Drapala Gallery Profile Picture

Drapala Gallery

Yuma, Arizona, United States
Artist (Photography, Painting)
Born 1960
"Follow your heart's desire."

You are invited to submit . . .

As you know, this is a thought-provoking time for all humanity. Thus, I will be working with fellow artists/writers to create the second women's anthology book. 

The first book, "Strong Women's Art Anthology, was published in 2018, which can be found by searching the name of the book, "Strong Women's Art Anthology."

"2020, Women Artists' Create!" book shall convey the strength of humanity through art images/writing. This post is a call to Women Artists/Writers World Wide;  Artists, Drawers, Mixed Media Creators, Painters, Photographers, Sculptors, Welders, Writers, etc.  

"2020, Women Artists' Create!"; art/writing submissions end January 31, 2021. 

The upcoming book is an opportunity for women artists to submit their work to express themselves through their art/writing, focusing on the 2020 year. Another purpose is to allow women artists to have the opportunity to be published without being charged money to do so.  

I plan to give each artist two pages, one for their art and the other one for why they created their art in 2020. If you wish to purchase a copy of the book after the book is published, you may do so at a wholesale price. In other words, you would be paying the same amount for the book as I will be paying. Postage costs vary, especially if you live in another country. 

Your work will communicate the strength of humanity that you know personally or some famous person who works/worked in their field of work, technology, science, the medical profession, education, etc., during the 2020 Pandemic. The images/writings, submission date, is no later than January 31, 2021, and are requested to be in high resolution so that the Anthology book has crisp and clear images. 

Please note; I do not need original artworks/writings.  If selected to be in the book, I will need a signed statement to print your book's image/writing.  You may submit as many images/writings as you would like.  If I receive many submissions, I will have fellow women artists and writers help me select the artists' works. 

A cash donation will be made to a women and children's shelter from books sold after admin costs, postage, and miscellaneous costs have been paid.  Please send high resolutions, at least 600 dpi image(s) to this account. 

Again, "2020, Women Artists' Create!"; art/writing submissions end January 31, 2021. If you have questions, please contact me at this site.   

Good luck, and stay healthy! 

Sincerely, 

Pamela Carvajal Drapala


Discover contemporary artworks by Drapala Gallery, browse recent artworks and buy online. Categories: contemporary american artists. Artistic domains: Photography, Painting. Account type: Artist , member since 2004 (Country of origin United States). Buy Drapala Gallery's latest works on Artmajeur: Discover great art by contemporary artist Drapala Gallery. Browse artworks, buy original art or high end prints.

Drapala Gallery Profile Picture Large

Artist Value, Biography, Artist's studio:

View full profile

Follow

Professional Artist

12 artworks by Drapala Gallery (Selection)

Download as PDF

Aunt Irene Higuera Purzner Redding • 12 artworks

Wedding Reception at Great-Auntie Irene’s © Pamela Carvajal Drapala January 28, 2001 November 2000[...]
Wedding Reception at Great-Auntie Irene’s ©
Pamela Carvajal Drapala
January 28, 2001

November 2000 I attended a cozy wedding reception for my nephew at Great-Auntie Irene’s home in Yuma around 5:30 p.m. on a Saturday evening. The bride and groom were visiting from Phoenix for their wedding reception. They eloped in Las Vegas over the summer and this was the first time we saw them as husband and wife.

I originally had planned to attend the Hot Air Balloon Festival at the Yuma Convention Center that evening. Tonight, a variety of music would accompany the hot air balloon festivities. Later a firework show would follow, and it was an event, I didn’t want to miss. However, I attended the reception. I knew how important it was to my sister that I attend her son’s and new daughter’s wedding reception.

As I entered Auntie’s spacious brick and stucco home built around the early 1960s, I felt as if I was going back in time to the 1940’s. The Andrew Sisters song, Chattanooga Choo Choo, played on my Auntie Irene’s stereo as we greeted each other lovingly with hugs and kisses. At that moment, I couldn’t help but remember seeing my petite Mom dancing the Jitter Bug with her Auntie Irene at my Uncle Leland and Aunt Gena’s Fiftieth Wedding Anniversary a few of years ago in San Diego County. My Mom and Great-Auntie’s generation experienced rough times in the Depression and World War II; however, they were stronger because of it. They enjoyed every moment of their lives and didn’t take life for granted. During that time, when a young girl danced with her soldier boyfriend or husband, it might be their last dance, because many of the boys didn’t come home after the war, and when they did some were disabled. I then remembered my Mom writing my daughter, Laura, who was now twenty, a letter a few years ago explaining how thing were when she was a teenager in the 1940s living in Yuma. Mom’s life was different from the times today . . .

