Gifting a la Grimoire

Here in the thin, transparent membrane of memory, made permeable between equinox and solstice, I’m remembering my friend Rochalinne. 

She eyeballed me across the room with the cool, appraising stare as was her wont. Eventually she said, “So you speak Spanish. And you look like you can lift and carry heavy things.” In her inimitably dry way, Rocky was offering me a job.

Anyone who loved Mexican folk art, and had the good fortune to pass through Pasadena, knew her as Rocky Behr, creator and proprietor of The Folk Tree Gallery on Fair Oaks for more than three decades. Yes, she was indeed descended from Otho Behr, Jr. who founded Linseed Oil Products in the family garage in 1947, relocating to an 800-square-foot Quonset hut in Pasadena in 1948.

Today the company is known as Behr Paint Company.

When we first met, Rocky stood Frida-esque as ever in one of her many museum-quality huipilies and an armful of vintage Taxco silver, amethyst and turquoise. Her arthritis was beginning to limit her mobility, and so I agreed to accompany her as a sherpa-roadie of sorts, following the footprints left by her large feet in their bright orange and yellow cotton socks and Birkenstocks through the spring mud and autumn rain, undisclosed downhill village run-off, and over the colonial cobblestones across Santiago de Querétaro, San Miguel de Allende, Mitla, Michoacán and beyond, securing her own purchases for the gallery and making arrangements with iconic artists – la familia Linares (papier-mâche), la familia Aguilar (polychrome clay), la familia Porres (black clay) – for our guests to visit their studios.

This was sufficiently long ago that entire families sat out on their patios painting alebrijes (carved cottonwood figures) with brushes made from cat’s fur, and artesanos still hand-hammered stacks of tissue paper with dies to make delicate papel picado banners. Today, the decorative banners are usually stamped out of far sturdier plastic sheets by machine in – where else? – China.

She explained that she had been a student mental health counselor for LAUSD, describing herself as “…a tall, awkward, skinny, depressed Jewish girl from Chicago.” Maybe so. But when I walked with Rocky through Mexico on gallery buying-trips and folk art tours, especially in Oaxaca which she called her “place of the heart,” she radiated a joy which seemed to surprise her.

A simple wooden toy, or the greasily sabroso rotisserie chickens we would buy on the street in D.F. (Mexico City) – Rocky always ordered extra fried livers – would make her giggle with delight.

Rocky left this earth several years ago, and the closure of The Folk Tree literally felt like a blackout, not simply the dimming of a single candle, more like pulling the plug on a mile-long string of flashing purple, magenta, acid green, ultraviolet, hot pink and red hot-chili-pepper-lights.

My last group tour with Rocky was around this time of year, planned for Dia de los Muertos, and she was perplexed by the infusion of commercial Halloween merch in the mercado stalls. Lots of plastic, lots of black-and-orange, grinning pumpkins, snarling black cats, and warty witches who were quite different from the brujas and curanderas we knew.

She remarked sadly, “Hecho en China.” With all due respect, Pixar’s “Coco” and the resultant franchise licensing and merch would have irked her to no end.

Rocky seems especially present right now as garlands of marigolds spice the air from ofrendas around town. And in her honor, of course I feel moved to add to my collections of objects that summon the dead and memories of them. Being the material creatures that we are, tangible things help us to remember times, places and persons past.

Since Rocky’s departure, artesania – authentic Mexican folk art – has become bit elusive in Pasadena. But there are consolations. The net effect of Tim Burton and others upon pop culture during the past few decades has normalized décor and wardrobe weirdness that was once confined to the last day of October. Here’s the ultimate illustration: just in time for trick-or-treat 2024, John Derian designed a new line of decoupage-inspired tableware and spooky-cool stuff for Target.

However, when shopping for objects with a truly magical aura, hand-made is the only way to go.

Mama Troy has got you covered. This artist’s purpose-driven spiritual tools may be found at the upcoming Sugar and Moon Market, October 19, 11:00 AM to 4:00 PM at The Lodge at Sierra Madre, and at Chasing Rainbows (458 South Fair Oaks, Pasadena) as well as on her Web site. An East LA native, Mama Troy pours small batches of Monarch butterfly-calavera candles made from organic beeswax during the full moon—but she won’t pour, she says, “when I am not at my highest vibration.” 

Another must-have: Troy’s dainty, lacy-filigree skull candle, available by custom order only. This creation truly captures the confectionery aspect of the original sugar skull, which is increasingly difficult to locate today. These iconic sweet-shop items were never intended to be eaten, much like old-fashioned pastel panorama eggs enclosing a tiny Easter scene. Calavaras de azucar are traditionally personalized with the recipient’s name in piped fondant script, paired with the statement “Somos iguales,” literally meaning “We are equals,” or “We’re even”, but resonating more like “You’re next.”

Before the modern disturbances of deforestation, climate change and tourism, migratory Monarchs (Danaus plexippus ssp. plexippus) returned to Mexico in numbers too vast to count. The Purepecha and Mazahua people believed that Monarchs represent the souls of the deceased, while the Toltec believed that the butterflies represented the returning souls of warriors who died in battle.

