New Work for "Wok the Dog"

New Image for "Wok the Dog" and A Lenscratch Post by Aline Smithson I spent 6 month of 2009 on the road, working, traveling, shooting and learning. Lots of new images were created for "Wok the Dog" and there are few new projects now underway as well. I traveled through Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Colombia for "Wok the Dog" and the new images have been added to the website. There will also be new projects added to the site as well in the next couple of month, stay tuned. In the mean time, "Wok the Dog" got a nice write up by Aline Smithson of Lenscratch Blog back in October 2009. You can check out what Aline had to say about all the blood and carcass at: http://lenscratch.blogspot.com/2009/10/charlie-grosso.html
For more information about the series and exhibition schedules: www.charliegrosso.com Charlie Grosso, a Chinese American woman with an Italian male name, is a Los Angeles based artist. She is very passionate about "Wok the Dog" and still gets excited in anticipation of the next time she gets chased out of the market and being yelled at in a foreign tongue. For more information visit: www.charliegrosso.com • email us at: charlie@charliegrosso.com All images and content ©2009 CHARLIE GROSSO PHOTOGRAPHY

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Julie and Julia and the Anatomy of Deboning a Duck

Nov 1, 2009
Bogota, Colombia
Elevation 2574m

I went to the movies yesterday as I was a bit tender from part taking in the festivities of Halloween. It was a surreal experience and I felt sligthly displaced as I walk about in a mall, sitting down at a movie theater, watching a movie in English with Spanish sub-titles.

The mall is just like any mall that you would find in the states, in any first world nation. You are also being charged international prices for the movie and popcorn. After a month of backpacking, living on backpacker budgets, going the extremes from big cities to small towns, all of sudden being in a mall in Bogota and feeling like I could be stateside was disorienting. I ended up seeing "Julie and Julia," it was that or "Saw V."

The movie itself was entertaining enough but I was slightly disappointed that it did not actually show me how to debone a duck as now I am very curious to know and wanting to practice on a duck myself. This morning I startd to wonder about the difference between raising ducks verus raising chickens. What is the difference in return on investement and how did chicken become the IT poultry? At what point in human evolution did we decide that chicken will be the bird of choice, both in egg form and fully grown? If Michael Pollan´s "Ominivour's Dilemma" has taught me anything, is that the industry is driven by the math of return on investment and market demand. Did we demand to have chicken be the everyday poultry first or did we calacuate out the cost benefit first?

4 weeks in Colombia and I have travel by bus from the Carribean coast down to near Ecuador and then back up again to the capital. I have seen a lot of poilice presence in every town and have ventured into market places and neighborhoods that some would deem sketchy. When I was preping for the trip, friends caustioned me the danger of Colombia and that maybe I should rethink my plans. Colombia is still a place of guns and cocain, FARC adn kidnappings in the mind of many. My disorienting experience at the movies last nigth only serve to remind me a conversation I had with a fellow traveling friend Nick. Nick has just come up through Syria when I meet him in Tureky a few years back and I asked him about safty in Syria. He said "Civiliation carries on, no matter where you are, just be smart and not venture into conflict zones and you will find that life carries on. The people find a way to continue theie lives and liviehood." I have seen the tenacity of humanity in many places and irrespective to whether the mental image we have of Colombia is correct or misinformed, life certainly carries on here. The beauty of this nation and the warmth of its people have impressed me deeply. Colombia is unlike anything I had imagined it to be.

Friday Meat Delivery

Oct 30, 2009
Salento, Colombia
Elevation 1900m

Salento is too small of a town to have a market of its own. There are a few small shops around town that sells fruits and vegetabels, for eggs and dairy you have to go to different store where you can also buy dry and packaged goods. If you are in need of meat, the butcher shop is where you go. There are about 3 butchers in town. I was told that a meat delivery truck comes by once a week and stocks the shops with fresh meat.

I went to the butcher on thursday and bought some gruond beef for spaghetti and meatballs and noticed that there were very little meat left in case, slim pickings. I walked by the butcher shop the next day, forgetting that it was friday, fresh meat day, and was surpirsed by the sight of a bloody cow head on the floor and all the meat hooks filled with sides of beef. Then it made me wonder, how much meat does a town of 3500 consume in a week? It looks to me that each of the butcher shop gets at least an entire cow per week, is that enough for the residence of Salento? What about the resturants? Do they get a seperate meat delivery or do they source all of their meat from the butchers down the street as well? There are too many things we take for granted.

The Detail of the Thing or also known as The Serial Killer Instinct

Oct 29, 2009,
Salento, Colombia
Elevation 1900m

It is always the little tiny miniscule details that get to me. Irrespective to how many markets I have been to, it is always that moment when I see a detail of a thing and that would be what sticks in my mind and that is what get to me...just a little. Sometimes it is that single drop of blood on the floor, the eyelash that is left on the eyeball, the mole that is on the peeled off face or the tiny whiskers that is on the muzzel. It is never the whole carcass, it is never death in its fullness. It is always these tiny moments.

It reminds me the show "Dexter" or of detective novels where it is always the little things. It is always these moments that the author focuse in on, it is always these little details the character, albeit the Serial Killer or the Detectives obsess over. Is it because it is not death that bothers us but the details that reminds us of the life that once was? Or is it because death is too vast to comprehend so our brain focus in on the miniscule so that we don´t freak out?