“It was Sunday, December 7, 1941. My Grandmother Lola, Mother Sally, and a few relatives were in the kitchen, which was rather large, and one of the aunts was pressing something on the ironing board. My cousin walked in saying that Pearl Harbor had been bombed. I didn’t realize how serious this was. I was in my early teens. The only way we received news was from the radio that we listened to everyday, and we would get the newspaper. That’s where we got most of our news. My family and I would go to the movies on Saturday and Sunday. The world news was projected on the screen before the show started. We would go to the Yuma Theater, where it was nice and cool because it was air-conditioned.

Back then, very few homes were refrigerated during the summer months. Only the very well off had that luxury. My family had a wooden stove on one end of the kitchen and the other stove on the other end of the kitchen was kerosene. The only warm place in the house was the kitchen where we would get dressed in front of the stove before we went to school in the winter. A pot of hot coffee and warm oatmeal was on the stove and of course, Grandmother Lola would have a little pan of prunes on top of the stove cooking. We did not have hot running water; we had to heat the water in a kettle for the dishes. “ Things were different, and I would never understand how different, I thought.

Soft lights illuminated Auntie Irene’s rooms in her home as if the candles were the only source of lighting. I engaged in a brief conversation with the bride’s family who resided in the Midwest, Iowa. We talked about the Yuma heat, and how the devil loved to spend his summer vacation in Yuma. I continued to chat with other guests at the party and the music continued to play other tunes, this time a Glenn Miller song, Moonlight Serenade.

A beautiful wedding cake with white and blue icing, assorted foods, and relish dishes embellished the dining room table. After my sister, Elizabeth, brewed the tea on the gas stove, I watched, as she removed ice cubes from the ice tray and placed them in the pitcher. My niece, Lisa Marie, helped place the final dish of crispy fresh vegetables of carrots, celery sticks, and broccoli on an oval wooden tray with a small bowl of ranch dressing on the table draped with a white linen tablecloth. I admired the antique crystal bowls, silverware, and glasses in my aunt’s kitchen knowing that one-day, they would be bestowed to a relative in our Higuera Family.

A while back, Elizabeth told me of the simple, rose colored, cut glass, pair of candlesticks that were once Great-Grandma Lola’s. Great-Grandma Lola was born long ago in Yuma in 1881. Great-Grandma’s candlesticks disappeared after the death of her daughter, Amalia. Elizabeth told me that they were to be hers, however, in the shuffle after Great-Auntie Amalia’s death, they simply vanished from Auntie home. Elizabeth yearned to hold the candlesticks once more in her hands to admire their beauty. However, because of circumstances, she wouldn’t get to use them or pass them down to her daughter, Lisa Marie, as Great-Grandma Lola had intended.

After we ate a traditional Mexican buffet of burritos, rolled tacos, beans, rice, and tossed salad for dinner, the glowing bride and groom opened a gift package. It was a brass candleholder and candle set for their new home that was almost new. I could see that the couple was deeply in love with each other, and then I remembered my own groom, Rick, who was out-of-town, that weekend. That’s when I asked Auntie Irene if I could please borrow her telephone in her quiet master bedroom. I wanted to phone my husband who was at North Island teaching a course in microprocessors for Southern Illinois University. Little did I know Auntie’s telephone was a rotary.

I became frustrated, when I couldn’t punch the buttons on the keypad as I did on a Touch Tone® Telephone. I manually dialed the telephone number and didn’t do a good job. I never got though. I realized how spoiled I had become with my brightly lit home, ice maker, portable telephone, and instant ice tea. I wondered if my grand nieces and nephews would soon look at my life and think I was stuck in a time long forgotten. Although the rotary telephone might be ancient in my eyes, it still serves a purpose.

