Dia de los Muertos/Day of the Dead

I thought I'd wait until I created the perfect banner before posting anything. Well, as you can see by the blank space above that hasn't happened yet.I had visions of a Banner worthy of ARTFUL BLOGGING, with a beautiful and colorful vignette. Who was I kidding? I'm a girl who dreams in color,but lives in a life of Black,Grey,and Purple. I think I'm Gothic without even trying. I love color,it just doesn't love me back!
I was hoping that my Blog would be up for all the world to see three weeks ago,but my Muse works on his own schedule (doesn't every man when we want him to do something?). October is usually a hectic month for me. I do my Altar for Dia de los Muertos/Day of the Dead every year and for the past four years I've done one for Vision Gallery and twice for ASU's Anthropology Department. On top of this I do our Family Altar at home. Rather than go artistic this year, I went very traditional with my Altar for the Gallery. On November 1st the Gallery with XICO,Inc held the Festival. I had worked from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday and with all the excitement and festivities occupying my mind I hadn't even thought of the home Altar or shall I say the lack of one. It wasn't until Sunday when we were on our way to attend the Dia de los Muertos event at the Mesa Art Center that I realized I hadn't done our Altar,and in my mind I let out a Homer Simpson DOH! I did the mental search for where I had everything with the thought that when we got back home later that evening I would pull something together with a giant Sorry Familia! Then it hit me, I went traditional this year and thus I had done my family Altar. Talk about a sigh of relief. I was hesitant at first in going traditional because the other Altars are done by Artists and have that artistic flare to them. Now that the exhibit is over, I can honestly say I am glad I went the way I did. I had a lot of heartfelt complements. I even had one person tell me that when they walked by my Altar that they could hear chattering,I laughed and told them "it must be from my Dad's side of the family,they loved to gossip." I did exude a little bit of artistic-ness (is that even a word?) on the painting I did that sat as the backdrop to my humble shrine. I painted the Virgen of Guadalupe,but with a skull body. I thought for sure I would get the ruler across the knuckles for that one!