My Corazon- The Shop of Miss Butler

An artists inspired by Frida Kahlo, loteria, Our Lady of Guadalupe, Sacred Heart, Milagros and Spanish colonial....the following is an interview with MissBulter, a Brooklyn Based Latin America Traveler....


To start, let's talk about....
....Day of the Dead, El Día de los Muertos...

One part of the celebrations that moves me most is El Día de los Angelitos, the day before the Day of the Dead, which is reserved for children who have died. That day is All Saints Day in the Catholic Church and is meshes well with the popular idea that children who die go directly to heaven. They are a more heavenly than the souls of the adult departed so they come back home and leave again before the souls of the adult deceased come to visit the next day, el Dia de los Muertos. Families leave candy and toys on their home ofrendas for the visiting little angels. A family's tragic experience of the loss of a child evolves into a celebration of that short life and I see the ritual as an expression of their absolute faith that the living are still connected to their dead and that both can still do good for each other even when separated.


As a fellow traveler, you make me curious, what is your favorite country?

Syria is the country I've enjoyed visiting most. I'm a real history nerd and Syria has so many treasures from so many different eras and cultures. In just a few hundred miles you have the ruins of Ugarit on the Mediterranean where the alphabet developed, the ancient desert city of Palmyra where Queen Zenobia fought off the Romans (they are known for its funerary art), a fairytale-looking crusader fort where the Knights Hospitalllars where head-quarted, the masterpiece of the Great Mosque in Damascus that has the shrine containing the head of John the Baptist... it goes on and on. It's a stunning country with really warm people and amazing food.


If you had to leave Brooklyn, and live anyplace outside the U.S. where would it be and why?

I'm pretty much a city person through-and-through. If I had to choose a new home outside the US it would be Buenos Aires. I spent a month there a couple of years ago after I quit a job. The rhythm of the city is comfortable for a New Yorker. I love tango music and you can see live performances almost any night you want. I also love Argentine rock bands from the 80's and 90's so it was CD shopping heaven for me. Late in my trip I stumbled upon the "hipster" tango scene. It reminded me a lot of Williamsburg in NYC but without the irony. The band played tango loud and hard and the kids danced with intensity. It was fantastic.

I noticed you've been an etsy member for some time, but only a seller for a little while. Who were your favorite people to buy from, and what was your all time favorite purchase?

The first thing I ever bought was a crocheted teddy bear named Roscoe from Marilyn Patrizio's shop So Softies. That was in the summer of 2005. I recently convo'ed her to tell her I'd just seen the little boy (no longer a baby) who got Roscoe and that he was still loved. She remembered him because it was one of the first bears she'd sold. It was a very wistful Etsy moment.


Brooklyn is vast, what is your local?

I live in an old Irish neighborhood called Windsor Terrace. They film a lot of movies around here when they're going for a sort of 50's Brooklyn feel. I'm about a block from Brooklyn's big park, Prospect Park.




Let's talk mermaids, tell me about your favorite Mermaid story...

My favorite mermaid story is about Alexander the Great's little sister. After one of his quests he brought back a bottle of water from a sacred spring and he anointed her hair with it. When she heard he'd died she threw herself into the ocean out of grief, but because of the holy water she didn't die, she turned into a mermaid. She lived in the Aegean for hundreds of years - swimming around looking for sailors to question. She'd ask them what was the news of Alexander. If they were smart the answered "Alexander is alive and is ruler of the world" and she'd let them go. If they told her that he'd died ages ago she dash their ship into the rocks. I'm a devoted little sister of a lot of big brothers so I like and remember that story.

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