By completing the circle of communication, it is the viewer's eye that fulfills the artist's purpose and brings artistic work to fruition. To the extent that each viewer is a person with his/her own personal history, communication is complex, fraught with sensibilities and ways of perceiving the world that are almost inevitably different from those of the artist. What each of us 'sees' may be unique to us, yet our view also invariably forms part of the human experiential tapestry.
A novelist observed that her work isn't complete until it is read, but that the experience of publication carries its own risk. For as the work is read and discussed, it takes on a life of its own, a life quite independent of the writer.
This reflection came to mind after attending the opening of an exhibit of the embroidery art of our beloved friend, artist Debra Breckeen, originally from Houston, who now lives in Zirahuen, Michoacán. Titled Eco, the work can be seen until May 4 at the Culture Center in the Former Jesuit School of Pátzcuaro, Michoacán.
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| Invitation |
It is striking that Debra chose to title the exhibit Eco, Echo. Normally, an echo refers to the sound or sounds reflected from a surface back to a listener, as in an echo chamber. But Debra has something else in mind. As a forward to her artist's statement, Debra chose these words of Chicana writer Gloria E. Anzaldúa:
"Caminante, no hay puentes, se hace puentes al andar"
(Pilgrim, there are no bridges, one builds them as one walks)
- Gloria E. Anzaldúa
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Echo
I had no plan....just a dream.
In 2007 I took the opportunity to realize a long-held dream.....to simplify my life and live in rural Mexico. I retired, liquidated my holdings in Houston, Texas, and moved to Morelia, Michoacán.
Mexico found me before I found Mexico. There was much to learn…..the language, the culture, the landscape. It took almost a year in Morelia before I found my place in Zirahuen. I am still learning ....
In transition in Morelia, when I began to doubt my dream, I also began to sew. It began with a stamped pattern of a horse given to me by a friend. I discovered that sewing could be like a prayer, a wish, taking a deep breath. It calmed me and felt like drawing in slow motion. With needle and thread, it was possible to build dimension as well as texture. I could build depth and make a real shadow. Stitching was drawing sculpturally.
I completed the horse and bought other stamped patterns, but found that I wanted to alter them with my own drawings. Now I sew only from my drawings. I am attracted to the idea of using such domestic materials and methods to make political statements. I make embroideries about the negative effects of NAFTA, genetically-modified crops, the proliferation of industrial food and our judgments about the real and the ideal.
I still have no plan … just a dream.
- Debra Breckeen (April, 2014)
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Debby has been deeply influenced by David Foster Wallace's incomparable novel Infinite Jest, where Wallace writes:
"You can be shaped, or you can be broken. There is not much in between. Try to learn. Be coachable. Try to learn from everybody, especially those who fail. This is hard. ... How promising you are as a Student of the Game is a function of what you can pay attention to without running away.”
Wallace might as well be describing Debra Breckeen, whose capacity for paying attention without running away is reflected ... echoed ... in her embroidery art.
At Home in Zirahuen
Light is shed on Debra's art by gaining some familiarity with where she lives. Debra's house is tucked away in a pine forest on a hill above the shores of Lake Zirahuen, which is about 26 kilometers (16 miles) from Pátzcuaro, a Pueblo Mágico about 50 kilometers (33 miles) from Morelia, the state capital of Michoacán.
The road from Pátzcuaro to Zirahuen winds through the spectacular Michoacán countryside, pockmarked by extinct volcanoes. Located on the north side of the Lake, the village of Zirahuen is a popular destination for sports-minded tourists and lovers of the outdoors.
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| Lake Zirahuen surrounded by Pine Forests 'Bare' Spots on far hillside are newly-planted Avocado Orchards (Photo: Reed) |
Michoacán is in the news these days not only for the violent crime that goes hand-in-glove with obscene sums of money passing to the drug cartels but for the self-defense groups that, in desperation, have risen up to drive out the 'bad guys' from their towns. But there's more to it than that ... much more.
The three of us—Debby, Reed and I—moved to the Lake Pátzcuaro area in August of 2008. It was our great good fortune that Debby sought us out at CELEP, the language school where we were all taking classes to improve our Spanish. Our experiences and understanding of Mexican culture have grown more or less in parallel ways.
