DAYS OF THE DEAD CAT SHRINE:
IN LOVING AND PLAYFUL MEMORY OF :
Saddle Shoes, Shuttle, Mustard, Lady Jane Grey, Popsicle, Peaches, and Trixie,
(Martyred to Coyotes)
This year at Halloween time (which precedes the Mexican Days of the Dead celebrations, a blending of Catholic and Indian custom celebrating the lives of friends and ancestors who have gone before and also celebrating that they are now having a happy time in the afterlife) we had an altar contest. I didn't think my human ancestors would like a public display, but cats always love to be admired so I entered my cat altar. We took second place but the judges said the placement was really irrelevant--they were all terrific.
A black bird crowns the altar, surrounded by marigolds, whose name in Spanish means "the flowers of death." I chose a cat mola I had as a centerpiece for the upper part of my altar It is surrounded by a brightly papered cardboard in a shadowbox. The glittery striped wrapping paper on the cardboard is covered with cat stickers. Around the edges of the mola I've glued clay skulls and resin cabochons with cat pictures on them. My Mexican cat vampire sits in one corner, while the center of the top shelf is presided over by The Purrkin of Pawdemewpey, (catty version of The Virgin of Guadalupe) a pure white cat of clay with gold bugle beads as her halo aura, a gold cat angel at her feet, and a blue mantle. She sits on a little cat tin pedestal. On one side of her is another clay "sculpture" of Furrida, (catty version of Frida Kahlo), with a unibrow, big earrings, a bird necklace, and a wire to keep her erect (these were unbaked clay and she, like the real Frida, just happened to need a back brace). On the other side is La Cat-trina, the image of a fashionable dead lady popularized by Posada and here portrayed by a Sculpey black cat with bones superimposed on the black and wearing a sculpey hat trimmed with flower beads and feathers. The feathers, like the mice scattered as offrendas (offerings of food or drink for the deceased) at the foot of the three Mexican female icons translated into felinity, have long since been confiscated by my living cats.
Between the second and third tier you can see the yellow, red and orange cat papel picados I made. I took a class last year from Beatriz Goodacre on making papel picados so I designed and made little catty ones and strung them up as they do the larger ones on the altars for people in Mexico.
The second level holds more offrendas--cupcakes with cats on them, a dog skeleton with a sombrero and a fish in his mouth, a cat skeleton, a little cat incense holder holding water, a tin with kitty litter in it, and pictures of some of my dear departed friends.
The lower level holds pumpkins and other foods traditionally offered along with sunflowers and a black cat Halloween card with gold glitter making bones in the black cats. There is also my Days of the Dead rubber duckie on here--I painted a skeleton on his black background. There is a black cat candle also.
Days of the Dead altars traditionally have the four elements represented--air by the papel picados, earth (in my case by the cat litter) by the flowers and fruits, water by the drink left for the deceased, and fire, represented by lit candles. However, as people with cats know, cats and candles are a dangerous combination so I lit my shrine with Christmas lights instead.
All photos coyright (c) 2004 Elizabeth Ann Scarborough, all rights reserved.