be marketed to pet stores here in Mexico. Both of these options looked pretty good, when just the night before I thought we could be eaten. My siblings and I, however, were stopped at the entrance of the banding station, putting a halt to our aspirations.

“What are those common birds doing here?” the man from the warehouse demanded as we were being unloaded.

We huddled together as we heard our driver reply, “ but I got ya’ the Iguana you been wantin’ and a real good cash crop of assorted birds here, and just look at that Toucan, the biggest I ever did see!”

“Well, they’re not worth anything, just get them out of here,” the man said as he pointed at us. There we were, me and my siblings, evicted from our cage, just three hunks of garbage, and a few ounces of underdeveloped feathers, worth nothing but to be stepped on, unceremoniously dumped into the street.

A beggar with a soot filled beard and bare feet was standing, as if waiting for us, as we were dumped beside the curb. He took off his crunched up, sweet scented sombrero, and nested us inside. As we traveled up the road with us cradled in his arms he began humming. Our red crested heads optimistically bobbed along in unison, almost as if we were on a tour. The color of the sky changed from a dark violet to a glorious orange hue as the sun rose over the horizon.

To our surprise the beggar began singing us a carol, “Away in a manger, no crib for a bed, the little lord Jesus lay down his sweet head . . .”

OUR TRIP TO HUICHAL CEREMONIAL SITE ON SCORPION ISLAND

My good friend, Teodoro, stopped by the gallery to visit me the other day. I suggested we get together the next day, Thursday, July 14th, and take a trip to Scorpion Island to visit his ancestor's ceremonial site. The next day a group of nine of us headed out. Our group consisted of Teodoro, Lopez-Lopez, children, Veronica & Nacho, Juan Jose from San Andreas, Jan & Louis, Janice and her sons, Terry and Francisco.

It was a wonderful trip and you can see from the video that we had a lot of fun and many laughs. We left offerings of small change and chocolate at the ceremonial site.

ANOTHER MAX BIRD TALE FOR YOU

Hi, I'm back from vacation, writing again about Max. Here is more of his history that will be included in my book which is coming along real well but very slowly. I hope you enjoy it and are having a nice summer. Peace and feathers, Janice

MAX BIRD - MY LIFE

Robbed from our poacher for just a few pesos, we were in shock. My siblings and I had not even had a chance to utter a single squawk. Incarcerated in a strange man’s back seat, that reeked of havoc, along with a multitude of other feathered creatures whimpering with varying dialects, we were seemingly as one species, but each of us saw the others through foreign eyes. It is a wonder we did not all go deaf on that tortuous ride away from the tropical forest that nature had once provided as our home. The car vibrated fiercely as the motor roared like a growling monster, the sound of it only drowned out by our screaming. We screamed with a force unimaginable, from such tiny creatures as us, from fear and anguish, until we all lay limp, finally silenced by our own exhaustion. We arrived in a Mexican town, adjacent to a freeway.

He took us out of the car, our infant shape still bearing the form of the egg we came from, not yet in plume, and too afraid to whimper, as he placed us under a big shade tree in the plaza. We were no longer roasting in his back seat under the frying sun, for which we could have been thankful, we were horror stricken instead. There were a big lot of us birds, maybe 30, in our conglomeration of odd and beat up cages and handmade baskets piled up on the sidewalk on a crowded market day. We were almost stampeded as hundreds of huarached feet, cowboy boots, swishing skirts, dogs, children and marimba band bumped into us, as we blocked the sidewalk. He pulled serapes out of his trunk, covering us, so that our beating hearts would not stop in terror. It was also to shield us from the prying eyes of the law, which were designed to protect life such as ours.

He left us there, and in a time that was too short for him, returned. Word was out that the wildlife protection officials were in town. He could not make his customary visit to the cantina. Grimacing, while still clutching on to the bag that contained the huge syringe he had purchased to make feeding us faster, he snatched away our cover with flourish, feverishly tossed us back into the car and we were on the road again, his eyes slyly glancing from side to side and into the rear view window nervously.

We were unloaded into a chicken coop, vacant, except for some canaries, who were not singing. Weak and parched we were saved as the man's wife and daughter dutifully dashed in with a pail of water and eye droppers filled with sugar water to revive us. The stop at the Farmacia (drug store) was at great risk and he did it just to make their life easier, he told them handing over the bag containing the large syringe. They were not impressed, mumbling that they were tired of it all. In this atmosphere we waited for what else was to become of us, and I was hardly old enough to have my eyes fully open, but in the quiet darkness, our bellies full, we slept well that night.

MEZCALA'S PRE-HISPANIC MUSEUM & DANCERS

I was invited back to Mezcala on Day of the Dead, Dia De La
Cruz--after a 5 year absence by members of the community for a tour of
their, scattered about town ,dances by youngsters as a sort of
rememberance of the years when I was part of their community--A lot of
my work--5 generations of it was dedicated to this community. The director of the museum is Exciquio Santiago Cruz is shown in the picture with me. The picture with Francisco is my friend, Jose, a popular prepatory teacher, who knew all the children and originally introduced me to Mezcala's historical observances of pre-hispanic tradition. It was a wonderful and exhausting day.

Janicekimball.com

Hi friends,

I am so excited about this website that Nancy from Ajijic News did for me. I really want to get it out there and show it off. Please forward this to your friends. There's lots of information and great photos about Janice Kimball Studios. www.janickimball.com