Gayle Brennan Spencer – sending random thoughts to and from South Austin
At right: Arbor Day first-day cover illustrating the immensity of the landmark Montezuma cypress tree in Santa Maria de Tule, six miles outside of Oaxaca, in the collection of Museo del Filatelia de Oaxaca
Having cast my ballot, I need a break from the news to reflect on anything but the election. So I’m offering both you and me a pictorial distraction from a trip earlier this year to Oaxaca.
Continue reading “Postcard from Oaxaca, Mexico: Reflections of vivid colors and fluttering flags”
Above: Detail of a side altar of Templo Santo Domingo de Guzman
Spare words are being offered. We have visited Santo Domingo so many times through the years, yet we are still always gob-smacked by her beauty.
Many others are as well, making the dawn-of-the-17th-century Baroque church a magnet for destination weddings. A four-year age-defying face-lift undertaken in the 1990s successfully masks her age.
Continue reading “Postcard from Oaxaca, Mexico: Santo Domingo wears her age well”
This woman’s anxious expression on a wall in Oaxaca is a bit frightening to have surfaced close to my birthday. I’ve decided to consider her as successfully defiant.
Some years are harder than others. The image below of the late Vicente Fernandez did not weather well this past year.
But walls in Oaxaca are everchanging canvases for artists, new discoveries encountered with every walk. As prints peel and fade, other layers soon are plastered over them – palimpsests of life.
Continue reading “Postcard from Oaxaca, Mexico: Always welcome more candles on your cake”
Postcards from Barton Springs 