In line with the deepening of our individual yet complementary cultural awareness, we three have become increasingly cognizant that we live in what might be defined as a cultural verge. In biology the verge is the place where two ecosystems meet. In an earlier post, I wrote:
"In Mexico we seem to find ourselves on a variety of verges practically on a daily basis—traditional and global Mexico, U.S. culture and the many levels of Mexican culture. What is increasingly clear to us is that, in all instances, the verge is precisely the place where known and unknown not only meet, but sometimes collide."Living on the verge takes a special adaptive skill and not a small amount of confidence of the kind that Gloria Anzaldúa describes: the confidence that as we walk we somehow create under our feet bridges capable of bearing our weight, giving us the confidence needed to take the next step ... and the next ... and the next.
Debby obliquely refers to it when she writes,
"I still have no plan ... just a dream."More than once, Debby has mentioned David Foster Wallace's parable of the fish, which he told as part of his Kenyon College Commencement Address:
“Two young fish are swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way. The older fish nods at them and says, ‘Morning, boys. How’s the water?’ The two young fish swim on for a bit. Then eventually one of them looks over at the other and says, ‘What the hell is water?’ "
Wallace continues:
In one form or another, Debra, Reed and I have been having this conversation for about as long as we've known each other. But seeing her work framed and hung drove home recognition that Debra's art is, in large part, about seeing 'what is real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us'.
The Artist's Eye
This quality is most apparent in the series of pieces that present everyday objects transformed in ways that Debra describes as "judgments about the real and the ideal."
During our last visit, Debra and Reed got into a spirited discussion about Reed's photography class. The instructor's favorite way of introducing the camera to newcomers is to ask: What is the most important element of taking a picture? The instructor's view—'light' is the 'correct' answer—betrays an underlying technical bias in favor of the camera and its settings.
Reed counters that it's the photographer's eye that makes the photo by honing in on what to show and deciding how to frame, or compose, the picture. As Reed puts it, "enabling the viewer to see what I want them to see."
Our normally laid back friend became positively fierce in her defense of the artist's eye:
The left-hand pineapple, with its clearly articulated features, is perhaps more realistic. Its companion's features are softer, even muted, in a way that seem to echo reality ... is this muted pineapple, then, the ideal? What comes first: the chicken or the egg?
"... the liberal arts cliché about teaching you how to think is actually shorthand for a much deeper, more serious idea: learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience.
"It is about the real value of a real education, which has almost nothing to do with knowledge, and everything to do with simple awareness; awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, all the time, that we have to keep reminding ourselves over and over:
"This is water."
In one form or another, Debra, Reed and I have been having this conversation for about as long as we've known each other. But seeing her work framed and hung drove home recognition that Debra's art is, in large part, about seeing 'what is real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us'.
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| Debra Breckeen (yellow blouse) greets a visitor at her Exhibit of Eco, Centro Cultural Antiguo Colegio Jesuita, Pátzcuaro, Michoacán (Photo: Florence Leyra Jeune) |
The Artist's Eye
This quality is most apparent in the series of pieces that present everyday objects transformed in ways that Debra describes as "judgments about the real and the ideal."
During our last visit, Debra and Reed got into a spirited discussion about Reed's photography class. The instructor's favorite way of introducing the camera to newcomers is to ask: What is the most important element of taking a picture? The instructor's view—'light' is the 'correct' answer—betrays an underlying technical bias in favor of the camera and its settings.
Reed counters that it's the photographer's eye that makes the photo by honing in on what to show and deciding how to frame, or compose, the picture. As Reed puts it, "enabling the viewer to see what I want them to see."
Our normally laid back friend became positively fierce in her defense of the artist's eye:
"The camera is the medium; dealing with the light requires technique to choose optimal camera settings. But without the artist's eye, it is nothing."In a series of four bordados, Debra invites us to see what, in Wallace's words, is 'hidden in plain sight'.
I. Pineapples (2008)
This work explores two ways of seeing a pineapple. |
| Pineapples (2008) Photo: Florence Leyret Jeune [Right-click to Enlarge; Back Arrow to Return to Post] |
The left-hand pineapple, with its clearly articulated features, is perhaps more realistic. Its companion's features are softer, even muted, in a way that seem to echo reality ... is this muted pineapple, then, the ideal? What comes first: the chicken or the egg?
Does reality reflect the ideal or, conversely, does the ideal come about as a reflection or echo of our experience of reality? Put differently, is the ideal our projection of how we would like reality to be? The work invites us to reflect on this provocative, platonic question.
