Combining Art with Writing

"A Vision Beyond" acrylic painting MMSikes

Balancing the life of an author and an artist is difficult and often impossible. How does one write, promote, paint, teach and have another life besides? It's not easy, but sometimes it's rewarding as well as fun.

For the next couple of months, I will be combining art and writing lives with an exhibition of my Maya Ruins paintings that were created from photos I took on trips to Palenque and to Chichen Itza in Mexico. The Palenque trip was particularly challenging because it required a flight on a small plane we chartered from Huatulco across the jungles of southern Mexico to a grass airstrip near the ruins. While there I was astonished and amazed at the depth of the jungle overgrowth that covered the huge number of ruins not yet unrevealed. When I returned home, I relied on my pictures to provide resource materials for the dozen large acrylic paintings I created in my studio.

Those paintings are on view through July 10 at Crossroads Art Center, 2016 Staples Mill Road in Richmond. The public is invited to an opening reception, Friday, May 18 from 6 to 9 p.m. The event will include a book signing for my adventure novel, Jungle Jeopardy. Inspired by my travels to the Maya Ruins and by Indiana Jones-type perils, this book finds a perfect setting among my paintings located in Gallery One at the Art Center.

Thursday, May 17, my art show and book signing will be featured in a segment on Virginia This Morning, CBS Channel 6 Richmond, between 9 and 10 a.m.

"X" Is For the Temple of Xtoloc at Chichen Itza

"Pathway to the Ruins" MM Sikes

For the past few weeks, as the Passenger to Paradise, I've been researching the Maya ruins in Central America. During that investigation, I came across the Temple of Xtoloc. The remains of this small temple are located on the edge of the famous cenote at Chichen Itza known an the Well of Sacrifice.

According to my research, this cenote is quite large, covering a surface of about one acre. The well was used for perhaps as long a period as 500 years and contained not only treasures but also the skeletons of people of many different ages, including children, who were sacrificed in rituals. This information came from A Guide to Ancient Maya Ruins by C. Bruce Hunter which shows a photograph of the well with the temple in the background. From the Internet, I found a description saying that there are actually two cenotes at Chichen Itza and that the one the temple is on is not the sacrificial one but may have served as the source of fresh water supply for the people.

Chichen Itza is a Maya ruins site we visited a few years ago. The well was one of the locations on our tour. I later created a large series of paintings from photographs taken of the many excavated buildings. The painting on the right is one of the series. I made a very large painting of the Well of Sacrifice but not of the Temple of Xtoloc.

Jungle Jeopardy, my WIP set in the jungles of Central America, includes exploration of some of the Maya ruins. Copan in Honduras, where many of the most intriguing ruins are found, may have been settled as long ago as 2000 BC. Stela B, a large stone carving found at Copan, contains images some people believe are elephants. Sad we know so little of the true history of this part of our world.

Have you visited any of the Maya ruins? If so, what was your reaction?

"C" - Cozumel, the island of the Swallows

Cozumel (Mayan for island of the Swallows) is a favorite destination for the Passenger to Paradise and provides interesting and wonderful memories of crystal clear waters and a time of adventure. On our first trip there we visited Mayan ruins on the island and took a small plane to Chichen Itza to tour those Mayan ruins. I took lots of photographs at that site and later created a series of large acrylic paintings based on our visit there.

One of my most vivid memories from the trip came soon after we boarded the airplane in Cancun to fly over to Cozumel. Although people was still standing in the aisle and there were not enough seats for everyone, the airplane started to taxi for take-off. That was when I realized that safety is not important everywhere, especially in Mexico.

I have long had a fascination with silver jewelry created by Mexican jewelrymakers. During our week on the island, I found a cute little shop and purchased several silver bracelets and a necklace for gifts and souvenirs.

Cozumel is a destination the Passenger to Paradise would like to visit again.