After I said my good-byes around 9:00 p.m., I heard one last song playing in the background, and the family escorted me outside to my 1999 white Nissan Quest so I could go home. I would try again to phone my husband, this time on my phone. As all of us walked out the front door and down the sidewalk to the front yard, the sky lit up like a Christmas tree. The bright assortment of colorful fire works of blue, red, and green exploded from the Hot Air Balloon Festival at the Yuma Convention Center located on Avenue “A”. The display of the fireworks left me with a warm feeling within my being as I drove my van down Highway 80 to my 1980’s home, although it was a very cold November evening. (end)
Photography titled "Aunt Irene 1970s" by Drapala Gallery, Original Artwork
Aunt Irene 1970s - Photography ©2009 by Drapala Gallery -
"Aunt Irene 1970s"

Photography

Not For Sale
Photography titled "Mid-1900s, Restaura…" by Drapala Gallery, Original Artwork
Mid-1900s, Restaurant - Higuera Family Dinner - Photography ©2009 by Drapala Gallery -
"Mid-1900s, Restaurant - Higuera Family Dinner"

Photography

Not For Sale
Photography titled "2008 - Aunt Irene H…" by Drapala Gallery, Original Artwork
2008 - Aunt Irene Higuera P. Redding (photograph by Becky B. Erlich) - Photography ©2009 by Drapala Gallery -
"2008 - Aunt Irene Higuera P. Redding (photograph by Becky B. Erlich)"

Photography

Not For Sale
Photography titled "Early 1900's, Sally…" by Drapala Gallery, Original Artwork
Early 1900's, Sally, Dolores, Amalia, Henry, Irene Higuera - Photography ©2009 by Drapala Gallery -
"Early 1900's, Sally, Dolores, Amalia, Henry, Irene Higuera"

Photography

Not For Sale
Photography titled "Late 1960's, Dolore…" by Drapala Gallery, Original Artwork
Late 1960's, Dolores Higuera's Family at Aunt Amalias on 8th Street and Avenue B - Photography ©2009 by Drapala Gallery -
"Late 1960's, Dolores Higuera's Family at Aunt Amalias on 8th Street and Avenue B"

Photography

Not For Sale
Photography titled "1/16/2009 - Yuma Da…" by Drapala Gallery, Original Artwork
1/16/2009 - Yuma Daily Sun Funeral Notice - Irene Higuera P. Redding - Photography ©2009 by Drapala Gallery -
"1/16/2009 - Yuma Daily Sun Funeral Notice - Irene Higuera P. Redding"

Photography

Not For Sale
Photography titled "Outside Main Str. I…" by Drapala Gallery, Original Artwork
Outside Main Str. IC Church Yuma, AZ Ted and Irene Purzner 1900's - Photography ©2009 by Drapala Gallery -
"Outside Main Str. IC Church Yuma, AZ Ted and Irene Purzner 1900's"

Photography

Not For Sale
Photography titled "1970s, at Powell's…" by Drapala Gallery, Original Artwork
1970s, at Powell's Home, Ernestina, Sally, Irene, Amalia, (Dolores Higuera's daughters) - Photography ©2009 by Drapala Gallery -
"1970s, at Powell's Home, Ernestina, Sally, Irene, Amalia, (Dolores Higuera's daughters)"

Photography

Not For Sale
Photography titled "2009 - Wake/Funeral…" by Drapala Gallery, Original Artwork
2009 - Wake/Funeral Card Cover and Prayer Card - Photography ©2009 by Drapala Gallery -
"2009 - Wake/Funeral Card Cover and Prayer Card"

Photography

Not For Sale
Photography titled "Yuma High School Te…" by Drapala Gallery, Original Artwork
Yuma High School Tennis Ct, Carmen Munoz Carvajal Powell and Irene Higuera - Photography ©2009 by Drapala Gallery -
"Yuma High School Tennis Ct, Carmen Munoz Carvajal Powell and Irene Higuera"

Photography

Not For Sale
Photography titled "November 2007 - Aun…" by Drapala Gallery, Original Artwork
November 2007 - Aunt Irene Higuera P. Redding - Photography ©2009 by Drapala Gallery -
"November 2007 - Aunt Irene Higuera P. Redding"

Photography

Not For Sale
Photography titled "2009 Johnson Mortua…" by Drapala Gallery, Original Artwork
2009 Johnson Mortuary (IC Church) Prayer Card - Photography ©2009 by Drapala Gallery -
"2009 Johnson Mortuary (IC Church) Prayer Card"

Photography

Not For Sale
Filters
Order by:
Contact Drapala Gallery
Send a private message to Drapala Gallery

Artmajeur

Receive our newsletter for art lovers and collectors