It’s become a tradition that every year I make a garish 4th of July cake. This year the kids and I decided to make our most important cake thus far.This year we made a close the camps cake.[wpvideo 9UE26wB1 ]The cake has since been consumed, but the conversations remain strong!
El Mundo de Elí
Here are some photos from Elí's first Elmo birthday. I guess Elmo is becoming a trend :).
Party prep: Elías Sesame Street Crayons and Dorthy royal icing cookies
The birthday boy and his abuelito
The birthday table
Rainbow pound cake with Italian buttercream frosting
Birthday brother eating cake
The Sesame Street birthday family
Chocolate Elmo lollipops
Royal icing Elmo cookies
Diecut Sesame Street Banners
Sesame Street Fruit and Vegetable trays
Watermelon cake for the birthday boy
Party prep: Chocolate covered crayons pretzels
Awesome El Mundo de Elías birthday sign made by Nico
Party prep: Sesame Street diecut bunting flags
Party prep: Sesame Street diecuts
Party prep: Cakestands
Feliz Cumpleaños Frida Kahlo
As many of you know I am obsessed with Frida Kahlo. So are my sons. Today we celebrate this magnificent woman's bday.https://www.instagram.com/p/-7RsjmngBkhttps://www.instagram.com/p/40Cfh3HgBehttps://www.instagram.com/p/BHitKJdhCLk
Fourth of July Buttercream Ombré Pinata Cake
This year we celebrated 'Murica to the fullest with a Fourth of July Buttercream Ombré Piñata Cake.Truth be told, after last year's massive flag cake I wasn't planning on making anything too crazy. But my family seemed so disappointed and I ended up caving. I'm happy though that I went for it. I had a lot of fun playing with my my new Russian Icing tips for the first time. Many lessons learned here so next time I think they'll come out much better.And I want to give a BIG thanks to my mother-in-law for all of her help watching the kids and killing it with the clean up!
View of the cake from above. Flowers created with Russian piping tips.
Here is the cake after we cut it open. I had my husband cut it open so that I could record a little video, but he ruined it when he decided to eat a piece of cake mid-recording :(
These are the ombré layers. I use Americolor gels to get super vibrant colors.
And here is my little man :) He and I also made American flag chocolate covered pretzels But we will debut those later today...
Fourth of July Flag Cake
Last fourth of July I was SUPER pregnant. And like any rational minded soon to be mami of two, I decided that I should spend my last days of freedom on my feet, for hours, baking a flag cake.I started by making a 5 layer red test-cake with buttercream filling. But I wasn't happy enough with the height ratio of the red to white, so I ended up with this monstrosity pictured below.
Really this cake didn't reach it's full height potential. But that is only because I reached the max height of our freezer, where I was storing the layers, and I literally couldn't stand on my feet any longer. That being said, it still irks me when I look at the picture above and wish, wish, wish that there was a the very least another top red layer.
The most delicious part of the cake was actually the lemon curd filling, which you can't see here. I chose it because it wouldn't detract from the colored layers.
These are the royal icing cookies I made with toddler. This was the first time I let him roll out his own cookies and decorate them. He was DELIGHTED!
Here is my happy boy with his abuelito.
Here he is again with his abuelito and grandma.
Since my second son's birthday is coming up next month my plan was to hold off from making a cake this year. But my family seemed so disappointed that it looks like I'll be baking a cake after all. And I am actually really excited to use my new Russian icing tips. So I think the plan will be to make a red white and blue pinata cake with my toddler.
I'll keep you guys posted...
happy healthy #artbaby
He is crawling around like crazy, just got his first tooth, still prefers breast milk as his drug of choice, and LOVES art!http://instagram.com/p/iPd6noHgMrhttp://instagram.com/p/jZn0q5ngEw/http://instagram.com/p/jPrWKbngMV/http://instagram.com/p/iPPeldHgFf/
Mommy's Boobies
Nursing day and night is no joke. But hey don't take it from me.
I'm just providing sustenance to a human being.