A broadly shared indigenous belief maintained that the butterflies carry messages back and forth between the realms, suggested by the fact that their wings are the color of cempasuchil, marigolds, whose pungent perfume was believed to lead the departed safely to their altars here on the topside, then back to their ethereal home across the river of forgetting.

Mama Troy’s wares include intentional jewelry often incorporating skulls, rosaries, roses and hummingbirds, as well as hand-crafted soaps. This certified yoga instructor and Reiki master also offers crystal healings, limpias, and tarot readings.

Mark Millimore, buyer for The Huntington Store, combines a magpie-eye with a Midas touch year-round, representing the erudition of The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens with merch themed not only to the Huntington’ spectacular holdings (East Asian antiquities, for instance) but also to the interests of the community, notably gardening.

Presiding over The Huntington’s Hallows-Muertos tableau is a stately couple, en calavera, en Talavera. These nearly-life size ceramic figures travelled from the heart of Mexico to Pasadena packed in miles of rolled-up newspaper. This specific meme or icon — the dandy gentleman and the fancy lady, dressed in fin-de-siecle finery — sprang, Athena-like, from the genius of Jose Guadalupe Posada.

Although now as commercialized as, say, Hello Kitty, Posada’s witty, sly images continue to amuse and provoke, more than a century after his death in 1913. Today they serve as the basis for thousands of tee shirts, mugs, socks, tote bags, the usual. But like, say, the Unicorn tapestries, something deeply archetypal keeps the allure in place despite the mammon of mass production.

Posada did not invent, but rather captured Mexico’s specific brand of mirth regarding the dearly departed, which predates the arrival of Christianity by eons. Los Muertos are usually dressed up in their best clothes. The often are depicted drinking, dancing, feasting, fornicating, playing sports, ironing, hanging clothes on the line, cooking, walking their dogs and more, quite obviously alive in every sense but the literal. 

Imagine a dinner conversation between the bubbly, flirtatious  La Catrina and, say, the morose Edgar Allen Poe, an equally familiar but far less sanguine Halloween costume inspo. This difference points back to the pre-Christian roots of Mexican Muertos observance.

Although Poe was apparently not much of a churchgoer, there’s no doubt that the Christian dread of eternal damnation and punitive suffering permeated his brandy-and-opium-soaked inner workings.

The afterlife beliefs of indigenous Mexico are complex and certainly not without bloodshed. But suffice it to say that those belief systems seem free of the neurotic dread of much medieval Christian practice, which interpreted the horrors of the of bubonic plague as punishment for all-purpose sin as deployed by the thundering justice of the Old Testament. 

These notions could not be more distant from La Catrina and her eternally dapper Catrin companion. Now that they’re dead, they’re out on the town for a dream-date that will never end. Los Muertos don’t need our pity, although they might appreciate a bottle, a cigar, and maybe some pan dulce placed on the altar. On the contrary, it is they who pity us, since we’re the ones who suffer. 

Other favorites here at The Huntington include a black eyelet parasol and spiderweb-sheer black lace wrap beguiling enough for Catrina herself, whimsical hand-carved flying wooden puppets, and an actual foul-weather umbrella that offers a refreshingly gloomy twist on the famous MoMA “blue sky” umbrella: pop open this bumbershoot, and you’re shielded from the elements by rows of shiny skulls.

Many of the spook-season items at The Huntington Store reference artworks in the Museum’s archives, such as the stunning Midnight Raven tile designed by artist Yoshiko Yamamoto, a self-taught block printmaker who collaborates with Motawi Tile Works.

And that’s not just ANY black tee shirt printed with a kneeling white skeleton: it’s taken from an 18^th century CE plate from “Osteographia, or the Anatomy of the Bones” by William Cheselden, a British surgeon and teacher of anatomy. Because so few copies of his book were printed, most known copies have been dissembled, and the plates have been sold singly. One such plate is in The Huntington’s collection.  

And because The Huntington’s holdings are so eclectic and diverse, objects with a specific cultural provenance may find themselves in an altogether alien context. Consider the sinuous incense holder formed from the furling wing of a bat. Two voluptuous shapes — they’re peaches — lure the bat into flight for a sweet sip. 

To western eyes, the bat represents squeaking vampires, ammonia-clouded caves piled knee-deep with guano, and shrieking women who find the creature thrashing its leathery wings in their hairdo’s. But The Huntington’s bat incense holder is a modern Chinese art piece, inspired by traditional Taoist iconography.

In that system, bats are seen as benevolent since “fu,” the character for “bat,” is also the character for “good luck.”  Their cavern-dwelling habits further elevate their status, since in traditional Chinese belief, such murky passageways lead to the realm of the Immortals. Peaches are associated with longevity and marital happiness, making this bat-and-peach combo more of a contextual romantic statement (actually an ideal engagement, wedding, or anniversary gift) than a scare tactic.