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| Detail - Pineapples (2008) |
II. Nine and Nine (2008)
Nine and Nine invites us to pay attention to two tropical fruits, corn and bananas. Although we eat corn as a vegetable, botanists classify it as a fruit, along with tomatoes, green peppers, cucumbers, zucchini and other squashes.II. Nine and Nine (2008)
The eye notices the compatibility of their elongated shapes and the similarity of their colors. Both are yellow fruits; bananas have a slight curve, whereas corn—at least the varieties we're familiar with in the U.S.—are straight. This work depicts a Mexican corn similar to what in the U.S. is known as Indian corn.
The eye also picks up the textured play of light and shadows on the manta, Mexican muslin, on which the image is stitched.
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| Nine and Nine (2008) Photo: Florence Leyret Jeune |
Corn was first domesticated in southern Mexico (more about this later). Someone recently observed that maís (corn) is an essential ingredient in Mexican cuisine, used in the preparation of more than 600 food dishes and drinks. It is simply impossible to overstate the quintessential role of maís in Mesoamerican culture and mythology.
Bananas are available year-round, low in price and high in nutritional value (rich source of energy and minerals), so it's no surprise to learn that bananas are also a staple of the Mexican diet. In terms of value, bananas place second among fruits cultivated in Mexico (second only to avocadoes); thus, the banana sector also generates much-needed direct and indirect employment.
Corn and bananas are not only classic staples of the Mexican diet, but together they have traditionally constituted one of the pillars of the Mexican economy.The corn and bananas depicted in Nine and Nine are from an original drawing; a commercial pattern was used only for the flowers framing them.
III. Pineapples / Pinecone (2009)
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| Pineapples / Pinecone (2009) Photo: Florence Leyret Jeune |
At first glance, the composition of two Pineapples set beside a single Pinecone has a whimsical quality that suggests a play of shapes and textures. Pineapples / Pinecone beckons us to see similarities in what, on their face, seem to be objects only tangentially related.
Pineapples originated in the Amazon River Basin somewhere between Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina. In Mexico, pineapples are grown in the states of Veracruz and Tabasco on the Gulf Coast; and Chiapas, Oaxaca and Nayarit on the Pacific Coast.
It surprised me to learn that pine forests are found in the mountain regions of these coastal and southern states. As the transition zone between two of the world’s major biogeographical zones, the lands of Mexico form a bridge between North and South America. Geologic and biologic factors have combined to create in Mexico the fifth most biologically rich country in the world.
The country's pine-oak forests are one of the ecosystems presenting tremendous species diversity. Over 50% of the world's pine species grow in Mexico. Unfortunately, the country's pine forests are also one of its least protected ecosystems—threatened not only by natural, accidental and even intentional forest fires, but by deforestation for subsistence (wood-burning cook stoves) and sale of commercial timber.
Pines are among the most commercially important tree species valued worldwide for their timber and wood pulp. Pine wood is widely used in high-value carpentry items such as furniture, window frames, panelling, floors and roofing; the resin of some species is an important source of turpentine.A second, more intentional look at Pineapples and Pinecone is rewarded. Pinecone is stitched in the 'open' form for releasing its seeds, and it joins the enigmatic Pineapples encountered earlier [I. Pineapples].
Here, presumably realistic Pineapple provides a solid background against which its more fanciful companion Pineapple is set next to a Pinecone seemingly suspended mid-air yet improbably moored by a relaxed ring of red flowers.
Not to be ignored is how the manta, Mexican muslin, once again eases into the composition, the texture of light and shadows echoing and enhancing the image.
Not to be ignored is how the manta, Mexican muslin, once again eases into the composition, the texture of light and shadows echoing and enhancing the image.
In Pineapples and Pinecone our eye plays with the complex choreography of light and color, texture, shapes and shadows, even as we try to wrap our minds around complicated interactions of the natural world, traditional lifestyles and the implied intrusion of modernity.
IV. Real / Ideal (2012)
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| Real / Ideal (2012) Photo: Florence Leyret Jeune |
Lake Zirahuen trout are famous, but they have been seriously overfished. Although still to be found in the lake, they are few in number and hard to catch. The Lake Zirahuen's white fish are also famous and considered a delicacy.