Milestones
After two weeks of wonderful fist sucking delight, the baby finally found his thumbs!Other huge milestones of this week include:* making constant eye contact with his mami and daddy* recognizing (and loving) his reflection in the mirror* holding his head up on his belly and while sitting up* making splashes of joy in the bathtubhttp://instagram.com/p/dnZnqzngOQWhat can I say? I love being a mami.
Nursing symphony: wanted breastfeeding mamas
Do you love nursing your baby? Does your little one "perform" every time he or she is at your breast? I am working on new breastfeeding series that will include the sounds of nursing babies. I am looking for moms to contribute audio recordings of babies feeding. If you are interested in having the sounds of your baby feeding included in the piece please let me know.
Loving mamihood
My beautiful baby is 8 weeks old today!
http://instagram.com/p/aXaJY7ngBNhttp://instagram.com/p/bmAQEKHgCahttp://instagram.com/p/cfmhowngFu
Valentines from El Rio
Wonderful Valentines day love from the always magical El Rio. Love em' share em'.
The Ultrasound Scream
In honor of being 5 months pregnant, I thought I'd share this gem of my little baby Adán, taken at our last ultrasound.
See, he already has a flair for the dramatics...
Tanya Cabrera talks about undocumented students rights
I had the privilege of interviewing DREAM activist and community leader Tanya Cabrera for New Futuro. Check out this video with Cabrera detailing the educational rights of undocumented students, and share the full article with any interested students.[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHkUJ8ZVZG8&w=480&h=270]
Fractured Jewishness
Is being half-Jewish, like being half-pregnant? Yes.Intrigued? Want to hear more?I have the honor of being the keynote speaker at the Half Jewish?" The Heirs of Intermarriage conference at Northwestern University, which runs from 4/20-4/22. My Friday night talk will center around the construction and the perpetuation of fractured cultural identities. On Saturday my dear friend Yoni Sarason, aka The St. Lou Jew, aka Midwest Director of Birthright Next, will be speaking on a panel with Dan Libenson, moderated by Denise Handlarski. Come check out the conference. Meet some lefty Jews. Learn and mingle.Register here.
Digital. Creative. Conceptual. Think Tank Team.
Ladies and Gents, life is good. I am the Creative Director for New Futuro.New Futuro provides Latino families with fully bilingual resources and tools to get students into college and beyond! We are committed to making you an education rockstar! We will teach you how to get into the college of your dreams with money to pay for it. It's all about making the right classes at the right time, knowing the right people, and getting involved with the right groups. College is your future, so why should it be a challenge to get there? New Futuro will help you achieve your dreams through education! Read more about my #awesome creative team here.
Chicanas of 18th Street on Poco a Poco Radio
Tune into Poco a Poco Radio this Sunday at 1:30PM CST to hear the excellent BILINGUAL interview my father and I did with Leonard Ramírez and Magda Ramírez-Castañeda, about the much anticipated release of: Chicanas of 18th Street: Narratives of a Movement from Latino Chicago.(photos by Claudio Gaete-Tapia)
Poco a Poco Radio!
My papi and I have a brand new BILINGUAL radio show on WLUW 88.7 FM, Poco a Poco Radio. The show airs every Sunday from 1:30-2:00PM CST and can be listened to live on the radio or online at http://wluw.org.If you missed last week's show (the first episode) you can listen here:[audio http://pocoapocoradio.com/podcasts/Poco%20A%20Poco%20Uno%20-7-10-2011.mp3]And today tune in, to hear our LIVE interview with the incredibly talented, hilarious, and inspiring Elma Placeres Dieppa (@mzelma), Director of Latism Chicago. For those of you who aren't familiar with Latism... you should be... #LATISM stands for Latinos in Social Media.For more updates follow Poco a Poco Radio on Facebook & Twitter
AMerican MEdia Output in New Jersey
You saw Escobar-Morales as promo models in TX, "promoting" Arizona Tourism...
And here we are as marketing executives in NJ.
Andria was live at Gallery Aferro and I skyped in from Chicago.
Stay tuned for more details on the performance and the results from AMerican MEdia Output's #targetaudiencesurvey.
Kickstart the Wonder Women
So what's the deal with the recent AMerican MEdia Output - "Welcome to Arizona" and "Go Public" campaigns?
