Dia De Los Muertos | Day of the Dead

In the tradition of the Saint Candles I have updated the glass container candles with my own Day of the Dead art. This one features “Feliz Cumpleanos” artwork, a skeleton birthday (deathday) party.

I’ve also added El Casamiento, El Corazon Ardiente and El Guitarrista to the altar candle lineup. We have them in stock and ready to ship.

You can check out all the new stuff as it becomes available at the Frenzy Art Studio.

When our dog, Lili, died I knew that I wanted to make an altar for her, I had kept it in the back of my mind and let it simmer there. Chris has found this old artillery box at a garage sale and at the time I told him it was a waste of money – since he didn’t know what he was going to do with it. While I was rummaging through the garage looking for a hammer, I saw the box and realized that it would make the perfect altar. I told Chris and he agreed – he still didn’t have any plans for it so I might as well use it.

I painted the inside of it orange and painted some small shelves red. Chris installed the shelves for me and then I added gold accents and hot glued some orange glass beeds to the inside the box.

Then I gathered her things together. I bought her a new food bowl and filled it with her favorite treats, I put her favorite toys and a candle. Chris found some weeds that reminded him of her tail so we put those on one of the shelves along with some pictures of her. I put a couple of marigold plants in the corner of the altar, Chris added a hook to the door so we could hang her leash and on the center shelf we the urn with her ashes.

I set it on our table and surrounded it with the condolence cards that came from friends and family. It is still up and running and I am trying to decide which wall to hang it on permanently. Even though we created it for her, I don’t think she will mind sharing it with our other family members when the time comes.

My “Cruz de Huesos” shows my fascination with faith and its symbols. Faith is supposed to guide us from this world to the next—the “next” being represented by the bones of the cross. Death is the only gateway to the next realm (at least that is my belief). The burst of colors behind the cross harkens back to the comic books I read as a child. Surprise was always shown with a starburst and I think that death will be quite a surprise to most of us. Not the actual dying, but the process. Everyone has their ideas but I believe that just as with life, death is never what you expect.

I was raised Catholic, but no longer consider myself religious in an institutional sense; but this hasn’t changed my desire to learn more about faith and the way it affects people, their lives, and their perceptions of death. For me faith can be a part of your life with or without religion and my day of the dead art reflects that belief.

Dia de los Muertos art is meant to show the duality of life, which is that it can only exist surrounded by death. This is reality, not superstition. The artwork is meant to show this and make it, death, a part of life, to be accepted and acknowledged instead of feared.

My Day of the Dead art is rich with color and tradition, and is used symbolically (cards, canvases, clock, votives, etc.) as well as functionally (goblets, platters, salsa bowls, pastry domes, etc.) to celebrate through food and drink.

As the old Mexican saying goes: “Every day is a dance with death.” So live a life you enjoy, and when the time comes that those you love build altars to celebrate your life on the Day of the Dead, know they are thinking of you and they will join you in their own time.

If you’re me – you don’t. As some of you may know Chris and I made an altar for our dog that died of a tumor on her spine. It is the first time we ever made a day of the dead altar and it was a good experience for both of us. Someone asked me when was the right time to take the altar down.

Well, Chris and I are making our altar to Lili part of the house. It is going to be on permament display on one of the walls in our house. We haven’t decided which one yet, but it will up for a while. Chris and I also decided that while it was created for Lili, she wouldn’t mind sharing the space with other members of our family who are no longer with us. Our altar will evolve into something even more meaningful for both Chris and I.

When do you take your altar down?

My answer – whenever you feel like it.

The picture shown was taken by Ralph Barrera for Austin’s AMERICAN-STATESMAN. It was used in an article about Dia de los Muertos Altars and part of it featured our altar to Lili.

This is a link to the article.