And there’s even a cuddlier bat here — Balthazar, a soft plush toy. This bat’s name, depending upon your sources, is either a demon or one of the Three Magi (Wise Men), who presented the Christ child with gifts.

Balthazar’s gift to the infant was myrrh, a fragrant tree-balsam used for anointing the dead.

Even the omnipresent skull is open to interpretation. In the west, the skull may signify estrangement from the divine, as well as actual mortality. But in much of East Asia, the skull signals the release of delusions, greed, anger, ignorance, a liberation of the individual which allows ascension up to a more enlightened state.

As we cruise through the treasures here and at Gold Bug, the several distinct messages of Halloween and Dia de los Muertos distinguish themselves. 

There is the cha-cha-cha-cheery-leering gallows humor of Posada’s calaveras, which by its nature is expansive: dogs, cat, birds, everything on earth, even flowers, appear as an X-ray on November 1.

No one here gets out alive.

By contrast, there is the more fearful and penitent Victorian and Edwardian expression of loss and grief, which is by nature one of emotional contraction and psychic withdrawal.

This modality, the template for all flavors of Goth and Steampunk,  was launched by the widowing of a grand queen who wore unflinching black until her own death, and turned “Memento mori”-con into a full-blown fashion statement. Mourning Victoria accidentally created a faddish market for jet and obsidian jewelry, as well as for disturbing folk artworks containing pressed curls and decoratively placed braids made of human hair collected from the deceased, often infants.

There is also the simply odd and altogether ooky, and perhaps slightly macabre. And then there is horror. Horror distinguishes itself from terror by how and where our response to it locates in the body. Terror shows up with surges of adrenalin and cortisol, accompanied by dry mouth, constricting pupils, racing pulse, pounding heart, and the urge to flee.

Horror takes hold a bit lower, in the belly, and is, in a sense, more a matter of right-wrong moral judgment. 

The sensation of horror, including nausea, results from increased activity in the insula, basal ganglia and frontal brain regions. Horror is a sense of violation, delivered in neural cascades of shock and repulsion at the abnormal and grotesque. By contrast, terror is simply intense, sympathetic fight-or-flight fear, sparked by the sensing of extreme risk of danger and harm.

Horror finds very little foothold at Gold Bug, although owner Theodora Coleman says “Some people are quite creeped out by what we do here. But we’re about beauty, not about grossing anybody out.” Coleman curates with a sense of ethical responsibility as well as an eye for the mysterious and even bizarre. Of her many butterflies-under-glass and taxidermized critters, she explains that most are vintage items, procured from museums that have sadly gone out of business and emptied their cases, as well as private collections that have been liquidated.

She says that newer stuffed beasts on display left this mortal coil by natural means.

She calls her shop a “modern cabinet of curiosities,” much like those explored with tremendous humor and scholarship in the new-ish book “The Witch’s Door – Oddities & Tales from the Esoteric to the Extreme” by Ryan Matthew Cohn and Regina M. Rossi with Jim Ruland, published by Chronicle Prism (ISBN 978-1-7972-2958-4). Coleman, however, unlike Cohn and Rossi, draws the line at shrunken heads and other human specimens.

There’s 22-karat jewelry which re-interprets milagros and ex votos into exquisitely small pendants, jewelry to die for (and maybe be buried in). Under glass cloches, we find fine bronzes by artist Lee Hale, including huge, fierce rose thorns, and a replica of what sailors and whalers called a “mermaid’s purse,” the somehow ominous-looking, curiously horned egg-case of a skate.

Her clientele which includes Imagineers and other industry types is so loyal that she made house-calls during COVID. She says “There are a few musts which we always follow when selecting our merchandise. We love nature, so most of what we carry celebrates the beauty of the natural world in some way. We insist that the piece show a very elevated level of technical mastery. We support independent artists, small guys like us. And we often choose things made from precious materials, ensuring the highest quality and highest value for our clients.”

For some of us, the Gold Bug vibe recalls the chic and ravishing Morticia (“Tish”) Addams, snipping the heads off roses, and moon-bathing to maintain her tubercular pallor. However, Millennial Coleman feels more aligned to the Deetz family, recalling “Somebody wrote a review of us on Yelp, and they thought they were being mean by writing that we really are the Beetlejuice family. But I loved it. I want to be Lydia so bad.”

And Coleman has now expanded her offering to include private “entertainment only” evening seances and mentalist sessions in the shop’s boudoir noir nook around back, where guests sink into deep velvet couches and sip champers while soliciting messages from beyond the grave. The next three evening sessions, featuring master mentalist Mark Gibson, will take place Saturday, October 29, starting at 6:00 PM through 9:00 PM. Reservations are a must.

“Modern consumer society has really changed how people acquire precious things,” says Coleman. “There’s so much stuff, too much stuff, way too much junk, and I don’t like algorithms telling me what my clients want. I already know what my customers crave, covet and desire, because I’ve been out here talking to them every day for 17 years. I love this idea of a purchase being an experience, because what you’ve bought is something you’ll always treasure.”