MITLA
2020 - Sterling Silver
3.8 x 10.7 x 13.9mm each
2020 - Sterling Silver
3.8 x 10.7 x 13.9mm each
Clouds with silver linings. Dreams coming true. I awoke one morning, a vision pericingly clear. I was wearing a pair of silver earrings bearing a specific motif, the xicalcoliuhqui. While the symbolic meaning of this pattern is still debated by scholars, the Nahuatl word implies a drinking vessel, xical, and something twisting. It’s a recuring pattern across much of the pre-hispanic Americas. It is particulary promenent in the ruins of the Zapotec site know as Mitla, within the Mexican state of Oaxaca. Mitla, comes from the Nahuatl word for the land of the dead, Mictlan. For the Zapotecs it was called Ñuu Ndiyi, effectively meaning the same thing, though it’s now called Lyobaa, meaning house of happiness. The city’s name and the design’s very specific and precise geometry give insight into understanding the pattern as a symbol of balance, not unlike the Taoist Yin/Yang; within pre-hispanic cosmography there was life and it’s corollary in underworld. A vision from the otherside of conciousness, the realm of dreams, something immaterial made tangible. A bridge between two worlds. This is what Mitla is for me.