In this context, Real / Ideal is an intriguing work. One might assume that the real fish would be in front with the ideal fish providing a kind of background. But that assumption would be incorrect.
So this bordado challenges my underlying assumption. Here the fanciful, ideal—we might even say imaginary—fish commands the foreground, while the more real fish swims alongside in the background ... and, oh, yes, we are encouraged to observe how the tail of the real fish violates the seemingly inviolable boundary of the stitched frame.
Here is Wallace again to remind us that:
"... one part of what teaching me how to think is really [about ... encouraging me to be] just a little less arrogant. To have just a little critical awareness about myself and my certainties. Because a huge percentage of the stuff that I tend to be automatically certain of is, it turns out, totally wrong and deluded."
"We are discovering life at the verge to be dynamic and full of conflict, both creative and destructive. In biology, some species are in process of being destroyed even as new species are evolving. Culturally, the same is true: it is at the verge that traditional cultural forms slowly change even as new cultural forms are in process of coming into being."Political Works
As I continue to reflect on Debra's art, Kurt Vonnegut's notion of canaries in the coal mine comes to mind. Pondering what the use of any of the arts might be, Vonnegut articulated what he called the "canary in the coal mine theory of the arts", which says
". . . that artists are useful to society because they are so sensitive. They are super-sensitive. They keel over like canaries in poison coal mines long before more robust types realize that there is any danger whatsoever.”
~ Kurt Vonnegut
Debra's super-sensitivity shows up in her series of 'political' pieces, notably NAFTA (2008) that she, quite intentionally, chose to head the invitation. That the North American Free Trade Agreement has had a devastating effect on the Mexican countryside is a conclusion widely recognized on both sides of our shared border.
The unanticipated consequences have been dire for ordinary people: driving the migration northward of poor young men and women who see no future for themselves in Mexico; and increasing the resources of drug traffickers who approach poor farmers no longer able to sell their crops, paying them to grow marijuana in their fields or to allow meth labs to be set up on their remote mountain properties.
I. Border (2008)
A helicopter passing overhead casts a shadow on the ground in front of the horse's hoofs.
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| Border (2008) Photo: Florence Leyret Jeune |
Some background is useful for understanding this image.
Following a deeply flawed election, President Felipe Calderón took office in 2006. Critics say that he launched the 'war against narco trafficking' as a way to distract the public and legitimize his presidency. Calderón, speaking recently at a Harvard forum, said that when the U.S. ban on sale of assault rifles expired in 2004, the violence in Mexico began to spiral upward. On other occasions, Calderón has protested: "I had no other choice."
In 2007 the U.S. Congress passed the Mérida Initiative, which provided military equipment to support the Mexican government's 'war'. Including helicopters. We living in Michoacán began to hear and see black helicopters regularly flying overhead.
In an attempt to reverse the spiral of violence, Calderón also sent the Mexican Army into the streets, first into Michoacán. But soldiers are not trained for police work; they are trained to exterminate the enemy. Predictably, human rights abuses occurred, and citizens began mighty protests against the militarization of their towns, cities and countryside.
Update - December 21, 2017: Mexico President Enrique Peña Nieto promulgated the highly controversial "Act of Internal Security" designed to give legal cover to Mexico's military taking part in what are normally assigned as police actions. Strong protests by NGOs and human rights organizations both inside Mexico and internationally have been lodged regarding the law's constitutionality. The law is now before Mexico's Supreme Court awaiting its decision.The helicopter's ominous shadow cast on the ground in the path of the riderless horse bears silent testimony to the violence suffered by the ordinary people of Mexico in this so-called 'war against narco trafficking'.
II. Bees / B52s (2008)
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| Bees / B52s (2008) Photo: Florence Leyret Jeune |
Debra's work Bees / B52s echoes mounting citizen protest against the militarization of Mexico's towns and countryside.
The rose is a special, almost sacred, flower in Mexico. The peasant Juan Diego picked roses in December at the command of the young, brown woman on Tepeyac Hill who spoke to him in Nahua; the young woman personally arranged the roses in his tilma, or cape; and, when he opened it for the Archbishop, those roses fell from his tilma, miraculously replaced by an image of the Virgin of Guadalupe, Mother of Mexico.
Three hundred years later, roses appeared on the banner of the Virgin of Guadalupe carried by Father Miguel Hidalgo at the start of the peasant rebellion that is recognized as the start of Mexico's War of Independence from Spain.
