Un Espejo Obsidiana (Un Ess-Peh-Hoh Ob-See-Dee-Ah-Nah)
An Obsidian Mirror
There is a long legacy of the obsidian mirror in Mexican culture. Mirrors made of the black volcanic glass were used by ancient Mexicans for divination. They were considered portals into the mystical world. They are common artifacts from a wide range of ancient ruins; easy to find in anthropology museums.

The Obsidian Mirror is also one of the attributes of Tezcatlipoca (Tess-Cah-Tli-Poh-Cah) one of the originator gods. He was the god of smoke and mirrors. His nahual, or spirit animal was the jaguar. Wherever the jaguar was, there was the potential for Tezcatlipoca to enter. I felt that by centering this series on the jaguar, I had to include a reference to Tezcatlipoca.
The Obsidian Mirror is also a trope used in Latin American literature. Carlos Fuentes and Octavio Paz both wrote about it as a tool to understand and own Mexican identity as rooted in indigeneity. For them the mirror brought forth coexisting contradictions in Mexican culture.
Borges also wrote about mirrors as both glass and water. He believed mirrors could reflect, capture and distort reality. Borges was very interested in subjectivity and the mirror was a tool to dissect a mutable self.

In this painting, the obsidian mirror reflects two quetzals. The quetzal was a sacred bird; the nahual of Quetzalcoatl. Quetzalcoatl was a creator god revered by many civilizations but mostly the Aztecs.
The mirror here acts as a portal into a mythical space. The quetzals are forced to see an otherwise unknowable self.