Paula Kehoe and the Huichols

In the course of my greater adventures last week I ran into this artist.
Oh.  My.  God.

Have you ever seen anything like this ever??????????  I think they are stunning.

And Paula Kehoe looks like just a normal all-American blonde girl. Check out her website:

http://beadedmasks.com/Home.html

Paula's pieces were being sold at the gift shop of the Museum of Craft and Folk Art in San Francisco

www.mocfa.org

I know that these are not to everyone's taste but I think they do something on such a completely different level.  The artist says that she is influenced by indigenous Indian/Mexican art of the Huichol tribes.  The Huichol integrate their art (as have many cultures, early and late in human history) into their religious, shamanistic rituals - which often involve a drug (peyote) induced experience of the cosmos.  Here are examples of  masks done by Huichol artists.  I found them on:

http://www.tribesgallery.com/huichol/masks/tb_mask1.html

OK and then I found these on the following site

http://www.peyotepeople.com/

These last three use more universally commonplace folk color combinations.  The middle pieces and Paula's use colors that are more sophisticated and which add another dimension entirely.  I am definitely experiencing the cosmos through this artwork.  Without the drugs!  I have ALOT more to learn about the Southwest.  This is going to be a wonderful departure point.   Any further words would be redundant.  These pieces say so much about the people who make them and the internal/external spaces they tap into.  I would only add that they remind me also of the art of the indigenous Australians.  I bow.