Tears at a Day of the Dead altar

For years I photographed the Dia de los Muertos altars in Grand Park in Los Angeles and Pasadena. You can see some of them here and here. Pre-Covid I took photos of the ofrendas at the Tucson San Agustin Presidio which you can see here.

I regarded all of these as images of beautiful–or at least, interesting–art creations and/or political statements. Photographs, flowers, objects the deceased loved as well as food and drink for the dead spirits were held together with the common elements of marigolds and paper flowers.

But I have avoided the All Souls Procession in Tucson as being too crowded. 150,000 to 200,000 people–that’s 1/3rd of the population of Tucson!– marching 2 miles together through the Menlo Park neighborhood to the Mercado San Agustin annex is too much for me.

The All Souls Procession began with artists

The All Souls Procession is not a formal religious ceremony nor a publicly sponsored event. It was started by 40 artists and friends in 1990 as a public ceremony of remembrance and compassion. Leading up to the Procession are various art events. And I learned that as part of All Souls a community altar had been set up at MSA, which I visited on Saturday.

Here is some of what I saw at MSA:

The space set up for the ofrenda was overcrowded with photographs. I particularly noticed the old 19th century photo of a couple in the top left part of this image. Someone’s great-great grandparents, no doubt. There did not seem to be many favorite items or favorite foods on the altar–there was no space for them. Just lots and lots of photos which overflowed onto a neighboring wall.

A day before the Procession photos had already been added to the wall next to the ofrenda. The one that touched me so much was the red heart on which Guadalupe Leyva Flores had written: “My boyfriend was killed at the cathedral on our wedding day so I wear this dress until the day I die. May 12, 1982.” It’s not clear if one of the nearby photos is connected to this heart.

Procession of Little Angels in Armory Park

After MSA I went to Armory Park where I stopped to say “Hi” to the face painters, but they were still unpacking their make up so I went to see two altars for children that had already been set up in the park. The Little Angels Procession was to be held in the park later in the day.

This family altar was assembled by the grandmother of the little girl, Erica in the photo at the top. She told me that the Halloween before Erica died, that she wanted to wear a Corpse Bride costume. Her father suggested that she wear a corpse fairy costume instead and she did. I was almost moved to tears by this grandmother’s story.

Another altar nearby with its stuffed animals, toys and candy for the spirit of then little boy in the photograph finally did bring me to tears. It’s curious because after years and years of photographing altars for the dead I had never had an emotional response, but the deaths of these children…heartbreaking. I left the area and went back to the face painters.

And here they are: Irene putting on make-up. In real life she works at U of Arizona. On the right is Tanya, who works in IT in her everyday life. And, below, both of them being photographed by people other than me.

I leave you with an image of the urn. It is carried in the All Souls Procession and people can put small paper messages to the dead inside it. At the end of the procession the urn is set on fire. The messages magically fly into the heavens.

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