Project Statement 

Comali Series

The word “comalli” comes from the Aztec Nahuatl for griddle or comal.

As the fourth generation of a family of Mexico City-based portrait photographers, my work seeks to find new meanings in portraiture. 

I became interested in looking back to the time of the Spanish conquest in America (16th century), to see how Mexicas or Aztecs portrayed themselves during this critical period in our history.

This mixed media Series is inspired by the Mendocino Codex (housed at the Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford), which references of the use of a comalli (griddle in náhuatl), a household tool that has been used for the same purposes in Mexican homes since that time.

Working with several used comalli and portraits of contemporary Mexicans, I intent to represent contemporary women and men from my country and make the analogy that as the wrinkles on a person’s face bear witness to the passage of time, the stains on the comal are a sign of its years of use.

Research

“The Nahuas ate lightly.  The Mendocino Codex tells us how their children were fed: at three years, half a tortilla a day; at four and five, a full tortilla; between six and twelve, one and a half tortillas.  From the age of thirteen, two tortillas.” 

                                                                                                     --Salvador Novo

                                                                                                     Cocina Mexicana: Historia gastronómica de la Ciudad de México

Corn is a fundamental part of our identity as Mexicans, and so, therefore, are the comal and tortillas.

Five hundred years ago, when the conquistador Hernán Cortés reached Tenochtitlán (today part of Mexico City), he was dazzled by the great market at Tlatelolco.  He described it to the Spanish King Carlos V: “They sell maize, or Indian corn, in the grain and in the form of bread, preferred in the grain for its flavor to that of the other islands and terra-firma.”

In Pre-Hispanic times, the clay griddle or comal (comalli in Náhuatl) was formed by baking a flat disk of clay, then placing it on three or four stones as a support and to light a fire below. You still see this type of comal today.

In Mexico, the comal is used so frequently that some stoves are made with the comal incorporated into it. Many, however, prefer to have theirs separate, whether made out metal, clay, enamelware or stone.

I remember that at my grandmother’s house in Mexico City, they would bring the corn to the mill to make the masa, which was then used to pat out the tortillas by hand and then toast them in the comal over the stove.  When my grandmother was a child it was often used a wood stove for this process.

Most Mexicans prepare tortillas at home every day, and the comal where they are cooked becomes a witness to the family’s history.  Usually this basic implement is used for years before throwing it out, so it’s not unusual to find one that has accompanied various generations.  The more the comal is used, the better the tortillas taste.

Some people even say that the comal has its own soul*.   As the wrinkles on a person’s face bear witness to the passage of time, the stains on the comal are a sign of its years of use.  And the fire that cooks the tortillas, together with the stains burned on to the comal, might well be likened to the marks that tragedy can leave on our faces.

Additional notes about the Concept of Comalli Series:

This mixed media Series is inspired by the Mendocino Codex (housed at the Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford.), which references of the use of a comalli (griddle in náhuatl), a household tool that has been used for the same purposes in Mexican homes since that time.

The “tlacuilos” who draw the pictograms of the Mendocino Codex do not show any particulary features in their faces, because the idea was to represent “Mexica women and men.” This inspired me to photograph my subjects with their bodies facing forward and their faces in profile, in an effort to highlight not their personality but the intention—similar to the codex—of representing “contemporary Mexican men and women” in my portraits.

“The image in the codex functioned as the text in themselves and the relationship between these pictorial elements held the meaning.” (Boone, 1994: 20)

The portraits in my ComalliI  series are in black and white, inspired in folio 2 of the Mendocino codex, where the only distinctive face—painted grey--is that of the “Tlatoani” (Speaker) “Tenuch” (Fruit of the Stone Cactus).

I try to lay a bridge between the pre-Hispanic age and our time, through materials that have been in use since those early times and on into daily life in what we now call Mexico.

I juxtaposed portrait over comal, inspired on the juxtaposition of iconography and words in Spanish that we find in the Mendoza Codex,  which “is not the sole expression of two opposed systems of thought: the codex was painted by Mexican scribes on Spanish paper, instead of indigenous amate bark paper or deerskin. Also, it was bound as Spanish books were” (Berdan & Anawalt 1997: xii).

To choose the people I would portray for my Comalli series, I think that when you’re clear about your intent and your concept, it’s like antenna—all the people that should appear in an artwork find themselves in your path.

The faces in my Comalli series are turned in profile toward the left, which is a symbolic reference to the belief that we connect with our divinity through the left side of our bodies.  Also, when creating a portrait, if we look steadily at the person’s left eye we can see more deeply into the light of their soul.

In my search for a meaning in these portraits and in my experimentation, I tried to play with flattening the faces, using backlighting instead of the traditional portraiture technique used by the four generations of portrait photographers that make up the Herrera dynasty in Mexico.