Calaveras and Corazones was born out of something a good friend and I used to call "Chicana Craft Day." And... Chicana Craft Day was just what it sounded like: an entire day set aside for getting together at my kitchen table and working with paint and clay.* Well... that and drinking cafecitos and eating pan dulce**... and chisme (gossip).

OK. So Chicana Craft Day was really about the chisme.

It all started with a good friend (and graduate school colleague) telling me that she didn't do anything creative because an art teacher had told her that she wasn't "artistic" when she was a little girl. I was outraged. What kind of awful teacher would tell a kid that they weren't artistic?! Incensed, I set out to prove this so-called "educator" wrong. "Anyone," I told her, "can be creative. You just have to be fearless."

And so Chicana Craft Day was established.

Once every other week, we met in my kitchen and I pulled out my art supplies to play. My friend discovered that she had a deep well of creative reserves and artistic talent to spare... and I discovered that I really, really missed making things with my hands. Graduate school had a funny way of making me think that I didn't have time for anything that wasn't related to my coursework... and my life was seriously lacking balance. Chicana Craft Day brought that balance back. It nourished me.

My Chicana Craft Day comadre has moved to a different state, so we don't get together anymore-- but I still make time to make things with my hands. I've come to understand that "creating" is as important to me as eating, sleeping... maybe even breathing.

I named my shop "Calaveras and Corazones" in honor of all of those afternoons spent laughing and creating at my kitchen table. It literally means "Skulls and Hearts." "Skulls" because so much of what we made featured sugar skulls or Day of the Dead skeletons and "Hearts" because the room was always full of love.

The pieces in my shop are all made with a lot of corazon. I put a lot of love into everything I make. I hope that my work makes you as happy as it makes me.

* And glitter. Lots and lots (and lots) of glitter.
** coffee and Mexican sweet bread