Thus, B52s are juxtaposed against the natural world of bees buzzing around Mexico's very nearly sacred flower for its close association with the Virgin of Guadalupe. In suffering the crucifixion of her son, the Virgin is intimately familiar with the profound suffering inflicted by violence and war.
III. Colonel Sanders (2008)
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| Colonel Sanders (2008) Photo: Florence Leyret Jeune |
But that's not all that was happening in Mexico. In 1994 the North American Free Trade Agreement, NAFTA, was signed. By 2008 ordinary people in both the U.S. and Mexico had been living with the treaty's negative effects for almost fifteen years.
When NAFTA opened the doors to the Mexican marketplace, U.S. mega-businesses were quick to take advantage: WalMart, Office Max, Home Depot, soft drink industry (notably, Pepsi and Coca-Cola) and the fast food chains, including KFC—Colonel Sanders' own Kentucky Fried Chicken. The unanticipated consequence for Mexico has included a dramatic rise in diabetes (sugared soft drinks) and obesity (fast food).
IV. Impermanence (2008)
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| Impermanence (2009) Photo: Florence Leyret Jeune |
Impermanence is yet another commentary on changes brought about by NAFTA and neoliberal economics.
Flowers are an integral, ancient component of Mexican culture. It is the nature of flowers to make a display, wilt and die ... flowers are the essence of impermanence.
The Mesoamerican tradition of flowers long predates the Aztecs. Bountiful displays of marigolds are a vital element of rituals associated with Día de los Muertos, Day of the Dead. In the state of Morelos, roses are grown and sold as part of an ancient tradition.Depicted in the very act of cutting a stem, the scissors signal society's vulnerability to the so-called modern world; even more, the barcode suggests the intrusion of modern technology with its insistence on identifying and controlling everything as a 'product'. Taken together, they suggest an expiration date not only on a longstanding and revered tradition, but perhaps on Mexican society itself.
This piece is one of Debra's last to employ a commercial pattern, which suggests that she thought long and hard about inserting scissors and barcode. The artist's intentionality bestows on the work a sad poignancy.
V. Swans (2009)
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| Swans (2009) Photo: Florence Leyret Jeune |
But below the waterline is a row of three helicopters. Ominously, the first helicopters are minimally outlined; only the last is fully stitched.
Passed by the U.S. Congress in 2007, The Mérida Initiative was signed in December of 2008 by the Presidents of Mexico and the United States. Under the agreement, the U.S. provided equipment, including helicopters, and training to Mexico's military and law enforcement personnel.
By 2009 people in Michoacán were seeing black helicopters in the sky overhead, including over Lake Zirahuen.Was this the artist’s intimation of worse things to come ... the menace in the air ... becoming more real every day? Is the pink-red swan drawing back in alarm? Canary in the coal mine ... ?
VI. NAFTA (2011)
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| NAFTA (2011) Original Drawing Photo: Florence Leyret Jeune |
NAFTA is the first embroidery Debra made from an original drawing. A powerful statement that holds absolutely nothing back, the work speaks directly to a difficult multi-dimensional struggle currently taking place in the Mexican courts.
We've already discussed NAFTA's negative impact on many ordinary Mexicans. We've brought up the entry of multinational businesses into Mexico. We've taken account of the negative impact of the drug trade and the subsequent militarization of huge swathes of the Mexican countryside. But we haven't yet touched on the issue of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in Mexico.
Hundreds of years ago, corn was domesticated along the banks of the Balsas River in southern Mexico. Since then peasant farmers using traditional methods have developed varieties of corn uniquely suited to the multitude of ecosystems found in Mexico. If permission to sow and cultivate genetically modified corn is granted, contamination of native varieties is inevitable. What is even more dire: the damage is irreversible.A large segment of the Mexican population—led by scientists, but including peasant and farmer groups, artists, human rights and other activists—are struggling to prevent authorization for widespread cultivation of genetically modified corn. A class action lawsuit is currently being heard in the courts; a ruling is expected within months, if not weeks.
VII. Cock and Copters (2011)
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| Cock and Copters (2011) Original Drawing Photo: Florence Leyret Jeune |
Cock and Copters is another of Debra's first works based on an original drawing. In my opinion, this bordado is one of her best. Proudly elegant, the Cock stands tall and defiant as he confronts an implacable line of advancing olive drab Copters. No suggestive outlines here. Each helicopter is explicitly stitched in full menace.
