St. Felicity - the Flamenco Dancer Saint

April, 17th 2009

I was attending Dan G.’s BFA thesis, which was located in a church instead of at CIA (Cleveland Institute of Art) or somewhere in University Circle. This church was an extremely large Roman Catholic Church, and filled with golden statues and crazy gold church things. Dan was standing, with his work, near the altar. Everyone that came to his thesis presentation/critique were all situated in the pews, except for the front right pew. The front right pew was reserved for his family (much like a wedding/funeral set up in church) and had two half-sized caskets set up vertically. They were the recently dug up bodies of his mother and aunt, who had (somehow) died in the 1920s. They were both buried with bouquets of golden flowers with yellow dresses and golden floral pattern casket lining. Instead of being propped up toward Dan, his artwork, and his presentation, they were propped up facing the crowd. I was sitting in the pew directly behind them, and, since I was so close to them, I could see that they were really dusty because they were buried for so long – but somehow they looked like the just died yesterday – very preserved. After his presentation, there was a food reception in the back of the church. I walked through the buffet and out into this half – open hallway (open into the main part of the church) filled with gigantic statues of saints with votive lighting set ups. The last one on the left was a saint dressed in a black Spanish dancing costume. I walked toward Dan in the main part of the church and pointed to the saint in a Spanish/ latin American dancing costume and asked: “Why is there a Carmen Miranda statue here?” He explained that it wasn’t a statue of Carmen Miranda but a statue of St. Felicity, who was a Flamenco Dancer. I went back and inspected it to make sure he was right, which he was.
I ended up taking a lot of the food from the buffet and leaving. I was going on some sort of hiking trip, hiking from one city to another. I came across an abandoned house and was in it’s cellar heating up my food by steaming them in a bamboo box on a set of shelves that happened to be there. A girl came in and stole my food from me.

Notes:

• Although I went to Catholic schools for K – 12 grade levels, I am definitely not a Catholic, or Christian and do not identify with any specific religion. I am probably slightly more ‘religious’ than someone who is agnostic (neither denies nor accepts that there is a God/ higher power) since I believe that there is a ‘higher power’.
• Carmen Miranda is one of my favorite famous people.