#azarjournal

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Azar Studio · Tamara Bag · Fes, Morocco

[callmecuca]

artisan hands

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Tina Modotti, Women of Tehuantepec, 1929

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A Z A R  ·  M U S E S

Helen Frankenthaler

We instinctively fell in love with the freshness of her colors, but probably got hypnotized by the magnetism of her shapes, able to transport us into primordial correspondences with natural elements and landscapes.

Helen Frankenthaler (1928–2011), was eminent among the second generation of postwar American abstract painters and is widely credited for playing a pivotal role in the transition from Abstract Expressionism to Color Field painting. One of the foremost colorists of the time, she produced a body of work whose impact on contemporary art has been profound.

Although not not unanimously praised by the critics, who regarded her works as “too sweet in color and too poetic”, we feel inclined to appreciate the immediacy of her paintings, the freedom, spontaneity, openness and complexity of an image, not exclusively of the mind, but explicitly and intimately tied to nature and human emotions. Helen Frankenthaler rarely discussed the sources of her abstract imagery, which reflected her impressions of the landscape, her meditations on personal experiences and the pleasures of dealing with paint.

She has been pioneering in the “stain” painting technique. She worked by pouring thinned paint directly onto a raw, unprimed canvas laid on the studio floor, working from all sides to create floating fields of translucent color. The unpredictability of the result would require attentive gestures and intuitive for the transmutation of the inner impulses.

Her oeuvre exudes a beauty that we may find in the movements of experienced crafters or dancers: a sensual and fluid correspondence between matter and body language, that inspires us in deep.

[azarjournal]

Does it really take courage to discuss what we are afraid of, or maybe even ashamed of? I am long past this question. Now, when I write, I mainly seek to discover more of my layers, to raise my level of consciousness, to help others and myself. I don’t see the red flags, I don’t hear the warnings, and I don’t care about the land mines that could explode under my feet. I simply ambush myself, and then I charge at it and peel off my skins until I am completely naked on paper. That’s when I become both the voyeur and the exhibitionist; the banquet and its host. And every time a bomb blows up in my face I feel ecstatic, because then I will be able to gift pieces of my own flesh to the readers.

Joumana Haddad

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Woman from Tehuantepec carrying yecapixtle - Tina Modotti, 1929.

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[ Tina Modotti and Frida Kahlo : both are muses ]

A Z A R  ·  M U S E  

Tina Modotti 

What inspires us about Tina Modotti lies beyond her artistic work as a photographer and her early career as an actress. 

She learned photography as a pupil of Edward Weston, from whom she soon diverged, artistically, establishing her own aesthetics, after getting involved with the fervent political scene of Mexico’s artistic and intellectual milieu of the 20′s. 

Born in Italy in a modest family, she emigrated to the United States to work as a factory girl, a common story for so many Italian immigrants of those years. She helped establish the first antifascist local committee in her natal village in Italy and later took part in the Mexican Communist Party, working as a political activist and developing tight friendships with Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, and Nahui Ollin. 

Her oeuvre expresses the tumultuous political scene she lived in, with a particular sensibility, usually attributed to her feminine eye, which I personally also connect to her childhood poverty memories. 

Tina Modotti’s social activism and her involvement with the international left-wing saw her accused of being a Communist spy and expelled from Mexico in 1930. She found refuge in Spain, where she took an active part in the civil war, against the fascist Spanish army. Those were hard and sad years, spent leading organizations involved with finding a safe corridor to help children escape the bombs and finding a safe adoption out of the country. 

In 1940 she went back to Mexico, where she was re-admitted by President Lázaro Cárdenas, and where she died a couple of years later, at the age of 46.

It is outstanding how short and productive her career as a photographer has been - around 400 photographies produced in around 8 years. The tumultuous political environments she lived in left little room for her art. It is well know how she set priorities in a famous quote of hers: "I cannot . . . solve the problem of life by losing myself in the problem of art." Nevertheless, she became a standard-bearer for the critic photojournalism of her time, focused on reporting the misery and abandonment the most vulnerable collectives were left to. Her work as a photographer is invaluable for the history of the XX century’s Mexico. 

Her passionate life full of conviction and altruism inspires us still today, behind the silent beauty of her shots. 

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Azar Studio

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Azar Studio

Photo by @callmecuca

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Tina Modotti, Breastfeeding, 1926

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Azar Studio

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Azar Studio Photo by @callme

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Azar Studio
Photo by @callmecuca

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Luna Necklace, Azar Studio

· LUNA · The Roman goddess personifying the moon, Luna had the unique quality of governing the night and the invisible world of the dead. Considered the Roman equivalent of pre Indo- European goddess, Hekate, Luna inherited from her the ability of moving freely between the telluric and divine domains.   She was considered bearer of the subtle qualities of the full moon: fullness, radiance, maturity and birth. Luna embodies for us the woman who masters the fluid realms of psychism, as well as the richness of emotional processes. Intuitive and calm, she finds herself at ease with the ups and downs of emotional life and the processing of memories from the past. - gemstones story and properties - · MOONSTONE: Many cultures have associated this gem with moonlight, and it’s easy to see why. Its internal structure scatters the light that strikes it, creating a visual effect reminiscent of the full moon shine. It brings calm, peace, and balance. It conveys a sensual glow of deep vitality and creative energy. It is not a passive state, but rather a healing energy of renewal that helps let go of negativity. · QUARTZ: Quartz is a master cleaner, said to dispel negativity. . GREEN RUTILATED QUARTZ: It helps work on regeneration, and it assists in facilitating detoxification processes. It also helps to ground any excessive emotions, which allows the user to achieve a state of balance. ·

Photo by @callmecuca​