Gridley and Friends.

General Wandering and photographing. Finally finished watching Batalla en el cielo, hold on tight, don't fall over when the tension breaks...

Eventually we ended up in the Farm Labor Camp in Gridley late at night. It felt a little strange being there after dark, walking around and look for the danzantes that invited us. When we finally found the place where they practice, we realized that it must have been cancelled due to the heavy rain that had pounded the Valley all day –sending farm laborers home in time for lunch and a rare afternoon with the family.

When I lived in El Campo many years ago, we managed to keep busy, but what little art and music there might have been was a far 6 miles into town. Back then, as a child walking a mile to the nearest market took a full hour or so, the rest of the trip was not an option for me, so we would walk back to our sunken homestead with our bags of chips and pepsis in hand. Now that this community is gaining access to this type of art and dance culture many great things are at hand.

El campo is a special place, here you can find backyard weddings, palletas de arroz, bootleg Tears For Fears tapes that play both sides at once, discount clothes sold out of vans, small pets, directTV, a hopeful levee, garbage pail kids and an old carving in a tree that I made when I was 7. ( I couldn't make out my primitive markings, but lets just imagine it says "OAXACA")

~Glue