"One death is a tragedy, a million is statistics." Is our reaction and focus on the details another reflection of the same sentiment?

Market Day in Silvia

Oct 27, 2009
Silvia, Colombia
Elevation 2647m

Silvia is the center of the Guambiano region. The Guambianos are considered one of the most traditional indigenous group in Colombia and every Tuesday they come into the town of Silvia for market day to trade and socialize. This is the first indigenous markets I have seen and photographed in Colombia. Colombia does not have a high indigenous population but as I travel further south and close to Ecuador, indigenous cultures are starting to appear.

This market day was beautiful. The town square is filled with Guambianos in traditional grabs, the women walk around the town with a spindle in one hand spinning yarn as they mill about. The vendors in the market is a mixture of Guambianos and Colombians. There are Guambianos selling fruits and vegetables but all the butchers at the market appears to be Colombian. I suspect it would be harder for the Guambianos to come into Silvia and sell meat and such as there would be more complicated logistics involved, such as the transporation of the animials and a location for slaugher. Or it could also be possible that Guambianos regularly slaugher animals in their own village so when they come into Silvia, their need for meat is limited.

What stands out from market day here at Silvia are the little details:
- Guambianos couple wearing matching work boots with same color shoe laces.

- A guy walking around the market demonstrating a chain saw, turning on the motor and making the children cry while the crowd gathers and the price of the chain saw is excitedly whispered through the crowd.

- The unique features and faces of the Guambianos.

- How the town square is colored with the blue of the Guambiano garb and they sit about and have visits with each other and the Colombian town folks of Silvia. There is no seperation and distinction.

- How the Guambianos line up outside of post office or other buildings of official nature so that they can take care of whatever modern life logistics that needs to be taken care of. This contrast between the effort to hold on to the tradition but also giving in to the demands of the modern world.

The Level of Danger

Oct 23, 2009
Manizales, Colombia
Elevation 2094m

Alexandro offered to take me to the main market here in Manizales today. He thought that it is not safe for me to go by myself. The market was amazing. Today, for the first time I got to see an entire pig butchered and seperated into smaller parts. An entire pig disappeared into smaller geometeric shapes right in front of me in under 20 minutes. The speed and the skill of the butchery is amazing.

Nothing is wasted here. Everything is used for something. I watched butchers labouriously take off the skin on a cow´s head, pick off whatever bits of meat there is on the head along with cataledge and whatnot for what Alexandro describes as a meat jello like dish.

Here in Colombia, everytime I ask someone about the market, where it is or how I can get there, they look at me and tell me that its not really safe to go. I go anyways. I have never felt unsafe or sketchy when I am in the market, surrounded by butchers, carcass, vegetables and fruit sellers. The most profound and basic thing happens here in these markets and my danger alarm never has gone off. I am uncertain as to why the constant warnings. Perhaps I am not seeing the danger, perhaps I am being a little too naive, or perhaps these nice Colombians just don´t want anything to happen to me and end up with a negative impression of their beloved country.

Alexandro was really excited that he got to take me to the market today and show me around. Towards the end of the morning, he asked me what I thought of it and why do I like it so much. I told him that I like the market because it exists without my gringo dollars. The market happens irrespective to what the flow of tourism is or isn´t. It is authentic and it is real and it is life at its most basic, independent of backpackers or how wildly visted a country is.

*I had some amazing pictures for you but I lost my blackberry (where the pictures are stored on) on the bus ride out of Manizales...so I am afraid that you will have to wait until the end of December when the website gets overhauled with all the new images from Latin America.

Coffee Facts

Oct 22, 2009
Manizalea, Colombia
Elevation 2094m

I went to a coffee farm today for a tour as I am in the Zona Cafetera region of Colombia. Our guide´s name is Alexandro and this is what I learned:

- a 10 kilo bag of raw beans sells from $1.25-$2 USD depending on the harvest and market demand.

- a 10 kilo bag of raw beans will yeild approx 3 kilos after roasting.

- this particular coffee farm has 20-30 works on staff but will add another 50-80 seasonal worker for the harvest season.

- the seasonal harvest workers vary in age, anywhere between 13-70 and there used to be a lot more women 10-15 years ago than now.

- the climate change is effecting the harvest and the crop. previously they were getting 80% of their harvest to be of export quality where as now they are only getting 30% that are good enough for export.

- export quality beans look and tasts vastly different than that of domestic consumptn. domestic consumption are of inferior beans are burnt and often infested with worms. the same quality of beans are what is used in the likes of Folgers or instant coffee.

- harvest workers are paid by the kilos, 400COP (approx $.50) per kilo. if the harvest is good, they can pick as much as 100 kilos a day

- a coffee tree can produce berries for 5 years then its dormiate for 2 years. every 7 years modifications needs to be made to the tree, such as trimming it back, in order for it to produce berries again in another 5 plus 2 year cycle.

- during harvest season, the prices for goods in surrounding towns fluctuate depending on the quality of the harvest. if its a good year, food and goods are more expensive as the workers have more money to spent. where as if its a bad harvest season, things are cheaper.

Alexandro said that he loves giving tours for the coffee farms as coffee is such an important part of the region and his culture that he feels like he is sharing a part of himself with us, "showing us himself" as he says.