Cards Redux—Peru-Ayahuasca

Orlando Córdova Rumiche and his Art

Scene: Rio Amazonas, Iquitos, Peru (Egret and Macaw)

Miraflores, Lima, Peru, September 2010 

Strolling through the Miraflores district of Lima (a brief stop on our way to the Amazon), we spied a garden festival in a small pocket park. Lovely orchids, exotic flower and fruit arrangements, topiaried bushes—all kinds of plants for sale and on display. Not much you can do with plants while on vacation, so we meandered until we passed a booth whose clear plastic walls were lined with colorful, gaudy paintings of huge morpho butterflies, magenta orchids, lilies, red and yellow heliconia flowers, as well as fanciful jungle nymphs. Bright,  acrylic paint at it’s boldest—Big...and nothing I would take home. We would have just kept walking, but smaller splashes of color caught my collector's eye. The table was covered with hand-painted greeting cards.  Size makes a difference when it comes to packing, and these little pieces of original art were of birds and scenes of life on the Amazon—highly romanticized, but sincere. After shuffling through the cards, I picked some with river scenes and birds – macaws, parrots, toucans. These latter escape “cute” by a hair. I don’t buy cute, and art is not sweet. The scenes have to have verisimilitude.

Orlando Córdova Rumiche's Creed and his Art

Most of the time when I buy these cards, I don’t know who the artist is, and usually the sellers can’t identify them either—even when signed. They don't tend to have explanatory info on the back. So all I know is that the artist thought enough of the little piece to sign it. In this instance however, the artist, Orlando Córdova Rumiche, provided a handout explaining the art. I didn’t look at it until I got home.  Working my way through his photocopy, I found that he paints under the influence of Ayahuasca or as he calls it the “Bebida Voraz de la Alucinación” (the voracious drink of hallucination)—so really a psychedelic artist, part of a long tradition of imbibers.  What I chalked up to style turned out to be art through a haze of psychotropic drugs. No wonder they are bright, gaudy, exaggerated, and romantic. 

Wikipedia:  “Ayahuasca (ayawaska pronounced [ajaˈwaska] in the Quechua language) is any of various psychoactive infusions or decoctions prepared from the Banisteriopsis spp. vine, usually mixed with the leaves of dimethyltryptamine-containing species of shrubs from the Psychotria genus."

And from an Ayahuasca site: 

“Ayahuasca has a rich legacy of associated traditions, myths, therapies, rituals and aesthetics, spanning from the primordial roots of the indigenous tribes of South America, to diverse syncretic spiritual movements emerging across the planet.”

http://www.ayahuasca.com/ 

It just makes them all the more interesting, and I still wouldn’t want one of the big ones.

Moonlit Scene on the River

Macaw and toucan

Macaws 

Sunset

Macaw and Parrot

2 Parrots

Idyllic River Life

I'm not sure what species these birds are but they are easily recognizable as macaws, parrots, and toucan.  The macaws are probably Scarlet Macaws - oh well remember Ayahuasca. We saw all of these birds in the Manu Biosphere Reserve, Peru.  Each of the little paintings is about 3"x 5" and are good reminders of the place.