But the viewer's eye is drawn to the Cock's shadow arched in full attack mode. In conveying the ferocious power of its determined defense of territory, the sheer energy contained in this bordado leaves this viewer breathless.
VIII. Shadow (2012)
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| Shadow (2012) Photo: Florence Leyret Jeune |
Meanwhile, a fantastic helicopter hovers above, one landing wheel set to descend upon the heedless fish.
But this is no ordinary helicopter: frog-like eyes inhabit its gun turrets; its body hints at fish scales; its tail subtly mutates into a piscine form, and its open bays surreally intimate an open, even devouring, mouth.
Shadow in the sense of shadowing a person. Reality intruding in the form of the surveillance that is a core mission of helicopters flying over Michoacán's countryside, threatening its natural state from within and without.
IX. Drones (2013)
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| Drones (2013) Original Drawing Photo: Florence Leyret Jeune |
Drones has an even more surreal quality. Drawn initially to the richly textured, cerulean blue sky with hints of puffy clouds nestled along the sky's edge, the viewer's eye quickly moves to the line of drones, which has a disturbingly insect-like profile: Is that a finely stitched grasshopper at the head of the line?
The drones following behind ... increasingly less detailed ... suggest a never-ending chain of menace ... arising seemingly out of nothingness ... but, endlessly threatening with the fecund persistence of the insects whose evolutionary history spans millions of years and crisscrosses the entire planet.
X. Avocado vs Pinecone (2014)
The best way to introduce Avocado vs Pinecone is to show the view from Debra's back porch. The cleared areas on the opposite hillside are newly established orchards, where young avocado trees have been planted.In Michoacán, avocados are colloquially referred to as 'green gold' ... and with good reason. Mexico supplies 45% of the international avocado market. The 'Avocado Belt of the Mexican Republic' includes Michoacán and the State of Mexico, but Michoacán accounts for 92% of the country's avocado production. With yields considerably higher than those obtained in California, Michoacán leads the world in production of this fruit. The major cultivars in Mexico are Fuerte, Hass, Bacon, Reed, Criollo and Zutano.
People who can't get permits set fire to their pine forests, clear away the burned rubble and plant their orchards. Challenged by authorities, they shrug their shoulders and reply simply: "It burned down." Avocadoes require water, but water in Michoacán is just as much an increasingly scarce natural resource as it is around the world. Globalization arrives in Zirahuen.
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| Pine Forests and Avocado Orchards: Looking Across Lake Zirahuen from Debra's Back Porch (Photo: Reed) |
My first impression of Avocado vs Pinecone was that it is a gorgeous bordado. Delicately sculpted in rich blue and green hues, the avocado seems to emerge from the manta, Mexican muslin, on which it is stitched.
With its textures and colors, the pinecone seems preternaturally electric. At the exhibit, I was inexplicably struck—and moved—by the vitality of pine needles stitched along the bottom. One bent and nearly broken pine needle especially caught my eye.
Surely, I initially thought, this work is another study in Real and Ideal, but something kept nagging at me. Almost absent-mindedly, I found myself asking:
"Why did Debra choose to name this work Avocado versus Pinecone?"
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| Avocado vs Pinecone (2014) Original Drawing Photo: Florence Leyret Jeune |
No sooner had I articulated the thought than the answer popped into my head: each time we visit, Debra, with visible distress, points out new avocado orchards. So profound is the subtlety that I'd assumed the bordado to be another of what I think of as an "artist's eye" piece that invites us 'to become aware of what's hiding in plain sight'. But it isn't. Not at all.
Suddenly, I realized that the broken pine needle speaks to the vulnerability, even fragility, of life not just in Mexico, but around the world as the cumulative effects of climate change, militarization and neoliberal economics (the last two inextricably, tragically linked) expand geometrically.
Can it be that these works of embroidery art bring us into the presence of a canary in the coal mine?
Still Curious?
Debra Breckeen can be reached via:
Email: dbreckeen@gmail.com
Telephone:
- Inside Mexico From cell phone: 434-562-2910
- Inside Mexico From landline: 044-434-562-2910
- Outside Mexico: 011 52 434 562 2910
Mailing Address:
Debra C. Breckeen
P.O. Box 405
Patzcuaro, Michoacan, Mexico 61600
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