One of the reasons Mexican culture fascinates me is its aesthetics of color. As I browse through my favorite armchair travel book, Knopf Guides: Mexico (see Reading List), I see really LOUD color everywhere. I would not choose to live in a turquoise or blood-red or purple house, yet when I see pictures of these riotous colors on stucco houses, I find it very exciting, and these colors make me HAPPY.
I discovered this effect of bright colors on me when I decided to begin collecting Homer Laughlin Fiesta Ware china several years ago. Looking through my glass-front kitchen cabinet (alas, left behind a few moves ago) at the stack of dinner plates, or seeing the array of clean Fiesta Ware in my dishwasher, brings a little thrill.
There's also something about the unmatched place settings that seems like a therapeutic antidote to my neurotic perfectionism. Comparing my middle-class white American ideals and "rules" of tasteful decorating to what I am drawn to about Mexican ideals, my version looks pretty bland, pretty colorless. However, (and I will have to look into this), I believe that some of the reasons for the bright colors used in Mexican culture have to do with warding off evil spirits--at least traditionally-- and I don't need that--or do I? Well, not in the same sense, but if seeing bright colors sets off some happy brain chemicals which lead to my being a little sweeter for a few hours, I'll take all the help I can get. Anyway, I can't, and don't want to, completely escape my cultural ideas about beauty, but I can move a little closer to what I have found pleases me.
I started a new collection Saturday when I bought my first piece of Mexican talavera (pottery). I'll have to take a picture in one of the stores to show the effect of multiple pieces gathered together, but here is my first piece, a serving bowl.
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