My name is Narciso Meneses Elizalde. I am from Hidalgo, Mexico. For the past few years, I have lived and worked in and around what is now known as Cedar Rapids and Iowa City. I earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Iowa. I create polymer clay sculptures and non-fiction writing through which I promote and celebrate M
My name is Narciso Meneses Elizalde. I am from Hidalgo, Mexico. For the past few years, I have lived and worked in and around what is now known as Cedar Rapids and Iowa City. I earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Iowa. I create polymer clay sculptures and non-fiction writing through which I promote and celebrate Mesoamerican peoples’ values and cosmovisions. The themes that inform my work revolve around traditional Indigenous ritual practices, especially in regards to themes of world renewal and participation in universal networks of relations, as manifested through Flower Worlds’ spirituality. These and other related forms of expression are often known as Costumbres, the "Old Ways," and are practiced and created throughout what is now called Mesoamerica, Southwest USA, and beyond, from times immemorial to the present.
An overarching Mesoamerican theme of ideal existence that emerges out of traditional modalities of cognition and operation, is the concept of Flower Worlds, as denominated in the literature. In Mesoamerica, and throughout the Indigenous Americas, the forces and processes that generated and maintain the cycle of life renewal in motion, hav
An overarching Mesoamerican theme of ideal existence that emerges out of traditional modalities of cognition and operation, is the concept of Flower Worlds, as denominated in the literature. In Mesoamerica, and throughout the Indigenous Americas, the forces and processes that generated and maintain the cycle of life renewal in motion, have long been and still are elevated to divine status of the highest degree. In essence, Flower Worlds are ideal, yet experientially real reflections of the sacred living Earth. Flower Worlds are essentially deified embodiments of the sacred Earth as transcendent yet immanent prodigious cosmic expressions of abundance, positivity, healing, and renewal in the living environment. Furthermore, Flower Worlds can be conceptualized as extremely sacred locations, multifaceted agential dimensions of the living universe, and as highly cherished generative qualities of the cosmos. In their totality, they also function as central principles of organization, as well as critical paradigms for the elaboration of systems of values and signification.
Flower Worlds are full of delightful things and beings, like inebriating and aromatic flowers, luxuriant fruiting trees, beautiful butterflies and birds, along with aesthetically pleasing ephemeral phenomena, such as vibrant and iridescent colors, raincloud-bearing winds, the prodigious smoke of incense, the sublime sounds of wondrous music and songs, as well as multisensorial and often synesthetic pleasure in general. There are other benign concepts associated with these most sacred dimensions: highly esteemed cultural values (like respect, gratitude, and the fructification of hard work), the generative flourishing of the divine living cosmos, the world’s breath as winds that bring rain clouds, waters of essential vitality, general fertility and abundance, healing qualities, access to the venerable ancestors and their benedictions, primordial emergence, along with the reinvigoration of the force of vitality at large. Diverse variants of Flower Worlds have existed throughout millennia, and are still present today as integral aspects of the living cultural heritage and lived experience of various groups of Indigenous people, not only in Mesoamerica but also among various nations from Southwest USA, as well as other neighboring cultural areas.
Iowa City and Cedar Rapids, the stolen land areas of Iowa where I have been living and working, are ancestral Sauk and Meskwaki, Očhéthi Šakówiŋ (Dakota Sioux), Báxoje Máyaⁿ (Ioway), and Kiikaapoi (Kickapoo) lands. If we lived in accordance with true justice and fairness, reparations would be made at once, and these and all other unjustly relinquished lands would be returned back to living Indigenous peoples, the rightful overseers of these sacred lands. My heartfelt gratitude for said honorable peoples, who’s many profound contributions to the world immensely enrich the human experience.