It all started with Escobar-Morales's participation in the Wonder Woman Residency New News is Old News, which I blogged about a few months ago.
As a follow up to Are You My Other? our current Internet based self-portrait dialogue exchange project, Escobar-Morales is establishing an online marketing agency. Acting as designers, distributors, and promo models, we plan to produce a series of advertisements addressing contentious topics in the news, such as Arizona’s SB-1070 and the Dream Act.
There are currently three scheduled New News is Old News exhibitions:The first NNION exhibition opens on May 7th, 2011 at Gallery Aferro in Newark, New Jersey. The second exhibition will be in Cyprus! The third exhibition will be in Brooklyn at the WAH Center and opens in mid-July, 2011.Please visit the Women Woman Residency KICKSTARTER ProjectWe ask you...
- who mediates the news?
- how is social media changing your foundation of news?
- can technology keep up with history?
- when was the last time you read the paper?
- is journalism dead?
The Project:The Wonder Women residency has selected ten NYC area artists to create work addressing these questions for New News is Old News (NNION). In this eight week residency, curators and artists construct and deconstruct: their understanding and experience of media; the different perspectives of journalism online vs. print; the future of news. Given the changing landscape of news and media, artists have new opportunity to engage and to create work addressing these intersections. The residency culminates with an exhibition of the artists projects (details below).If you think that is exciting....It gets even better. In June, the curators and three selected NYC artists will travel to Nicosia, Cyprus to continue the dialogue with eight Cypriot artists. In an intensive two-week workshop, the artists will focus on international relations, local policies and news. The projects created will be exhibited in Cyrus and then in NYC.Help _gaia fund the artists, the projects, and the exhibitions!The History:_gaia is a collective of women artists and activists creating art, events and opportunities in the visual and media arts, performance and design. Its members actively promote and support the work of local women artists while developing programs that encourage collaboration and create community to help emerging artists in need of studio space, facilities and resources. In pursuit of raising awareness _gaia concentrates on activism, from issues in the local community and the art world to global issues affecting the lives of women.Wonder Women (WW) is a residency program in its sixth year presented by_gaia, an artist collective. The WW mission is to engage practicing, yet underrepresented artists who are eager to participate in a collective dialogue about the art world and feminism today. See the project blog for information about previous Wonder Women residencies.The NNION Wonder Women:Christine DaCruz: the obituaries. Christine has been threading portraits of deceased women.Mairikke Dau: painting the news. Rikke has created a large still life painting in response to the Arizona shooting, and the various controversies which have risen from the event.Sharon de la Cruz: Crooked Images. Sharon has created a feature news segment about Aunt Jemima discovering her sexuality.Melissa MacAlpin: vows and love. Melissa has created a series of comics in response to the Sunday vows section of the NY Times.Escobar-Morales: American Media Output. Andria Morales and Maya Escobar created an ad agency that is currently focusing on two campaigns around immigration, and Arizona.Lindsey Muscato: spills from the NY Times. Focusing on the experience of reading the newspaper, Lindsey is drawing segments of the broadsheet, selected from organic spills.Larysa Myers: extinct technology. Laryssa is creating a casket sized sculpture from discarded video tape.Cristine Posner: the big oil spill (forgotten). Cristine has collected news articles addressing the June oil spill, and is creating a series of weekly cyanotypes based on the press.Sharone Vendriger: wikileaks. Sharone is creating a large mobius sculpture referencing transparency in public information.Nicole Wilson: agency and the news. Nicole has created a video, that looks to the three graces as examples and agents of 21st century news.The Cypriot artists will be selected in April in collaboration with our partners in Cyprus: Cyprus Community Media Centre, Rooftop Theatre Group and European-Mediterranean Art AssociationCurated and Organized by Maya Joseph-Goteiner, Doris Caçoilo, and Alana Kakoyiannis.
Entrevista en Sí Se Puede
an example of my Internet ArtLast week I had the on honor of being interviewed by my papi on Sí Se Puede. We talked about Internet art, the implications of growing up online, linguistic performances on twitter, public vs private, and more.If you missed it you can listen here:[audio http://mayaescobar.com/Maya%20Escobar%20-%203-6-2011.mp3]